Parenting: Things you Already Know but We All Need to Be Reminded Of

It's been a (whole lotta) minute(s) since I've written anything but I've been thinking as we slowly start to scatter again ...

You can wish for a confirmation email that the Universe has your order every time you release your child into the wild. “Hello, your order’s in the kitchen! Track the status of your order here.”

Or, you can remember that contract provision came baked in when you got their birth certificate. We’ve never been their sole carer. Monsters under the bed. Mountains in real life. It’s all a risk and it's all above our pay grade.

You can anticipate a whole bunch of things your child might do or say, and worry about a thousand more things someone or something could do or say to them. “Danger. High voltage. Child on my mind.”

Or, you can position yourself to be surprised by them and rewire your thoughts to new patterns that are quieter then what the world is shouting or moaning about.

Your child may be a thousand miles away or in the next room, but their thoughts are and have always been beyond our reach. Their hunger and need for us to make them food, on the other hand, cannot be dodged.

They give us words. Sometimes so many words, our heads combust, and other times so few words, our hearts fold in on itself. But their thoughts live under their own jurisdiction, evolving with each new experience, only a fraction of them turning into things said out loud and within our earshot.

You can be skilled in your ability to detect your child’s mood in the brevity of a grunt or text, but clueless to how rarely you are the source of them.

You can provide your child a good education, but if you obsess over the best possible one, you may inadvertently paper over a dream that will carry them farther than any official piece of paper.

You can warn them about the agony of a broken heart, even see one coming before they do, or you can tell them the road to love is littered with micro and macro sacrifices but also where all the best blessings are found. A road you can't ride shotgun but one not to be missed.

You can give them a pep talk and your confidence, but not confidence itself. That they have to find for themselves. Not once and for all, but again and again, just like it happens for us.

You can point out a thousand things you child still doesn’t know, or remind them of something they already do but got buried in the rubble of having to remember so much.

You can tell them to do it right now or do it the right way, which will get reinforced wherever they go because a sense of urgency and excellence are table stakes for good living. Or, you can honestly tell them your predictions are meaningless but your bet is always ALL IN on them.

Everesting

There’s a hill a couple miles from our house, on a stretch of road between Roquepine and Mas d’Avignon in the South West of France. It’s a rural, barely traveled farm road connecting two ridge lines. On new authority, I can tell you it sees less than a half dozen cars in a normal day.

The last time I was up at 5:15am the day after NYE might well have been never. But unprecedented times, in service of an audacious goal, call for unprecedented wake up calls.

This audacious goal was not mine. I don’t yet have goals for 2021. I figure I’ll have some extra planning time. But my 17 year old son Colin has been mapping out this plan, subject to weather conditions, for weeks. The wind (or lack thereof) and window of opportunity landed him on New Year’s Day.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the crazy endurance challenge called “Everesting?” Probably not, but it’s a thing in the cycling and endurance athlete community.

Everesting is where you pick a hill, anywhere in the world, and ascend it repeatedly until you climb a total of 8,848 meters (or 29,029 feet) - the equivalent height of Mt Everest from sea level- in a single go. You can stop for fuel and be supported but it has to be completed in one 24 hour period.

For perspective, the total elevation gain is more than double the climbing of some of the hardest stages of the Tour de France. Or more simply, it takes longer than there is daylight at this time of year. With that kind of promise of suffering, only about 14,000 people in the world are known to have completed the challenge.

And so, at 5:30am on January 1 2021, Colin rolled out his bike into the cold (1 degree C), extremely dark fog to get acquainted with every groove of that pitched road to Mas D’.

His little brother set his alarm to run over shortly after dawn to run part of it with him. He later came over with his bike to do several ascents. His big brother was checking in hourly by phone. And his Dad (aka bike mechanic) rode three of the hours with him. I kept him fed.

And: HE DID IT. Colin conquered his Everest after 12 hours, 33 minutes in the saddle. Four and a half hours in the dark, 4 punctures and the temperature never crested 3 C. He missed French evening Covid curfew by 8 minutes (whoops). (And he’s official on the Everesting Hall of Fame.)

Our own kids amaze us, people doing courageous things amaze us and yesterday I got to see a rare intersection of those moments. Well done, lad.

Now as I look ahead to the New Year, I have his example of mental toughness and a reminder that sometimes the thing worth doing requires a start or finish in the darkness.

