One Down and Two to Go

One child started school yesterday – my youngest child, mind you – while the other two are still… here. My other daughter leaves on Sunday for her semester abroad in Japan and my son continues to look for a job to match his freshly minted college diploma.

I can imagine the house will be quiet sooner than I think. I can even imagine missing all of my kids when they are no longer living in upstairs bedrooms. Right now, however, I might just attack the next adult child who comes in and says, "What's for Dinner, I'm hungry!" and then squabbles over who is going to do the dishes.

I had an amazing epiphany yesterday in regards to a piece that I've been writing and I tried over and over again to find the time to sit down and work through my brilliant plotting plans. It didn't work out so well. They all wanted to touch base with me, chat about their plans and activities. They wanted to be – gasp – social…with me. And all I wanted to do was shut the world out and write. Oh how hard it was to turn off my computer and rip myself out of the creative process in order to go be with the people that I love.

And in the end I went to bed knowing all about middle school volleyball and lack of lockers at school. I know how my husband moved his office and felt about the transitions he's made at work. I know that my son is still happy in his new relationship and that my daughter played basketball until her legs hurt. I've shared my day as well and somehow we have all connected in those small, innocuous ways that families do. We've touched each other's lives, like a hand on a shoulder or a pat on the back, and enjoyed that gift of care.

My writing sits and waits. I learned a long time ago to jot down my ideas as fast as I can because I never know how long it's going to take me to get back to it.

I don't mind being a hermit. I love being in relationship more.

A Moment in the Wind

I took my husband for a walk through the yard at twilight. The heat of the day had subsided to a soft 68 degrees and the clouds were touched with pink highlights by the sun that had disappeared beyond the horizon about a half hour earlier. Nine o'clock and it was still light enough to meander through the garden and show him the five foot delphinium stocks beginning to blossom and the abundance of cherries ripening on the trees. The evening was still, heading towards sleep with only the lone Swainson's thrush's call left to echo through the trees. We stepped around to the front of the house, holding hands and talking softly about the coming weekend. As we stood there in the deepening night, a new sound entered our awareness. It was loud enough to make us pause and turn west towards the street that leads to our house. At first I thought it might be a car or truck coming down the road. The alder trees have grown so thick that we can't see along the small road that leads to our house anymore. We waited for a moment but there were no telltale lights or sounds of shifting gears. This was a sound that was steady and growing. Standing there in the stillness it took us a long moment to realize that what we were hearing was actually a sound of nature. Across the field from our house the trees began to bend and sway in a wind that had yet to touch us. The sound was reminiscent of cascading water, a constant roar that we were watching and yet not feeling.

There was such a sense of awe and surprise as we waited for the wind to reach out to us. It was a moment out of time – a pause of delightful expectation. We laughed with appreciation and held each other close.

What might have been forever and was probably less than a minute passed and I felt the first breath of wind against my face. Within seconds we were surrounded by sound and movement, squinting against the dust and debris that swirled around us. The wind came up fast and fierce; it seemed to come from every direction. We savored the warmth of its touch for only a few moments before turning back to the house. I checked my weather station and saw that the winds were gusting around fifteen mph. I can still hear the wind moving through the trees – the wind chimes clanking wildly along the back porch. However, what I am holding on to is that moment of shared wonder that I had with my husband. I will remember that for a long time.

P.S – If you have not heard the Swainson's thrushes call in the still of the evening – then you have missed out on one of nature's most perfect moments.

Commencement: Part One

The title of this reflects the fact that I have three children and one of them, my oldest has walked across the stage and received a college diploma. I sat down in my seat at the Chan Performance Center on the UBC campus and felt my body relax. The circus of the last few days had been all about this moment: In Laws arriving in town. Traveling up to Vancouver. My parents having to travel separate from each other – kids arranged between different groups of grandparents. Playing host and hostess for dinner without choking on dessert when the final bill came. Sleeping in yet another hotel room and waiting in line to get in to the ceremony. Wearing sandals and a skirt in the proverbial northwest rainy weather.

I made sure I sat next to my husband. That was the one thing that I wanted. He leaned over to me, taking my hand, "We've really come full circle." I raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to say more. He said, "I met your parents for the first time at our graduation day – you met my family for the first time that day too." And little did either of us know how soon our families would be coming together. My oldest child was, unbeknownst to me, growing in my womb that day of graduation. Now I was watching him graduate from college at the same age. So young and so much more mature and sure of himself than I was at his age.

