Blog

Where my Heart wants to Go

/ Picking My Battles / 5 Comments

Listening to the wind of his soul, as Cat Stevens once sang, and letting the music take him where his heart wants to go, it’s Thing2’s time to dance, as it is every night after his homework is done and before dinner is ready.  With the Big Guy’s borrowed iPod and and my old ear buds, he leaps and twirls, shakes, rattles and rolls, his eyes half closed as he translates the music into motion.

An angelic smile lights his face as he looks at the Big Guy for approval.  The Big Guy is bemused.  Thing2 turns to me for non-verbal feedback, but his gaze falls first upon Goliath, still steeped in homework at the round pedestal kitchen table.  Always willing to be a distracted from his studies, Goliath has stopped to watch our private performance.  His face is a study in preteen angst.  A smile lurks, but the fear that this performance might be repeated in public also knits his brow.

Thing2, unsure of Goliath’s evaluation, stops mid pirouette.  He stares at his big brother as another one song ends.  When he finds his tongue, it is not nearly as dextrous as his feet.

“WHAT?!?” he demands.  Goliath shrugs and bows his head over his book again, and the Big Guy and I worry the time to dance has ended.  But the dance continues until the last plate has been set at the dinner table. Thing2’s monosyllabic outburst was not a question after all; it was statement that he will be who he will be as long as the music keeps playing.

Sympathy for the Giant

/ Picking My Battles / Leave a comment

IMG 1398

The steps creak a little more each day as Thing1 descends from his bastion on the upper bunk.  He’s been taller than his mother for a year now, and, even though he enjoys sizing up the difference every time we pass in the hall, I am getting used to looking up at someone I used to carry around in a Snugli.  It’s strange feeling, and a few weeks ago, I realized that Thing1, evoking a decidedly impish quality, didn’t really suit him anymore.

I’ve been using nicknames for my kids and husband since this blog’s inception.  My six foot six husband is the Big Guy.  My twelve and six-year-old boys are known as Thing1 and Thing2 (or SuperDude if he’s wearing his cape and wig), respectively.

My decision to use nicknames was not so much to safeguard their internet safety – very little is private anymore now  – but more the result of the feeling that, especially with the kids, I had the right to tell our stories but not the right to opt in the use of their real names until they were old enough to make that decision themselves.  The result has been a mostly illustrated blog (the few photos of the kids are usually old enough to prevent easy recognition by anyone but the people who already know them), and I’ve been happy with it.  Now, however, as I’ve been searching for a new, more appropriate nickname for the gentle giant that roams our house, I realize that part of the motivation for the original nickname was my denial that he is growing up.

There is still a bit of the imp in him, but middle school and the discovery that a world lies outside Minister Hill have made him serious.  When the imp is revealed, Thing2 is often the inspiration and the provocation.  Like any good younger brother, Thing2 carries around a bit of loving hero worship for his big brother.  Most afternoons he expresses his love by snuggling up to his older brother, but there are times when love hurts.

Sometimes inspired by boredom, sometimes by that most flattering of desires – to imitate his older brother in every possible way – Thing2 will sidle up to Thing1 at his desk or on the couch.  He’ll work to inhabit the space with his brother.  Then he’ll ask to play whatever Thing1 is playing, listen to whatever song Thing1 has blasting, or watch whatever show Thing1 thought was great last night but couldn’t care less about this afternoon.  He is dogged in his admiration, and, when Thing1, in the time-honored tradition of surly preteens everywhere, ignores the initial overtures, Thing2 finds a plan B.

Snuggling becomes poking.  Then poking becomes climbing, and sometimes the climbing hurts.  Thing2’s faith that Thing1 would never hurt him is stronger David’s in a God that would guide his slingshot was.  For the most part his faith is well-placed. Unlike the ancient Goliath, when our giant needs a lot of needling before he responds in kind.  Sometimes the giant will lose his temper, but he rarely loses his cool.

Lately he’s been taking on more grown-up chores around the house.  He’s attentive and responsive when we need a quick favor.  Naturally, I see him through my maternal bias, but as I watch the imp becoming a man, I’ve decided it’s time for someone to get a new nickname and rehabilitate the name Goliath.