Lawton put together this video to capture the event.

Happy 50th Brett!

It’s one of our most told stories.

It was the summer of 1991. Brett was interning in Washington DC. I was backpacking around Europe for 6 weeks. We had been dating for 6 months.

These were the pre-Internet, pre-mobile phone days when travel involved printed maps, travellers checks and International calling cards for emergency use only. The only real method of communication with people back home then was giving them your itinerary and asking them to send you letters to a few pre-arranged mail stops. Between a fast paced itinerary and sending snail mail across an ocean, you’d be lucky to get a few

37 beautiful love letters found me that summer. One for almost every day I was away. My return rate … well, was not even close. But thankfully, Brett has never been one to keep score on things not involving an athletic competition.

One could chalk this story up to young love except that as Brett turns 50 years old today, the letter writing may have stopped but that same freight train of intention has not slowed. In fact, it’s caught more people up in its web including our three boys who have experienced their own versions of his undeterred, antennae up, daily doses of love.

Character doesn’t just happen, it has to be cultivated. I have watched this man over the past 30 years be curious about what and who he doesn’t know and stay rooted in what he does. And it’s the intersection of these two qualities that has made him progressively less interested in being right and way more interested in being love. It’s why whether in his personal or professional life, he is happiest when he can help someone else shine. Or, when he walks into a store like he did this weekend in Spain he can chat up someone he doesn’t know and walk out having made a friend named Todi.

We throw around the word “legend” in our house a lot. As in “that guy’s a legend.” It’s our shorthand speak for someone who has has gone out of their way to be awesome. Brett, you are our ORIGINAL LEGEND and today we celebrate 50 years of your awesomeness.

Thankfully, you won’t be keeping score on who did more for each other’s 50th birthday .. because once again, it won’t even be close. But by now we know it’s not things or attention you want but stories to treasure. And also a good workout and a good meal.

So here’s to the start of your next decade of story making. Happy birthday, my love.

If a dining room table could talk

Trier, Germany. Almost eight years ago. A furniture store called Mobel Martin. There we bought a dining room table for our new apartment in Luxembourg. Our intention was to keep the table for two years and then resell it when we moved back to the USA. Neither of those things happened. We moved to London and we kept the table, relegating it to puzzle duty.

This week that same table is getting ready to move again. This time from London back to Luxembourg. We however are not going with it.

If this dining room table could talk. It might tell you about an unhappy 15 year old whose parents forced him to make an international move to Luxembourg as he was starting high school. Soon though it will be recording lively chatter as the hub of work and late night dinners of that now 22 year old who’s chosen Luxembourg for himself. A full circle, or more acutely, rectangle moment.

Quinn is moving to take a job in Luxembourg this Friday. Like so many young people forced into a gap year at home not of their choosing, he is excited about forward progress. About the job, the work visa that comes with it, his own apartment, being in the same city as his girlfriend and already having a community of friends in Luxembourg.

For him and all of us, any reflection of 2020 has disappointment and loss baked in the cake, but there have been some unanticipated gains too.

*With a household busy with work and school, Quinn has been my most constant companion this year. I’ve gotten to be “the first to know” at a time in his life where that wouldn’t ordinarily be the case. It’s been a good gig.

* I replaced my FB scrolling with a much more interesting live feed. I got my own personal data wonk for Covid stats, the 2020 election and sports stats I didn’t need.

* We both got to explore London through new eyes while running. Although we didn’t run together, we swapped details on running routes and delighted in sharing this most unusual blip in time where London was as close to a national park city as it will ever be. Also, Quinn has gotten incredibly fast.

* We benefited from an even stronger voice of conservation and frugalness in the house. I am trying to remember to turn the bathroom light off. I will however continue to order as many flat whites as I please.

* I’ve learned that I suffer from mentionitis: a tendency towards repeating myself regardless of relevance to the topic at hand. It’s possible to contract trace this back to sports stats I didn’t need to hear.

* My boys have always gotten along well but there is strength in numbers. Any middle schooler and high schooler living under the same roof, during a pandemic, could use a buffer. To have that plus one be your big brother who is four years wiser from having lived away from home and also genuinely interested in YOU is a pretty awesome cushion.