Full circle. As the pomp and circumstance began I was also acutely aware of another way that I felt a circle completing itself. This was the first time that my husband and I found ourselves acting as shepherds for our parents. There was a need for us to organize, direct, lead and handle the details of their travel as much as our own. It wasn't to a high degree – they all are only in their sixties and seventies – but I noticed a shift of attention and energy that had never pulled at me before. I realized that this first brush with stewardship for the elders of the family was only the beginning. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It tastes strange with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Finally my son's name was called and he walked across the stage in his black gown and red edged hood and cap. Tall and still a bit gangly, shaking the hand of the chancellor and his professor, I felt the sting of tears. Gratitude filled me. How lucky am I to be the mother of this amazing and brilliant young man. How deeply satisfying it is to have been able to give him this education and see him excel. I felt all the years that had gone by to bring this moment into focus and the love that had sparked my own journey to this moment. Lives intertwining; lives created. Lives well lived. What a circle that is.

An Empty Nest Weekend

My youngest daughter had quite a few plans this weekend. She went home with a friend on Friday for a BBQ and party and Saturday she had an all night babysitting gig beginning at 5pm - which will put her home this morning (Sunday) around 11:30. This means that for two nights in a row, Andy and I had the chance to sit in the stillness of our house and do whatever WE wanted to do.

Talking with my partner has never been a problem. We genuinely like each other as well as love each other. There are dreams we share along with the history and memories that come with the length of our 22 year marriage. We've known each other since the first day of college when we were bright eyed children unsure of what the future was going to hold – and could have cared less. We're now in those nebulous middle years – midlife – when we've become adults well aware of time's passage and the aches and pains that come with too much yard work.

Our oldest son just finished off his senior year of college. He's at the same point in his life that I was when I got pregnant with him. Our other daughter is finishing off her sophomore year in college and the youngest is three years away from driving. So many issues that I used to worry over are all now moot points. The day to day minutiae of raising three kids has receded to a gurgling brook. Sunny smiles and memories of laughter now seem to stand out more than the remembrance of how much of my time was taken up in the care and feeding of three growing human beings.

And yet, even as I realize this, the fact remains that moments like this weekend will become much more frequent over the coming years until, finally, all three of our children are launched onto the world. As I sat in the silence, no longer dizzy with the exuberance of choosing what I want to eat and when I want to eat it, I also feel the edges of a deeper anxiety. Without my role as parent I can't hide from myself. There is no one else there to distract me from the facts that make up my life today. I feel the need to find something – anything – to fill the void of simply being present in my life. The way things have worked out I have time on my hands right now. Choosing to slow down instead of revving up brings all sorts of negative messages alive within me – judgments and criticism. It is uncomfortable leaving that void open without filling it with a job or a task that meets with society's approval.

It is in those moments of self doubt that I don't give myself very much credit. I lose sight of who I am, what I have done and where I have been. Am I stagnating and falling apart or am I nurturing my soul and learning how to renegotiate not only my relationship with my husband and adult children but with myself as well. There are days that I'm not sure. Perhaps because all of it gets to be true.

What is also true is that I still have a teenager in the house who is thriving because she has someone in her home that is – well - home. That's not the only reason why she is thriving – but it is clear over and over to me how important the role attunement still plays in our relationship. I also have a son returning from an amazing four year run at university who needs to find a job in a bad economy. Then there is my other daughter who will be home end of May for the summer before she leaves for five months in Japan. I don't take for granted the precious time that I get to spend with any of my children – especially now that they are adults or soon to be.

This empty nest weekend was thought provoking and ironically comes at the forefront of a period of time when my house will be full again.

Being Real

I was at a party last weekend for a woman that I hope to get to know better. We've been inviting each other into the beginning of a friendship and even though I knew that A. and I would not know very many people at her party – we went. I didn't know what to expect and that was okay because I trusted in my initial impression of this gal that her fun loving spirit would probably attract similar people to her orbit. Still, it was a party at a swank address and if there is one thing I hate doing is socializing with a group of people that I have no connection with. Or, maybe what's worse is socializing with a group of people that I may discover that I want to have connections with.