Honor Thy Family, Honor Thyself

/ Picking My Battles / Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2013 03 26 at 7 04 11 AM

My mother’s parents, in their later years, moved from Hawaii, where they’d spent much of their retirement, to Ohio so that they could be closer to their children and grandchildren.  My grandmother suffered a series of debilitating strokes soon after they moved, and my parents, especially my mother, became instrumental in supporting both my grandparents, emotionally and, often, logistically.  

My mother made sure our family visited them regularly during the week.  She helped my grandfather adjust to his new roles of caretaker, housekeeper and cook – tasks my grandmother had primarily done during the fifty-plus years of their marriage.  When my grandmother passed away, my parents – geographically the closest of his children – continued the Sunday dinners and afternoon visits with my grandfather.  They took him on family vacations, provided (in the case of my father) second medical opinions, and did everything they could to ensure that he was independent but not alone in the last years of his life.

It was labor, but there was more love than obligation in it.  Although I know both my parents felt blessed to have those last years with my mother’s parents, it was not always easy.  Watching both parents rise to the occasion with love and grace, however, was a powerful lesson for me and my sister.  It is one I think about often as my parents have started their retirements.

So when, at the first meeting of the Hubbard Hall Writer’s Workshop, Diane Fiore revealed that she would be writing about her Saturday drives with her late father, I knew her blog would be good before I read a word.  It was.  

For most of the last year on her blog, Merganser’s Crossing, Diane has been telling the story of how what started as a daughter’s duty to help emotionally and logistically support a father suffering from increasingly intense dementia became a path to a close relationship and better understanding of her dad.  It has been humorous and heartbreaking, honest and enlightening.  Illustrated with sketches, photographs, and now, the loveliest watercolors, it is also evolving.

After learning that her mother had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Diane decided (with her mother’s support and permission) to chronicle the next phase of her journey on her blog.  Already the story has seen her and her husband move so as to support her mother’s needs better.  As she writes simply but compellingly of her new life, navigating the changes and relationships, the same love and grace I once saw in my parents comes shining through.  

We live in an often harsh world.  Too often culture and media not only reflect that harshness, they amplify it.  It makes stumbling on a story like Diane’s all the more valuable and inspiring.  It’s an oasis of kindness and hope, and it’s worth visiting again and again.

About Family

/ Picking My Battles / 1 Comment

IMG 1397

My younger son dances.  He sings.  He has a crate full of costumes – including a rainbow wig, several superhero outfits and a tutu – and a puppet theatre complete with curtains sewn by his grandmother.  He loves dressing up and taking on all sorts of personae.  He is the sum of his arts – joy in a skinny six-year-old package.

We make him leave the costumes at home (on school days anyway), but he brings his joy everywhere he goes.  He dances when he walks.  He falls in love with people at the drop of hat and is still at the age where he wants to marry everyone with whom he falls in love.

Most of the time his antics and his expressions of love – for his parents, his brother, the waitresses at Bob’s –  produce smiles from people around us.  It’s hard not to smile at someone who’s compulsively happy.  But every once in a while I’ll catch another adult watching his gaiety, and I can see a question forming behind the gaze.

I know the look and the question.  The look is judgement warring with joy.  The question is the wondering if the gaiety is evidence that our dancing, affectionate child is gay.  I don’t know.  I also don’t care.

I have seen and heard this story since I was in high school.  Several of my closest friends came out to our circle of friends before and after graduation.  Some came to the realization that they were gay very early in life.  Some had supportive parents.  Others lived in the shadow of projection (once with a violent result) because certain mannerisms or affinities were proof to others that they were gay long before they had considered the question themselves.

I would like to say that I was always mature and supportive.  With my male friends I remembered it made no difference.  With my best friend, I am sorry to say, I was less mature, mainly because she was suddenly dating and someone else was monopolizing her time.  At the time I wasn’t adult enough to remember I had done the exact same thing to her a year earlier.  The one thing I do remember, however, is that who my friends dated didn’t change how I saw them because they were still the same loving people who had accepted me for all my flaws as we went through the high school gauntlet together.

Today, as I’m watching the news, waiting to see how the Supreme Court is going to rule on marriage equality in California, I’m thinking about our journeys.  Some of my friends are still single.  Some have had commitment ceremonies – two couples the same year the Big Guy and I were married – and are still happily married themselves.  Our journeys have been different, but the parallels are still there.