* What’s less cushy but equally important is younger siblings seeing that the struggle to launch is real. Pandemic or no pandemic, college degree or no college degree, it takes time to find your legs and the right opportunity to stretch them.

Quinn, you are marathon ready in more ways than one. Godspeed my son and 2020 companion. I can’t wait to be a visitor at your dining room table.

Sum of the Parts

When I was growing up, nearly four decades ago now, my parents did not concern themselves with the rubric of self esteem.  Dinner time was less “magic circle” where my siblings and I took turns freely expressing our deepest feelings.  It was more nightly warfare involving my brother and a plate of green vegetables.  My parents expected us to do our best and appropriately acknowledged whatever modest trophy-worthy achievements we had, but there was no cash windfall or refrigerator posting of any of it.  

In truth, the refrain I heard most - when good things happened or when adolescence was making its familiar mess - was this:  “Remember honey, there will always be someone more accomplished, smarter, prettier, kinder, more athletic and who doesn’t look like a ballerina playing basketball, but there is no one, not one, who has your unique combination of all those things.” 

As a first born striver, that came as a great relief.  Also helpful when I failed to make the tennis team or place in the Miss Teen of Indiana 4-H Competition.  But mostly, it made sense because had they told me I was the best or among the best in any one of those areas, I’d know they were not telling the truth.

Correlation and causation are hard to parse, but this knee-jerk remembrance came back recently when a friend asked me about the source of my glass half full outlook.  It happened while we were on a run, where endorphins like to elbow us into honest self disclosure.   

I answered by pointing to this refrain and how my parent’s deliberate choice to celebrate the whole me rather than one fleeting achievement gifted me a certain bedrock of confidence.  In the same way it’s risky to put all your stock in one company, we open ourselves up to insecurities when we bet our self worth on what superficially seems to be our biggest asset.  And while it’s natural to want to pluck out our strengths and bury our weaknesses, the real beauty worth beholding - the thing that will always fill at least half a glass - is the sum of our parts.  

I went on to tell my friend that over the years, the accelerant to that reassurance has been the ongoing experience of the miracle of being fully understood and unconditionally loved.  Yes in part by my family, my husband and children, but more acutely in a cosmic way.

I spent my childhood singing “Jesus loves me, this I know,” but that was no guarantee that my mind and heart would swing open to the audacious dare behind those simple words.  In the same way that writing down a great quote doesn’t make it more real in your life, examining God at a distance is no better than imagining a vending machine in the sky. But I have been daring to believe that I am deeply loved by divine love, just as I am.  And, in this paradoxical way, these tender words of unconditional love both tops up my glass and gives me the kick in the pants I need to do and love better.

No matter how many aces we were dealt, none of us are immune to self doubt.  Furloughed confidence happens regularly.  And because it does we must plan for it by nurturing what is more true than a stumbling block in the road.   To be happy in your skin most of the time doesn’t have to be unrealistic or left to the On Cloud Niners.  When something in your life isn’t going to plan or even approaching takeoff, when stay home orders and overbaking cloak you in an extra eight pounds you do not want, when social media tempts you into thinking nine out of ten people are doing better than you, may I ever so gently remind you or tell you for the first time:

You are the beautiful, crazy, unique sum of your parts.  And those parts are on a trajectory.   Today’s trouble might be the headline, but good news is often buried in the graphs where every data point matters. 

(Written with love to Meredith, my running friend, who encouraged and reminded me that one of my parts — recently on a long furlough - was that of a writer.)

Lockdown, Phase 2 Observations..

1/ We have all started and broken habits during quarantine but the only one keeping score is you.  And probably your one eagle-eyed kid. 

2/ Now we all know the day and exact time of our garbage, recycle, and clean green pick up and we can’t wait because things are really, legitimately full.

3/ When the time is right (and I think it’s now), purge that piece of clothing that waves the shelter-in-place flag.

4/ Reusable masks and wearing lipstick.  There has to be a way.

5/ I can only azoom my children are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.  I’m staying safe and cameoing in for when they least expect it.

6/ If your husband asks you if you think the baristas at his regular coffee shops miss him, it would be good of you to give him a bold yirgacheffe yes.

7/ By now we’ve accepted the fact that we haven’t written our first book or learned the choreography to “Juicy” by Doja Cat.  Or is that just me?

8/ All I know is no one invited me to do a push up challenge.  

