Nesting and launching 2.0

"The most exciting movement in nature is not progress, advance, but expansion and contraction, the opening and shutting of the eye, the hand, the heart, the mind. We throw our arms wide with a gesture of religion to the universe; we close them around a person. We explore and adventure for a while and then we draw in to consolidate our gains." - Robert Frost

photo by Charmi Pena via The Moment Junkie

Bravo, Mr. Frost.

Yesterday Sarah and I had a good Skype catch-up session, chatting about life, good mail, kids' college aspirations, our own academic adventures, and bloggery. I think this Frost passage articulates what we're trying to capture here on ye olde blog--ideas for navigating that worn path between independence and connection, adventure and comfort that midstage families experience.

When Nest & Launch first launched we saw a gap in the existing blogs and wanted to address the particular joys and challenges of life with teens and big kids. Along the way we've realized that, for us anyway, it goes beyond that. At this point in life, parallel to the nest-and-launch process with our kids, we're each also going through our own nesting and launching process: thinking about how to throw our arms wide to the world as well as embracing our connections at home.

This is just to say that we're widening our definition of nest and launch here. You'll still see posts and ideas on midstage parenting but we're also keen to post about nesting and launching as a theme in our own individual lives--and yours. 

Cheers to you and yours! xx 

My essential eight

Illustration by Linzie Hunter

After about 44 years of living, I've realized that sometimes my good intentions aren't paving the way anywhere. They just sit there on the kitchen counter, sighing and rolling their eyes at my outright neglect next to the pile of envelopes I've been meaning to mail. I mean, for instance, I know I'm a happier person when I get out and move in the fresh air every day so you'd think I'd get around to doing it more often, right? Nope. Instead too often I let the triage of my daily to-do list dictate what's urgent, bullying what's nourishing or essential to the bottom of the list.  In fact, somehow over the last decade or so, my to-do list has evolved to be a kind of stoic, humorless Calvinist taskmaster, judging and intimating that if it doesn't feel self-sacrificing and stressful, I'm not being productive. ("Do this. Now go here. Call this person. Clean this. No! you can't go on a hike. That'll put you way behind schedule.You have to do the next 19 things first.")

A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling frustrated at the end of a terrible, no good, very bad day. What would have made this a better day, I wondered? I thought about Sarah's three things philosophy and I jotted down a few things that I know consistently shine up my day. They were remarkably simple and yet too often neglected:

1. hiking 
2. sunshining (i.e., bringing some kindness into someone else's day--in the family, neighborhood, writing a letter or email to a friend, etc.)
3. drinking enough water
4. sleeping (both quantity and quality)
5. meditating (scriptures/prayer)
6. creating 
7. reading
8. working (i.e., putting aside some guilt-free time to get some studying/writing done)

Now, I'm not claiming I'm able to do all of these every day--I'd say hitting four or five would be doing pretty great. And I'm definitely not suggesting these are or should be your eight things. But:

insight #1: I've noticed that when I give myself permission to focus on these eight things I'm in a better zone than when I'm not.  You know the old object lesson with the rocks and the pebbles and the sand? These, I've learned, are my rocks. They go in first. So obvious in theory but, in practice, such an epiphany!

insight #2: Hmmm, mindlessly surfing the internet/Facebook/instagram isn't really on the list. Interesting. 

---

I'm curious: Does your daily list include things that nourish you or is your list as grumpily withholding and allergic to pleasure as mine had gotten? What would be on your daily nourishing essentials list?

Gone to live with the bears

Sarah's post about having special time one-on-one with her kids this summer came to my mind today because, over the next couple of days, I am having a special kind of special time. The solo kind. I'm writing this from an empty house, just me. It's winter break here and Maddy is away at Model UN Nationals this week and the boys have taken themselves on a backpacking adventure for a few days.

And they're off...

I'm kind of a walking contradiction about it. I miss them. And I love it. 

As much as I love time with my family crew, I completely believe in the restorative power of a good solo retreat. I think it's in my genes. My great grandmother raised nine daughters over several decades in the 1920-50s and, as you can imagine, her life was full of laughter and noise and laundry and teaching. Every once in a while (about yearly, I think) she would declare "I'm going to live with the bears!" and she would pack up and leave her daughters in good care with a relative (or with each other as they grew older) and check in at the swanky Hotel Utah in Salt Lake City for a week. 

She took a whole suitcase full of magazines with her (yes, I really am her great granddaughter in so many ways). From her journal: it was "my therapy. I could get a room for five dollars, and I read and slept and shopped and renewed myself for the next year...I'd sleep late, then out for a hearty breakfast, then didn't need to eat until dinner." Only a few select friends were invited to visit or lunch or shop with her and no one else was allowed to contact her. At the end of her stay, she would return to the house, rejuvenated and restored and ready to go on mothering. She sent the message, loud enough so I still hear it a couple of generations later, that it's okay to take care of yourself, no matter who you are or what you do.