We all wanted to fulfill our potentials.  We all wanted to love and be loved.  And we each wanted to be part of a family of our choosing.  It’s the same thing I want for both my kids.  But, most of all, I want them to have the same chance at happiness that I have had – regardless of the person they find to love.  So today, to me, this issue isn’t about politics.  It’s about my family.

 

 

 

 

The Hairy Edge

/ Picking My Battles / Leave a comment

Photo

Maybe if it hadn’t been a snow day filled with lolling about and lying around, this milestone might have gone unnoticed.  But twelve-year-old Thing1, getting as big as a good-natured Goliath these days, made the mistake of mentioning that he wanted a shower on a slow news day.  The Big Guy and I looked at our son and then back at each other, the same question on our minds.

I think the Big Guy was the first to ask Goliath point blank if there was a girl involved.  Our firstborn immediately rebuffed such a ridiculous suggestion.  His hair was too long, he said.  It was too warm and he needed to cool off.  

I don’t mean to imply that Goliath doesn’t shower regularly.  But anyone who’s raised or raising boys will concur that there comes a phase in their lives when they develop severe soap allergies, as evidenced – at our house – by the sounds of cajoling and pleading (and that’s the parents) that commence many evenings just after supper time.  We have heard every excuse for why Goliath and his six-year-old tormenter, David, should abstain from contact with cleanliness.  They don’t feel dirty.  They’re just going to get dirty again tomorrow.  They’re trying to save water and (going after our off-grid Achille’s heels) electricity.  So when we haven’t had to cajole or plead for not just one night, but three in a row, it’s a major event.

The Big Guy and I didn’t contest any further his earnest contention that a sudden romantic interest was not at the source of this sudden spate of elective hygiene.  Once Goliath cleared his place and retreated to his half-hour shower, however, the Big Guy and I looked at each other, realizing we are getting closer and closer to the scary hairy edge of being parents of a full-fledged teenager.  And as frightening as that thought is, the scarier idea is just how fast it’s all going.

Snow Days

/ Picking My Battles / 1 Comment

IMG 1389

Christmas comes several time each year at our house.  We call those extra Christmas days snow days.  They’re the only other winter days that see both boys out of bed before dawn as they race to the internet to check school closing, waiting to see if the Snow Fairy has brought them candy or coal.

Thing2 got candy last night.  It was most likely due to a wind-related power outage than the snowfall we got last night that barely qualifies as a dusting by Vermont standards.  Thing1 got a lump of coal.

Normally I require hard core proof of illness for either imp to stay home.  More snow may be on the way, however that could cause an early closure.  Tonight’s homework is also already done. So, instead of giving Thing1 his morning marching orders, I toss his coal into the roaring wood stove and order him to stand down.  

I have the day off, and with both boys home, it’s more than an impromptu weekend.  It really is a holiday.

So Uncool

/ Picking My Battles / 1 Comment

The best thing about having a preteen is not the sudden displays of independence (or rebellion depending on your take) or the occasional surliness.  It’s the fact that no matter what you do, for the next decade or so, you know you will never be cool.  Now, no one has actually ever accused me of being all that hip – except maybe the Big Guy when I complement him on a burp – but I’ve noticed that the little bit of cool factor I may have enjoyed, has taken a nose dive as Thing1, my first born, approaches the big One-Three.  This might have bothered me once upon a time, but, now, as I’m getting a lot more selective about which dragons I go chasing after, it’s actually quite liberating.

My precipitous loss of coolness (always in danger due to my uncanny knack for mastering fashion trends just as they were ending and love of all things geek) became apparent one morning as we were driving to school.  Thing1 had already begged me to stop dancing in the car, regardless of our surroundings, and, well remembering the gauntlet called middle school, I respected this ‘request’.  My music choices, however, stayed pretty much the same.  I listen to everything, and my playlists vary with my mood.  My tastes can have us listening to Pavarotti one morning, Rolling Stones  another, or an eighties pop list the next.   It was an eighties pop mix that first prompted Thing1, a budding music geek with firm ideas about “what’s good” that can only survive in the hothouse of adolescence, to assume the role of arbiter of musical taste on our morning school runs.