9/ As a runner, I confess to some non-essential miles.  But in my defense, empty city sidewalks + spring + clean air +  A RULE that says you can only do it once a day. 

10/ My windows are still dirty which tells me I’m either in the denial or acceptance phase.

11/ Does making six different versions of banana bread qualify as staying sane?

12/ For those on your Last Straw, there is nothing wrong with making “The Last Dance” on Netflix part of your child’s Spring 2020 curriculum.

13/ Dreamers, this is your moment.  Planners, this is your mourning.   

14/ Rest assured.  We will rise and we have the sourdough starter to prove it. 

More Isolation Observations

More isolation observations…

1/ As it went down on my husband’s Monday morning call.  Boss: “How was the weekend?”  In perfect British deadpan : “Pretty quiet.  We mostly stayed in.”

2/ US schools have a one week spring break.  UK schools have a three week spring break. Anyone want to swap lives with me now?  

3/ Try convincing kids that being a professional video gamer or YouTube star aren’t real jobs now.

4/ I, this home’s only caretaker of pretty little things, suggested we move the TV to the living room mantle.  Who am I?

5/ I don’t have a clear picture if I took my daily medication once, daily, or 17 times last week.

6/ When this is all over, party RSVPs won’t be necessary.  The answer is 100% yes and how many friends can I bring.

7/ I never used to understand why people bought those big trampolines for their backyard.  Now I know they were brilliant.

8/ Pretty soon we’ll be getting our at home working spouses a picture of their office for their desk.

9/ I’ve been doing an online cooking school which is either a great idea or me playing the martyr.

10/ How many new spaces have you found or repurposed in your house?  And how hard did you kick yourself for not doing it sooner.

11/ Remember that happy feeling you used to get when you put on your favorite pair of pajamas.  That feeling is gone.

12/ Your shopaholic friends don’t need you to call them, they need you to find something in your closet and send a care package.

13/ In my defense, I was trying to be pandemic correct.

14/ It’s a runner world’s problem, but we’re keeping in a lot of our spit.

15/ The only person who says you should be making every moment of this extra time productive is you.  So tell yourself to back off.

Hello Friday. It's been forever ...

Hello Friday.  It’s been forever ...

1/ This week I ordered a box of fish.  The label said “use within 3 days.” Normally this would feel like pressure.  Right now it feels like my chance at victory.

2/ “Where’s my shoes?” has been replaced by “Where’s my earbuds?”  If I didn’t know where your shoes were, you already have the answer to where I think your earbuds are.

3/ To spring forward for daylight savings used to be so exciting.  Now it just means we have to wait an extra, super duper long hour to go to bed. 

4/ Remember when our kids wore backpacks and sometimes they forgot them at home.  We would walk 4 miles, in the snow, uphill to bring it to them now.

5/ Husband to me mid morning: “I don’t have my loyalty card with me today.”  I made him the coffee anyway.

6/ Instagram needs a new filter called “Quarantine” which adds a glass window in front of your image, creating a blurred and sad effect.

7/ This crisis has created a whole new genre of hilarious and inspirational video making.  What hasn’t changed is what I find hilarious and inspirational is NOT the same thing my children find. 

8/ “Oh yeah, Mom. One of my classmates asked during class why you have such weird artwork in your bedroom.”  As if a Mother’s privacy needed further invasion.

9/ Right about now wouldn’t it be nice to hear Mr. Rogers reassure us that it’s going to be a beautiful day in the living room.

10/ Since we are all washing our hands now with more regularity, would it be ok if we extended that ask to after you eat PB&J and before you touch my computer.

11/ Is anyone taking a middle of the road wardrobe approach?  From the screenside looks of it, it’s glam or glum and glum is winning.

12/ If your children already thought your office job sounded boring, 2020 is not likely to be the year you change their mind.

13/ I wonder if all you gluten free people are chuckling that we can’t find flour.  It’s only fair. We all did that when we tried your “bread.”   

14/ Many weeks ago I ordered a box of wine from Italy.  Its delivery has understandably slowed for not being an essential good.  This week my husband ordered and received his shipment of Burts Bees chapstick. The system is rigged.

15/ Running while social distancing in parks is the new dodge ball.

16/ Time heals all wounds except I’m really not sure about some of those haircuts you’ve given your husbands.