I know this about myself: I need to go live with the bears now and then. (I know it's time when I start envying prisoners in solitary confinement for their "away time.") This new iteration is even better: everyone else goes and lives with the bears and I get to stay in my own bed, amidst my own bookshelves. There may be a movie or two, long soaks in the tub, and some good stretches of writing time in my future. Thank you, Grandma B. I get it.

Have you ever taken a solo retreat? What would you do with a few days all to yourself? Does it feel too indulgent and guilt inducing? (If so, I'll happily write you a permission note!)

Launch lab report: Date your dreams

A couple of weeks ago I proposed an experiment in dating dreams and, as promised, I'm here to report back on how it went. But first, a confession. My writing well is empty. Or broken. Something. I really owe some penance for missing two posts last week but here's what was happening behind the scenes:  I was just staring into the writing abyss with nary an insight, not a bit of wit. Blank white screen and flashing, mocking cursor.

But lab reports are notoriously dry, right? I like that low-set bar. So here goes...

Experiment: Date my dreams by trying out small doses of activities/things I think might be interesting to follow as someday dreams

Timeframe: Two weeks, which really isn't enough time to really do this lab justice. This is something more suited to a new years' resolution, in all honesty. But I did manage to try on a couple of dreams to see how they fit: a dream job and a new creative pursuit.

Trial 1:  Date my dream job. A few weeks ago I was offered a temporary position to fill in during someone's one-year maternity leave at exactly the kind of job I had always coveted: managing research at a non-profit/consultancy for children and youth programs, policy, and research. It felt scary but pretty exciting--and the three days a week (T, W, Th) schedule felt manageable.

I have some pretty good, relevant experience supporting me but I knew going in that it was going to be an opportunity to step up to a new level professionally.  In addition, I leapt in at just the moment of high-paced deadlines of the end of the fiscal year. There have been moments when I've had to give myself a pep talk, moments when I felt like doing a happy dance, and moments when I wondered why on earth I had wanted to disrupt my life this way! But it's also been exhilarating in that way that stretching beyond what you thought you could do brings a new sense of possibility. 

Exhibit A: On my third day I had the assignment to co-testify at Parliament to a senate committee on early childhood. Gulp.

Yes, it's been quite a ride so far, mostly exciting and rewarding with a dash of terror. (When it comes to fight-or-flight stress response instincts, I'm definitely in the "flight" category. I immediately start looking for an escape hatch. Or an avoidant nap.) What has saved me as I hike the steep learning curve is the mental framing of this experience as dating my dream and the notion that this is just an experiment to see if it's something I would want to do longer term. It's just a rehearsal, really.  A paid rehearsal no less!

Trial 2: Take on a new creative pursuit. I've mentioned before that I've been feeling the creative itch lately. These hands want (need!) to make things. Ideally, I'd like to be able to create while I sit around with my family, while we watch a movie or are on a roadtrip. I noticed I had been pinning an abundance of embroidery projects to my "make things" Pinterest board so decided to stop pinning and start stitching already.

Not my actual embroidery, just one of the many inspirations, via here and here

I LOVE it. It's the perfect zen balance to the higher adrenaline of the new-job experiment. I'm starting with some easy projects in this Stitched in Scandinavia embroidery book but I'm hoping to do both of the above projects as I get more comfortable with the needle. So therapeutic and calming!

Results: The two experiment trials have been positive, overall. I'm keeping both activities for now and I highly, highly recommend the "date your dreams" mentality. 

---

Enough about me. Have you dated any dreams lately? Do tell!

Spicing it up

One of the things we'd like to discuss on N&L is marital relationships after kids leave the house. Without the time constraints of sports and music lessons and orthodontist appointments and school EVERYTHING (plus the time I spend nagging), its seems like we might just come untethered from the earth and go floating . . . somewhere. I'd prefer it to be some place like Paris or Milan or hey, Maine would be cool. But even now, as our kids march out of our home one by one, Paris takes a back seat to college tuition and all of that expensive grown up stuff. Which means at the present, I'm just ruminating on what I want my life and marriage to look like once all the chickadees have flown the coop. 

When this commercial came on the television a few nights ago, I almost fell out of my chair. 

New Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh Bold. Made with 100% turkey breast, no artificial preservatives and real Cajun spices. It's spice it up food. It's Oscar Mayer.

You know, just a little something to brighten your Thursday.