He began switching up the playlists on my iPod, and, for the most part, I acquiesced happily.  That acquiescence made him happy on the drive, but when we arrived at school, he began hitting the pause button before the car stopped.  After a few mornings of this I realized my acceptance of his choices was causing him to question not his taste but his own coolness.

He’s not into girls yet, so fashion – the most visible signal that a kid is trying to display their coolness – hasn’t really become an issue (boys seem to escape a lot of this anyway), but as he stops the music and climbs out of the car, everything in his demeanor says he’s still anxious to be cool.  Most of the kids entering the building seem to have this same anxiety, translated through their tense postures and nervous glances at their friends.

It’s not just maternal bias when I say that, in my eyes, Thing1 has always been cool.  He’s a door-holder.  He can carry on a conversation with grownup. A number of his classmates are like this too.   So, as I watch these pleasant, curious kids scurrying to school, wearing their self-consciousness on their sleeves, my first daily thought is how ironic it is that they should worry that they’re not cool enough.  When the car door shuts and I unpause the music, my second thought is usually how exhausting it once was to worry about it.

I know Thing1 will survive this gauntlet.  The Big Guy and I are fiercely protective of the inner young man full of hopes and dreams and ideas, but we also know navigating between the desire to fit in and his true north (when he discovers it) is part of the test of teenager-dom.  It’s a journey we can’t take for him.

I’ve recently adopted a new exercise regimen of dancing for a 3 minute song in front of my laptop every few hours so that I can fit some movement into my day.  I pretty much look like an idiotic bowl of jello for those 3 minutes, and sometimes I’m glad none of our windows look out on neighbors.  But I would be dancing even if they did.  That carefree dance is the reward at the end of that journey.  I’ve discovered my true norths now, and, while I’ve started another part of the path, I’ll be waiting for Thing1 when he’s found his own groove.

A Little Night Music

/ Picking My Battles / Leave a comment

IMG 2331

I got off work late last night. The dishwasher still needed emptying, and, not feeling like cooking, I decided to order out for all of us and treat myself to a twenty minute get away. It was the worst decision of the day, and it was the best.

When I stepped out into the dark, I could already feel the hand gripping at my chest. It’s been squeezing and releasing it for days now. I’ve been here before. It’s a place at the bottom and I hit it every few years. It’s a place where all hell can be breaking loose, or – like last night – not. It’s a place where I have a family I love and that loves me, where work and lifework are going well, where there are new friends and rekindled friendships. And it’s a place where, inspite of fortune, seemingly, to spite myself, I worry over every word I speak or write, where every noise and voice is like a hammer on my soul, where I start clicking the buttons to withdraw from my world, and where that hand tightens around my chest until a dark winter road is as good a place to say good night as any other.

I’ve been here before. The way out of that place is often the repetition of the litany that people need me to keep it together, that no child should ever think a mother chose to leave him for any reason. Last night it was enough to get me home to where our nightly music had already begun playing and recalling the better way out.

The soundtrack of our evening is dissonant and sometimes silly. It starts with a “Hi Mom!” and a “Thanks for getting dinner!.” The sound climbs on the rhythm of plates being arranged on a table by an unsteady but enthusiastic six-year-old pair of hands. The song swells on a chorus of “Guess what happened to me?” and “Did I eat enough to get desert?” It’s all punctuated by staccato laughter, until it crescendos on a joke gone overboard.

The next movement is a long decrescendo. It’s a tremolo of “Mom, can you wash my jeans for tomorrow?” , “Mommy, can you come snuggle with me?”, and “Mom, where’s the extra shampoo?” The song modulates as I squeeze into the lower bunk for a goodnight kiss and snuggle with Thing2, starting as I lie on a remote and the car it controls sounds its own momentary surprise symphony. The strains of “My Sweet Lord” being played on the Big Guy’s ancient acoustic guitar close out the the soundtrack as a still small pair of arms wraps around me, and the chirping becomes soft snoring and the snoring becomes salvation for another night.

Darkness Crowded

/ Picking My Battles / 2 Comments

I’m currently working on a book that started as a collection of short stories based on Picking My Battles. One of the things I love about the blog, however, is that each successive post not only provides an opportunity to improve skills and build friendships, it is a chance to think about the projects it’s inspiring.