I've said it before and I'll say it again – I am an introvert. Just a fact of life, neither a badge nor a label but how I tend to interact with others and the world at large. Large social gatherings drain me. I don't really like small talk – I like learning about people. I tend to get curious and ask questions but suddenly the noise level in the room escalates and I can't hear. Or someone starts talking and doesn't stop and I find myself half listening with more interest to the conversation that is going on next to me. I've been cornered at parties and have, on occasion, found myself on the receiving end of that loss of interest. It is the nature of the event. Keep it light, surface, short sentences and polite. Ugh.

And then I come home, tired but having had a good time, and my mind starts playing back conversations that were awkward – or at least played back as awkward. It's like a video camera has come on in my head and heightened all the contrast of the picture. Moments jump out and I cringe – how could I have said that? What kind of impression did that make? I didn't mean to not use a coaster and I was just curious if it really was her thirty fifth birthday.

Actually I didn't ask about the birthday – even I recognized the danger in that. It's possible she really is thirty five.

As I sat in bed later that night, I found myself once again confronted with the image that I present to the world. The good news is that I really wasn't concerned about that image going to the party or at the party. I went to spend time with a delightful woman and get to know her husband and visit with a few others that I'm looking forward to developing better friendships with. The other good news was that as I felt that old tape running – those old insecurities rising up and poking at me from the playground of my youth (will she like me? Am I enough?) – I felt the comfort of having spent the time in that fire of self assessment (thank-you, grad school) to have a fairly good idea of how I impact others. Okay, I also asked A. for some feedback – but that was a step in silencing those old tapes as well.

I've changed over the past few years and I like who I am. I like being more curious about others than sharing my life story within the first few moments of a conversation. I like it that I have dear friends who meet the need in me to be known so that I can go to a party full of strangers and enjoy learning about others. I like it that I am patient in these early stages of getting to know potential new friends – and that I am aware that they get to make their own choices in who they want to deepen relationships with. I get to choose and so do they. If I'm not their cup of tea – I'd rather know based on them seeing the real me than some sort of construct that I've put up to be liked.

In the end, I enjoyed the people that I talked with, learned new things about some very interesting people, laughed and shared and left with a smile on my face. New friendships need tending and that's what I did by accepting her invitation. Yes, is what I said – you are worth my time. Just as I was worth inviting.

Hold Me Tight

Dr. Sue Johnson, founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy, has written a book for couples based on her work with adult attachment theory. Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. It's fascinating! I loved reading her stuff during grad school – but this is a more relational book that I can read for myself without thinking about theory. I've known for a long time that the most important relationship in my life – my marriage to Andy – is also the field upon which all my insecurities and adaptive patterns play. I believe this is true for both of us. What I am sitting here thinking about is something that Johnson presents as the culture we live in: We spend so much time learning that as adults we should control our emotions. Healthy adults are self-sufficient.

"Only dysfunctional people need or depend on others. We have names for these people: enmeshed, codependent, merged, fused. In other words they were messed up. Therapists encourage people to stand on their own two feet. This is just what Dr. Spock advised parents – picking up a crying child is the way to create a weakling. Trouble is, Dr. Spock was dead wrong when it came to kids."

She goes on to say:
"Recognize and admit that you are emotionally attached to and dependent on your partner in much the same way that a child is on a parent for nurturing, soothing, and protection. Adult attachments may be more reciprocal and less centered on physical contact, but the nature of the emotional bond is the same."
She wants to foster adult loving relationships that are open, attuned and responsive to the needs of each other. The 'child-parent' thing threw me for a moment because I was thinking of those as roles than can be played out in an adult relationship. But that isn't what Johnson is talking about – she's talking about attunement and emotional needs in relationship to the other. We've got to remember that the definition of differentiation is one plus one equals three. Each of us are separate individuals in relationship with the other. Because we do yearn for other arms to hold us tight. We are relational beings because we are emotional beings. Love lowers blood pressure, helps us manage stress and anxiety. And more. The studies they are doing are amazing.
And of course she dovetails attachment theory into the very heart of this intense emotional drive to depend on and be cared for by another. And that, of course, brings up a host of other interesting thoughts – about myself, about Andy and the dance that we do in relationship with each other. Twenty two years of dancing, I might add – as of tomorrow. But that is food for thought another day. Here's a great series of thought provoking questions from the book:

Exploring Your Emotional Connections:
(From Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson)
"Reflect on the questions below or write your answers down in a journal as to deepen your exploration of them. You might also want to share and discuss your responses with your partner at some point"

• What messages about love/marriage did you get from your parents? Your community? Was being able to reach for and trust others seen as a strength and a resource?
  