Love,
Sarah

Launch lab: Date your dreams

painting by Eugenio Viti

In this mid-stage parenting zone, many of us are watching our kids get ready to launch in the coming years--sometimes one after the next after the next. Sometimes it feels like we just regroup and reorient as a family (minus one) and then it's time for the next child to go! I know their departures match the intervals of their arrivals but somehow the time on this end seems clipped and the launches feel more sudden--despite the fact that we ready ourselves for them far longer than nine months. 

Right now I have one child away volunteering on a mission, one graduating in December (since it's Australia, where the school year matches the calendar year) and one home for another couple of years. Beyond here there be dragons, as the old map makers used to say. I try to resist leaping ahead and indulging in too much anticipatory nostalgia but I find it challenging not to start missing this stage of life before it's over. Truly, though, it's the looming scarcity of these days that makes them so sweet as we count down to take-off.

At the same time there's a kind of parallel pre-launch countdown taking place for ourselves, yes? No matter what our lives look like as parents of teens--whether you work at an outside career part time or full time, whether you work at home full time, or any other combination of school/work/home/hobby life--when the nest empties, there will be some adjusting. Though G frequently asks quizzically, "why do they call it an empty nest? I mean, we'll still be here, right?"

Yes, exactly. We'll still be here. This week I'm thinking about anticipatory launching, not of our kids but of ourselves. We don't really talk about it much, do we? This major transition from full-time, resident parenting to distant-but-supportive parenting invites a reconsideration of what the next chapters will look like for me, for each of us. It's what-do-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up, version 3.0. With a bit more time and fewer daily care giving commitments will I follow my curiosities into new hobbies? Will I dive deeper into current pursuits? What can I do now to start preparing for the next 50ish (pretty please, knock on wood) years of my life?

I love what Whitney Johnson, the author of Dare, Dream, Do suggests. She says "go ahead and date dreams, lots of them--you don't need to commit to every dream you date." In one of the guest posts on Whitney's blog (and there are many excellent ones there), Emily Olson adds "Finding your passion is a lot like finding a husband. Who wants to evaluate every first date, asking yourself if he is the one? It's far easier to ask yourself if you simply want one more date with this dude. So my advice? Go on dates with ideas, until you realize there's this one you just can't stop hanging out with...when you've found that, you've likely found your passion." 

So that's my launch lab for the next two weeks--and my challenge to you. Go date some dreams. Start exploring and figuring out what captures your thoughts, flies your kite, floats your boat. You don't have to marry those dreams just yet. Just date them.

Playing big and taking up room

Maddy and Cate, 2008

I've learned a lot over the years, listening in on Maddy's violin lessons. It turns out that there are a lot of life lessons that can be extrapolated from learning an instrument from a patient, wise teacher--even vicariously, while sitting observing from an old scratchy sofa. I could go on and on about all the little epiphanies I had sitting there in Cate's studio: about focusing on just one thing to improve at a time, about relaxing and sinking in, about slowing down, about patience with the process, about form and function. Cate was pretty much my Mr. Miyagi.

One day as I was watching, Cate asked, "Maddy, do you consider yourself to be someone who holds pieces of herself back & tries to take up less room? Or do you think of yourself as someone who opens up and shares and isn't afraid to take up space?"

"Well...both, I guess." (Which is true...she does both. Maybe we all do.)

"Hmm. Right now your violin is asking you to open up more.  To be bigger.  To take up space. To share more of what you're feeling through your music.  It's a great invitation!  Can you do it?"

Meanwhile, I'm over on the scratchy sofa, inspired and inwardly nodding my head and saying "Yes, I can, Cate. I will play bigger.  I will share. I will take up space."  

My life asks that of me, too, and it's scary.  I'll admit it, I'm a walking contradiction.  I want to rise to the challenge that opportunities bring.  But I also crave staying well within my comfort zone. Preferably with pajamas on. It's easy to play small, stay quiet, let someone else step up to do what needs to be done. Pieces of this Marianne Williamson quote have been rattling around my brain so I had to go look it up again. I'll bet you know the one:

"Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I do not have this down at all. One of my new year's resolutions this year was to stop for a moment when I had a "somebody really should" thought (you know the kind? "Somebody really should __________ (pick up that litter; host a neighborhood block party; start a family newsletter; get a thank you gift for that teacher, etc.) and be the somebody who does it. I've pretty much failed that one so far!  But. I really do believe that playing big(ger), showing up, shining out, and really occupying our space is a gift to our kids as well as ourselves. It's the permission slip for our kids to do the same in their lives.

Thanks, Cate. Six years later and I'm still practicing.

p.s. Last year this clip from a poetry slam competition was going around. Did you see it? Lily speaks powerfully of observing her family tendency toward shrinking women: “She wanes while my father waxes. I wonder if my lineage is one of women shrinking... I have been taught accommodation...[My brother has] been taught to grow out, I have been taught to grow in.”