17/ Have you come downstairs for coffee, tea, hopes that I’ve made the 5th smoothie of the day, or just the one change in scenery available?

18/ I fear my children for when they return to the public and have forgotten how to hold it in.

19/ To the little girl in one of our neighboring back gardens singing at the top of her lungs: “This girl is on fire!”  Honey, your Mom can’t hear you anymore but we can.

Enjoy your 30three day weekend! 

Uncut Gems

One of the few regular things I do these days is take a daily call from my sister as she commutes into work. In Seattle, she has responsibility for training and deploying RNs into Urgent Respiratory Clinics. Like so many of our healthcare workers and first responders, she’s working 12 hour days. It’s not lost on me that while she’s on the battlefield, I could be in the bathtub.

This crisis has either stopped you in your tracks or demanded more out of you than you thought possible. It’s a two party system: Key Workers and Everyone Else. The payloads are vastly different but we all have a part to play even if that part is confined to a thousand or so square feet.

For those of us not fighting on the front lines or for our lives, we know there’s some uncut gems in waiting. We have all read stories of how innovation, creativity and kindness are often sparked during times such as these. And while few of us will make discoveries in calculus, optics and a little thing called gravity like Sir Issac Newton did while social distancing during the Great Plague of 1666, a more modest light bulb moment might be possible.

I don’t know about you but I’m still waiting for the pivot moment. This time in isolation no longer feels like a shock but it continues to feel like a holding pattern. We all know a massive reset button is being pushed and it isn’t clear how and when we might expect to come out the other side. Each day the reality of our house arrest settles in a little bit deeper but our minds and hearts haven’t yet gone free range. We all have loved ones we are concerned for.

One of my children reminded me this morning that instead of making my “Isolation Lists” for Facebook I could be studying French. To which I say c'est la vie. I’m not there yet. I’m here in this place where schedules have been laid bare and the shield of busyness suspended, looking for stability in an uncertain global crisis.

This brush with a Real Life Drama is confirming that the world in all its beauty can be as terrifying as we feared. Our hunches were right even if we misjudged the thing that would bring us to a standstill. Interconnectedness used to be a nice but hollow word but which we now know to be serious and true. We are in fact learning that no one has easier love than this, to lay down on the couch for one’s friends.

From the looks of it, we will have all of April and likely May to make our pivot. The world may be shut down, but thankfully many of us still have a long runway to start up.

Let the isolation times roll ..

Let the isolation times roll...

1. So you’re suggesting I don’t make a family announcement about every Live Update?  

2. Isn’t it adorable that we all still check the daily weather forecast. 

3. This too shall pass but not before all the Easter Eggs that will be hidden inside are found. 

4. Chances are very, very high that I will be repeating myself.  My stories need an audience and my current reach is 4.

5. We’re in this together but your TBT travel photos are triggering.

6. I am doing the invisible work of anticipating your needs and wondering if Amazon Prime can deliver it or if you’ll be needing more of me. 

7. We can order takeout to support local business or takeout to support my mental health.  Either way, this Lunch Lady is off the clock.

8. My son has named our not so special moments “Quarantine Quarrels.”  It sounds cuter than they are.

9. Celebrate the little things.  April has one less day than March!

10.  Prove to me that you did not touch what just came through the mail slot.  Good, now wash your hands.

11. I do appreciate the exercise videos fitness instructors are so helpfully posting but more in a Netflex kind of way.

12. Why do you listen to everything Dr Fauci has to say but only about 33% of what I have to say? 

13. Here’s a question that’s getting a lot of play but not a lot of uptake in my house:  “Do you want to do something together?”  

14. The next two things on my calendar are: April 1 (April Fool’s Day) and April 6 (Houseparty Wine Event.)  I’ve moved April 6 to an All Day event. 

15. This would be the time to listen to Bob Dylan’s newly released 17 minute song if I liked Bob Dylan’s music and my attention span had not been shot by the last two decades.

16. Right now my life’s work is not taking this glove off while I try to punch in my pin code at the grocery store.

17. Remember how we used to imagine the 5 things you might need to survive if you were deserted on an island. I think the number they meant was 500.

18. To all the retail stores I foolishly gave my email address to, I Miss You Too!

19. “I’m leaving now for my daily exercise.  Should I take a key or will someone be here?”