• Before your present relationship, did you experience a safe, loving relationship with someone you trusted, felt close to, and could turn to if needed? Do you have an image of what this looks like in your head, a model that can help you as you create your present relationship? Think of one good time or typical moment that captures this relationship and share it with your partner.
  
• Did your past relationships teach you that loved ones were unreliable and that you had to be vigilant and fight to be seen and responded to? Or did you learn that depending on others is dangerous and it is best to distance yourself, to not need others and avoid closeness? These basic strategies often switch on when we feel that our lover is distant or disconnected. Which strategy did you use in past relationships, say, with your parents, when things started to go wrong?
  
• Can you remember a time when you really needed to know a loved one was with you? If he or she was not, what was that like for you and what did you learn from it? How did you cope? Does this have an impact on your relationship now?
  
• If it is hard for you to turn to and trust others, to let them close when you really need them, what do you do when life gets too big to handle or when you feel alone?
  
• Name two very concrete and specific thins that a safe, accessible, responsive and engaged lover in relationship with you would do on a typical day and how those things would make you feel at the moment.
  
• In your present relationship, can you ask your partner, let him or her see, when you need closeness and comfort? Is this easy for you or difficult to do? Perhaps you wonder if this is a sign of weakness or maybe it seems too risky for you. Rater your difficulty in doing this on a scale from 1 to 10. A high score means this is very difficult for you to do. Share this with your partner.
  
• When you feel disconnected or alone in your present relationship, are you likely to get very emotional or even anxious and push your partner to respond? Or are you more likely to shut down and try not to feel your need to connect? Can you think of a time when this happened?
  
• Think of a time in your relationship when questions like "are you there for me?" were hanging in the air unanswered and you wound up getting into a fight about mundane problems. Share this with your partner.
  
• Can you think of bonding moments in your relationship when one of you reaches out and the other responds in a way that makes you both feel emotionally connected and secure with each other? Share this with your partner.

Back from Vacation

I'm home. Finally. A good trip. I've come home with some great memories as well as a new sense of who my father is at this time in his life. Traveling and staying with him for the week was revealing in many ways.

I grew up camping and fishing in the eastern Sierras. We would drive up from Southern California along 395 and camp along Lee Vining Creek in trailer or tent. I have no memories of my mother up there. At first, I believe, because these were strictly fishing trips, she wasn't interested and secondly, after her first heart attack, the altitude was too much for her. My uncle often came and later I brought my own children. Little has changed in the region. The newest addition to the whole area is the "new" Mono Basin Visitor Center which was built at least ten to fifteen years ago. And so, over the years, the area remains just like I remember it. I end up picking up a lot of trash and broken glass and tangled fishing line so that it stays that way.

I have always come up into the region with my father and we always did the same things. We fished the same lakes, camped in the same campgrounds, saw the same sights. The pattern of the day was to get up early, fish, come back to the campground, have afternoon coffee and build a campfire around four. I often fished the creeks around any of our campgrounds, adding to our count of fish. We would bring home a dozen or so trout for a big fish fry on our return. When I finally went to the Sierras on my own four years ago, I discovered how little of this area I had actually seen.

The Eastern Sierras are the backgate into Yosemite National Park. As I set my father's way of camping and fishing the Sierra's aside, I took up a trail book and headed out into the mountains and found an incredible high mountain world of glacier ponds and deserted mines. Timberline wind and majestic spires. It's always been there and I fell in love anew with something more than the happy memories of my childhood.

And so, on this trip, we combined the two: We fished what we could eat in a day and put the trout on ice as we pulled out the packed lunches and headed out. I got to share my newfound sense of place with my dad – share the exploration of this land that I knew so well and yet had barely scratched the surface of. And he loved it. And he knows that he probably won't get back into some of those areas ever again. Whether he likes it or not, he is seventy one and the altitude was affecting him.

A good trip.

I'll post some pics in a couple of days

Off They Go…

My middle child headed off back to college tonight. She has a red eye to Boston. It is a bittersweet moment of enjoying her excitement and also knowing that these past few months with her have been a gift that may not be repeated anytime soon. We packed her up and sent her on her way with a home cooked meal with brownies for dessert. Lots of hugs and kisses and nuzzling of cats – she is going to miss having our old cat Brandy sleeping by her pillow every night.