The working title of my current project is called Fable. My recent decision to be candid about my own lifelong struggle with depression and mania has begun to shape it from a collection of short stories or posts into a longer piece. As I write, however, I’ve also begun to read more about other people’s experiences with these disorders.

Marbles, a graphic memoir by Ellen Forney, prompted my first first piece on the subject. The author is about my age, and many of her experiences with bipolar disorder reflected my own. Last night I continued my exploration with William Styron’s Darkness Visible. A chronicle of a major depressive episode when the author was in his 60s, it held up a different kind of mirror.

Written before the clinical language of depression had permeated our popular culture, Styron’s account of his decline and brush with suicide is unvarnished and sometimes raw. However, it is also informed by a lifetime of extensive reading and personal familiarity with other authors who suffered the same affliction and by his re-examination of his own work post-depression.

Darkness Visible isn’t the first book to look at the debated link between mental illness and creativity, and Styron didn’t restrict his anecdotes only to authors. This book about inner darkness, however, did illuminate for me how fortunate my experience has been.

My first depressive episode happened when I was two, although it was only in retrospect that my parents or I realized that was what was happening. I had another major, nearly fatal episode when I was sixteen. Now, having lived through numerous swings up and down, some with disastrous consequences, I count myself lucky even when I’m rocking at the back of my mental cave. I don’t look forward to the insomnia and anxiety and the constant contemplation of death, but, even at the very depths, there is a part of me that is always reasonably sure it will end.

This is not to say that I don’t struggle and am never tempted to fall asleep and not wake up. But, reading the account of Styron’s first major episode late in his life – the first one of which he was keenly aware – I knew I was lucky to have discovered early in life that the key to survival was the understanding that the darkness does break.

The darkness is long, and you don’t find your way out. You wait for the night to end. And, as terrifying as the beginning of Styron’s book was, with its histories of authors and housewives who had lost their battles, he closed this tiny tome by throwing out the lifeline of his own experience and survival to others who might be struggling.

My night has begun to break in the last few weeks. This one has been different, however. I still have my own lifelines. As the dawn begins to reflect off the mirrors I’ve recently acquired, however, I see a crowd through the darkness, and I’ve begun to think about how, in the light of a day not defined by fear and stigma, I can cast some of those lifelines to others.

Of Birds, Bees, and Bathtime

/ Picking My Battles / 2 Comments

I was curious about boys when I was twelve.  I was attending an all-girl school, so my preteen theories about dating and boys were purely conjecture.  Even when I moved to a co-ed school, however, my curiosity and my ability to attract the opposite sex were completely out of sync, so my parents seemed comfortable waiting to have ‘The Talk’ until I was well into high school.

My dad was a doctor, so he had no qualms about discussing the science of sex with us, but it was my mother’s less scientific take on the subject one afternoon that has stuck with me.  I had invited a few friends over, including a girl who had left school when she had a baby.  She had brought her baby, and we had all fallen in love with it.  None of us were thinking of the larger issue of teen pregnancy at the time – I was still trying to get someone to take me to a movie – but my mom clearly was that afternoon.  She enjoyed holding the baby too, but when my friends and the baby left, she sat me down for a chat.

“That baby is very cute, and your friend is doing a wonderful job with him,” she said, “but I hope you notice that she’s not going to any dances or parties.”  The Talk that day revolved around, not judging someone’s choices, but making me aware of some of life’s consequences and that, even though I’d always have my parents’ love and support, I would be the one to shoulder them.

I remembered this conversation when I was dating.  I remembered it when the Big Guy and I were DINKS (Double Income No Kids), indulging in carefree travel and dinners out as often as we could afford (or were invited).  And, as I see very socially-aware Facebook posts by kids at my son’s school (and even grade), as well as teenage parents at his and other nearby, I’m remembering it.

My firstborn is a bit of a computer geek.  Unless a girl had a keyboard or a mouse attached to her, he might not give her a second look.  Knowing, however, that he is seeing this conversation played in different forms around him, I realize we will be having The Talk a lot earlier than I did.  I’m a big believer in the facts.  I want him to understand how his body works, what he needs to do to keep it healthy, and how to keep from reproducing before he’s ready for the consequences of that decision. Most of all,  I want him to understand the potentially life-changing magnitude of those consequences.