I know that I will hear from her tomorrow. A phone call from the bus or when she finally gets the keys to her dorm room. We'll instant message and talk about shipping the last box of belongings and her Japanese placement test. I am so grateful that I live in this age of technology. I think about that as my children ease out into their adult lives. It wasn't that long ago that communication wasn't so cheap or instantaneous. As a mother I am - heart fully - thankful.

My oldest son is home for the weekend, he starts up his last year of classes at UBC next Tuesday. I have had a wonderful chance to talk with him and really listen and see the amazing MAN my son is. A complex, brilliant, emotional, tangled weave of individuality that is all his. My graduate school education was worth the price just to be able to sit and listen and learn who he is.

He leaves tomorrow and then my youngest is an only child again. The house becomes large, empty – but filled with laughing and loving memories that are waiting to be revived in December.

Another Country

I've been reading Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders by Mary Pipher, Ph.D. I picked the book up years ago when I saw it on sale at Half Price Books and it was this week that I suddenly pulled it off my shelf to read. Perhaps it is the fact that I'm working with an older client or perhaps it is because both my parents are navigating their own terrain of being senior citizens, but the book called to me and I am really enjoying it.

There is a way that I see my parents as people – individuals with their own lives, their own meaning and perspectives driving their own understanding of the world around them. That doesn't mean that we still don't sometimes clash but what I love about Pipher's book is that she makes the claim that of course that clash is going to happen. It is a "time zone" difference. Each generation – or time zone – has its own culture. The problem is that it looks the same on the outside but is very different on the inside. We figure we all lived together for so many years that we share the same culture. Perhaps we do in some ways but in others, we don't. We all speak the same language but those words have very different values based on the era we live in. Without trying to understand those cultural differences, we will never really hear each other. Understanding the different perspective allows us to step back from the clash without trying to change what we cannot change.

Pipher is really looking at the generation born in the first third of the 20^th century and their children. My parents slip into that category by a hair's breath. Just as I straddle the baby boomer generation and gen X (or whatever they call the generation that followed the baby boomers now). And I can see so much of what Pipher discusses as being very true – especially for my mother. Pipher talks about the way in which this older generation grew up within a much more communal society and all that that entails. She writes, "Sharing, loyalty and cooperation were held in high regard. Appearance and good manners were important. Because people saw each other every day for lifetimes, reputation was critical. Conformity was a positive virtue. Social training had to do with going along to get along. Wisdom wasn't seen as the property of individuals, but rather as a collective possession…Emphasis on duty and connection made sense in a society in which, day after day, and year after year, people were together. The rewards of good behavior were membership in a tribe and lifelong friendships." (Pipher, 70)

I've always seen my mother's family as a tribe. There was a way that they worked together, survived hardship together because they had each other. For generations, my mother's family moved west together – the whole extended family moving into the same areas and maintaining that sense of kinship. During my mother's lifetime that communal living truly did start to break down somewhat in a physical sense as people began to marry and move outside of the community, but the culture remained. The culture permeated family gatherings and there are still pockets where the tribe of my mother's family still exists.

There's more – reading this book is to look at American culture over the last 100 hundred years from an interesting, almost anthropological perspective. For me, it is thought provoking and continues to help me let go of my own pre-conceived values and beliefs when I think about what my parents should or shouldn't be doing. Anything that helps me see them more clearly for who they are allows me to also accept my own culture and values. I have conversations now with my children were I am beginning to see a shift between our two generations. It doesn't make anyone right or wrong – just perspectives that have been molded not only by our families of origin but the culture within which we live.

And as a culture, America does tend to devalue our elderly. We are youth-centric and age phobic. Our elders are marginalized and infantilized which is a shame. There is such wisdom there about life, community and resiliency. I find myself listening more and more to how my parents cope with age and what they have found out to be true after all these years. There is a way that they have let go of so many of life's annoyances – and other ways that they still feel such deep pain (and yet live and cope). I wonder what else I have to learn if I really start to listen.