Thing2 is six years younger than his big brother, and Thing1 has been privy to all the joys and pains of living with a newborn, toddler, and rambunctious grade schooler (he will never admit to having inflicted the pains himself).  He has ridden next to a car-seat loaded with a screaming and sometimes smelly baby.  He has watched us negotiate with nature’s most annoying creature – the fussy eater (his own memory of this phase is conveniently blank).  Most of the time, he takes things in stride.

Sometimes, however, he cracks.

Last night was one of those times.

Thing2’s gift for getting dirty becomes an art form on the weekends, and I had ordered him into the tub.  I hosed him off before letting him indulge in a little splash time.  He relocated all but a few tablespoons of water from the tub to the bathroom floor before I let him know it was time to get out.  The floor is concrete and tolerates ponds, so I ushered him to his bedroom to get him dried and dressed before mopping up.

“What!?!”  An annoyed cry came from the bathroom.  Thing1 came marching into the bedroom.  “Why is the bathroom such a mess?  There’s water everywhere,” he yelled at his brother.  I quickly put the lid on his outburst, reminding him the commode still functioned when wet and this was not a catastrophe.  Thing1 moderated his tone but not his attitude as he turned on his heel and returned to the facilities .  “I swear, I’m not going to have little kids in my house till I’m forty-five,” he muttered.  I wrapped the towel around Thing2, grinning like David who had just awoken Goliath, and gave him a big hug.

Clean and dry, relieved and defused, the boys retired to the couch for a few minutes of TV before bed, friends until David decides to needle Goliath again in the morning.  I know there will be other versions of The Talk.   Watching them teach each other about boundaries and bathrooms I’m appreciating how my mother’s words in a completely different way.  What was a warning when it needed to be, is now a promise fulfilled by patience.  Now, as I think about how to impart the perils without dimming that promise, Thing2’s object lessons make sure that Thing1 is gaining a clear understanding of consequences.  And, while now many of those lessons may only teach Thing1 patience of a different sort, I’m hoping the occasional cease-fires are implanting another, if subtler, kind of understanding of how, with patience and timing (and luck), consequences can also be rewards.

A Day with the Boys

/ Picking My Battles / Leave a comment

the boys

Once upon a time I would have traded blood and organs for the chance to be a Work At Home Mom (WAHM).  A few years ago, I stumbled onto the right ad on Craigslist and, without making any deals with the devil, joined the growing legions of moms who work from home.  For the most part it’s been a win-win.  I’m home on snow days and sick days.  There’s no dry-cleaning to worry about, and the gas and rubber saved is significant.  It has also, however, taught me a lot about the difference between quality time with my kids, twelve-year-old Thing1 and six-year-old Thing2,  and simply more time.

Our town has school choice, so Thing1 and Thing2 go to different schools in different towns.  The schools are a mile apart, and, while the calendars often overlap, there are somedays when one school is closed and the other is not.  Yesterday was Thing2’s day off, and, enjoying a unprecedented state of organization last week, I remembered to schedule a day off for myself.

The kids are in school full-time now, but summers and holidays mean that I’m often scrambling to entertain them while I work.  More often than I’d like, this results in kids playing on iPads or computers and me snapping at them to stop fighting over this or that toy.  It’s more time together, but it is not quality time.

Ironically, spending more time with my kids has fueled my desire to carve out more special days with one or the both of them.  It’s a tradition that started when Thing1 was still Thing-only.  Mommy-Thing1 days started with a special breakfast and then a visit to a museum or even just a day on the couch watching a movie of his choice.  It’s one-on-one face time, and it’s become a sacred ritual for both kids.

Thing2 and I started the day with breakfast and haircuts.  Money he had earned was burning a hole in his pocked, so we took a quick trip to the toy store and then went to visit a friend who’s recovering from surgery.  By the time we got home, my day with Thing2 was drawing to a close, and a planned evening with Thing1 was about to begin.