Orcas, Eagles and Otters….oh my…

My husband and I got out on our boat this weekend. Just the two of us. No kids or dogs. It was a working weekend – repairs and upkeep issues on a boat are never ending. But that was okay because it was a long weekend by ourselves. It turned out to be a bit of a nature weekend as well. I woke up in our marina that first morning to seals and herons on the docks around us. On our way up out of Rosario strait headed towards the top of Orcas Island, we found a rather large pod of orcas cavorting in the channel. They were breaching and playing, feeding and wandering on their way. We anchored up near Sucia Island and while kayaking got up close and personal with a fishing eagle. The otters were down at Indian Cove on Shaw. A mother and two pups. Again, we were kayaking and they were most likely clamming off the shallow bottom. I could include the six crabs that I caught as part of my wildlife survey – but they had a different ending: cooked and eaten off the back of the boat while watching the sunset.

We had a chance to connect and relax and rest. I think it has taken me most of the summer to realize how busy he is. How hard it is to be under such stress at work and then try to come home and find any energy to be present in relationship. The thing is, I hold this as a stage – that it will ebb and flow. As long as we can have these breaks to stop and breathe; to look into each other's eyes and reacquaint ourselves with how much we love each other – enjoy each other's company – then I can hold steady.

It's the last time I'll probably be out on the boat this summer. School starts next week, different events are happening over weekends all the way up through September. That's okay. I love winter boating – when the anchorages are empty and the marinas are slow. The task is to continue to pause and breathe; to look around and see what the world has to offer in the moment.

I don’t really live here anymore

My oldest daughter and I were talking yesterday and she said 'being home is like pushing the pause button – and once I get back to school, my life starts up again.' Her sense of coming home for the summer has been slightly surreal. Walking back into her childhood after spending a year celebrating her ability to live in the adult world was jarring. I think her experience is unique in that she is aware of why she feels the way she does. And I'm not insulted or disappointed in what she is saying because I know how much she loves us and I am so proud of her ability to stride forward into her own future as an adult. She simply feels the difference of being an adult out in the world on her own – and coming home to stay in the house she grew up in.

We read a book called the Paradox of Intimacy by Donald Williamson during our first year of graduate school and he talked quite a bit about how individuals leaving home often lack the 'personal authority' or individuality needed to become an adult. This trait is something that most of us are left to develop on our own as we stumble through our twenties – when we finally are able to put some sort of distance –physical or mental – space between who we are and who our family has said we are. Personal authority is the final piece of growing up, those moments when we begin to value ourselves as unique and see that our own perspective no longer has to meld with that of our families of origin. It's nice when all those perspectives can exist in harmony. Sometimes they do – sometimes they don't. Williamson puts out there that the ideal growth pattern is to help our teenagers establish their personal authority as they leave home. We step back and give them the space to develop their own abilities to navigate life. We stop rescuing them from homework assignments and social angst – we (parents) become the backdrop, allowing the container in which we have always held them to widen out. The difference between a zoo cage and a wild animal park. Sorry – I just had to use that metaphor!

I learned early that the most dangerous person in my daughter's life was herself. Without self esteem, without the ability to find her passion, without the chance to try and explore the world with her own vision – she would fail to thrive. She stepped into college with an excitement and ambition that again, I have rarely seen. But she chose a college that dared her to be the greatest artist possible – her dreams, not mine or anyone else's. And she thrives as she gains new levels of confidence – in her abilities to take care of her body, manage her fears and push her talents to grow.

So I can understand how coming home this summer felt like a pause button. In some ways, I believe that that isn't such a bad thing. I do ask her to participate in the maintenance of the household – because she is an adult and she is living here – but beyond that, I've allowed her to decide when she wants to spend time with us, when she wants to enjoy a meal that someone else cooked. We don't wait for her but she gives me the courtesy of knowing when to set another plate. We talk about the ways in which coming home is somewhat of a backslide – how inescapable it is to step back into that role of child with another adult as ultimate authority (parents). We talk about it so that it is out in the open – explicit – and more amusing then intolerable. Her fiercely independent nature can still make space for a soothing head rub. I am and always will be her mother, afterall.

The nurturing is still needed but it becomes a more open and loving relationship that allows for distance. For me, it is becoming about always have a welcome mat out. The invitation for care and love and unconditional support is there to be tapped – when she needs it. I like being part of my daughter's pause button – even as she paces, restless to get back to her dorm room, new classes and more. From my perspective (which she doesn't have to share), having people with whom we can find those moments of pausing/rest are good. And, as she heads back east this month, I'll cheer her on as she revs back up in her own life experience. You go girl.