The Dorset Theatre was in its final weekend of its production of The Crucible, and, since we don’t have a regular babysitter, the Big Guy and I had decided to take turns attending.  We’ve been dragging Thing1 to plays for a while now (with increasing levels of enthusiasm), and I decided we would go out to dinner before the play.  Thing2’s palate is getting more adventurous so we ended up a Thai place in Manchester, VT.

The restaurant was a little more upscale place than we usually go with either child, but Thing1 warmed to the subdued atmosphere.  Absent distractions, we began to have a different Mommy-Thing1 day.  Thing2 is still at that stage where Mommy and Daddy are at the center of his world, and our special days are basically one big mental cuddle.  But Thing1 is at the border of adolescence, and the independence that accompanies that stage of life means that our special days have changed in content and character.  Last night, as our special day consisted mainly of  very grown-up dinner conversations about technology and society and later about the play and the performance, I began to see for the first time how that change is bringing us closer.

Good Parents Never Retire

/ Picking My Battles / 1 Comment

IMG 1384

There are a lot of things I love about my parents.  I love that they never pull out a tape recording of all the things I said I’d never do as a parent when I do exactly that.  I love that they are flush with great advice but wait until it’s asked for.  I love that, as I begin to understand their point of view on so many things, they never say, “I told you so.”   And I love, that at the ages of 70 and 72, they’ve never really retired – not from their jobs or from parenting.

My dad knew he wanted to be a doctor pretty early in college.  He’s been in medicine in one way or another for most of his life (not just his adult life – his life).  His career has changed over the years, taking him and us around the country and even the globe.  What never changed was his drive to learn.  My mom started her career as a history professor when my sister and I were a little older, and, while her job didn’t involve as much globetrotting, she had the same insatiable lust for learning as my dad.   

When they got closer to their retirement age, we expected they might slow down and transition into being full-time grandparents.  My dad, however, kept traveling for one lecture or research project, and my mom kept reading and writing and teaching.  They did have tentative plans for after retirement, but they constantly seemed to get pushed further down the road.

My dad announced his retirement first.  I wondered how long it would take this man who was constantly traveling to go stir crazy (or make my mother crazy).  But he already had plans.  He barely seemed to stop for a breath before launching himself into a different incarnation of his love of medicine and learning and service.  He may have left his job, but, even now, years later, he is still a medical man.  It was not just a job or even a career, it was and remains a passion.  

My mom continued this pattern.  Her job ended, but her work continued.  Like my father, her retirement was marked by the end of a paycheck and the beginning of projects.  She joined another history organization, investing almost as much time on research and writing as she had before retiring.  She’s been retired for several years now, but she is still every bit a historian, and, with my dad is still busy teaching me some valuable life lessons as she navigates this phase of her life.

They don’t work as many hours as they did when they were employed, but even when they’re on vacation, they will retire to their office/bedroom for a little research or writing.  Most days I like my job very much (absent a winning lottery ticket or  writing the next Harry Potter, I’ll probably be doing it till I retire).  Only unwillingly, however, do I let it intrude on my family vacations, and it wasn’t until recently that I ‘got’ why my parents invited their ‘work’ into their holidays and their retirement.

What helped me ‘get’ it was finding the Writer’s Project at Hubbard Hall led by author Jon Katz.  I always loved writing, but there had been times when life got too hectic and I let it fall by the wayside.  The Project demanded that everyone who was intent on staying with it needed to write and share regularly through our blogs.  At first, this was as an act of  discipline.  Then it became my regular indulgence in ‘me’ time.  It was not until we went on vacation with my parents, however, that I began to realize that it was giving me a brand new perspective on my parents and on work.

Determined to have a real vacation last year, I only took my iPad and left ‘work’ at home.  But from the moment we left our dirt road for the paved highways, I wrote.  Every place we stopped I wrote.  At night, I wrote after everyone else was in bed.  When the kids were busy with their Tinker Toys or at the beach, I wrote.  And, as I watched my Mom and Dad withdraw each day to their office and invite their lifeworks into their vacations, it struck me that, for the first time in my life, I had done the same thing.  

Finding the Writer’s Project was serendipity, and it would have been worth selling blood and organs to join had it been necessary.  But watching two people living their passions as I rediscover mine has enriched the experience in ways I couldn’t anticipate.  The workshop encourages us all to follow our passions.  My parents are showing me how to thrive on them for the rest of my life.