Birthday wishes to a dear friend

I had a phone call today from a close friend today. It was her birthday and she was calling the people in her life that she loves and cares about to share her gratitude to me for being in her life. We have a mutual friend who did this on his birthday - and both phone calls touched my heart and made me smile.

Friendship is an interesting phenomenon at this point in my life. It is a series of circles that expands outward from my most intimate relationships to the far reaches of strangers and people I wouldn't trust if you paid me. I feel such gratitude in my heart because I actually have friendships - like my birthday friend - who are close, embraceable and solid presences in my life. There is an absence of expectations and an abundance of laughter and witnessing. These are the friends who witness my struggles and simply squeeze my hand with love.

So when this friend of mine called and left me a message of such love and gratitude, I thought about her and the lovely, beautiful, wise, vibrant spirit that she is. I thought about her eyes sparkling with humor; I thought about her fire and passion; I thought about her creativity. I remembered her birthday last year - we were in school together - and she was just discovering what it meant to have girlfriends. I knew then that I loved her dearly. And then I saw a picture of her as a little girl and I fell head over heels. :) What can I say? I'm a sucker for mischievous twinkles.

Sometimes loving and caring for people only happens for a passing time - friendships deepen and then change and fade. And sometimes, friendship simply are - they exist in their own time and space and it doesn't matter that you don't see each other every day. You miss them and you would love it if you could see them all the time - but even when you don't, the bond is there. This dear friend of mine celebrating her birthday tonight is that later type of friendship. I trust her with no expectations and no burdens. I love her for who she is - not just what I want to see. Grad school was like that with a few select friends - it opened up some deep and close friendships that I am grateful for everyday.

Happy birthday, my friend. I am so glad that you had a great day celebrating being born. I know that I certainly celebrate your presence in my life and on this planet!
With love and honor and the warmest of wishes - your friend,
Jen

Summer has arrived

The weekend is over. J. is tucked into her bed after a long night spent with friends for grad nite. Relatives have gone home and there are no more events where I need to go 'smile and nod.'
Somewhere over the weekend, during the small pockets of time that we were actually alone, A. and I found the common ground we needed, got some clarity, sighed deep sighs. Somehow we manage to be human and fallible. We get to learn from our mistakes and our reactions. We still get to grow.
Watching J. walk across that stage (with her propeller cap), I thought about all the years spent with her as a child in my life. Can I just say now how absolutely adorable she has always been? (with a few years of early teenhood omitted from that statement). Eighteen years with this man by my side as we watched her grow up into this stunning and brilliant young woman. There's a lot of water under that bridge - and the occasional log jam has happened along the way. So we have to pick the logs and flotsam apart, let certain things float away - enough so that we keep the flow and course of our relationship clear.
The realization that I keep coming back to is that the work on a relationship is never done. There is always the fertile ground of our core issues that will come into contact with the other - and results vary as to how well we manage that process. I trust - and this is fairly significant for me - I trust that we will continue to walk that path together.
The house is quiet, everyone sleeping in. No need to hurry off to school - or work for that matter - at least not today. Summer has arrived thanks to school schedules.

Walk around Green Lake

I met up with a friend this morning for a walk around Green Lake. A leisurely stroll as we caught up on people in common, our work and our lives. He graduated last year from my same program and it was a lovely reminder that yes, indeed, there is life after grad school.

I called my mom while waiting and told her where I was. She used to play at Green lake as a girl. My great uncle owned a barber shop right across from the park with an apartment up on top. It surprised her that I was all the way over in Seattle (like its the other side of the planet) and I could tell that she has a whole bunch of memories playing with her brother and sisters along the shore. I think another walk is in order - with her - just for old times sake.

Unplugging is a good treatment plan

We got out of town over the weekend.
A townhouse/cabin up near Lake Wenatchee. Lots of snow to play in. Sledding and coffee in Leavenworth. Our friends who own a cabin on the other side of the lake were there and we had a lovely evening with them - playing games, having a glass of wine, listening to the fire crack. Just driving out of town felt like a burden lifted. The flotsam and jetsam of a busy life disappeared. No laundry or groceries. No piles of books to be read or bathrooms to clean. Who cares about homework when you're on vacation?
A. and I got a chance to talk - which after the week we both had was important. Touching base and getting what I need from my relationships is harder now. I'm more aware of how difficult it is to find the time to actually figure out what is going on! That's new and a tad frightening.
Now it's Monday and the week begins - but at least my head feels like its actually on my shoulders.