Category Archives: young adult children

ground

Posted on by
Reply

Today I get to buy my son shoes.

The years go by.  For a time in my life buying shoes seemed an endless task.  With three children, it seemed like every time I turned around someone needed shoes.

Lately, though, with said children grown and launched, the adventure of shoe seeking is a mother-less affair.  This is good.  Self-sufficiency is a good thing.

But today I get to participate in a ritual whose grooves I know well.

Really, it is not about the shoes.  It’s about tending.  Even though children grow and leave and commence living, they are always tied to their parental units with heart cords.  For the life of me, I haven’t much figured out how not to scan them every time I see them:  are they eating well?  Are their teeth tended?  Are they shod in ways that will keep them dry and warm?  What about that bike helmet?  Are they happy?

The many calculations live in me.  I have to squelch most of the questions I might ask.  I encounter enough eye rolling in our time together.  Said rolling eyes tell me that I have a limited fussing budget to work with, so I have to check in judiciously.

The last time we were together my question had to do with shoes.  Bless him, my son agreed to allow me to replace the beloved (and many-holed) shoes he was wearing.

It felt like victory.

If all goes well, Jameson will walk and bike his way through the winter city in dry and comfortable shoes.

And his mother?  She will feel the warm good of caring for one of her babies.  Sleep comes easier when basics are assured.  As important, I’ll get time to be with one of my favorite people on this planet.

As I anticipate the joy of this seemingly mundane thing, my heart lurches a bit.

I can buy these shoes.  I can fuss and tend and see to it my son is warm and dry.  We’re even going to buy them new, without taking the time to cruise thrift stores, which is often our wont.

This we can do.

What of the so many who cannot?

 

 

Generativity

Posted on by
1

My children do not have children.

I am not in that “grandparent” stage of life; the one where wonder is born while watching life pass from generation to generation.

No, I am living the wonder of watching my children make lives with their lives; their own very lives.

I am blessed with three children.  Two girls and a boy are alive in this world and somehow I got to be a part of their borning.  Their dad and I did our best to love and limit and bless them and then we loosed them.

And they are borning yet.

I just spent our Christmas with them.  Given the realities of divorced families, their dad and I alternate face time for Christmas holidays.  It is his year, so we decided to dine and dig into presents early.

The rituals are beyond price.  The thought put into finding heart gifts is so clear and the joy of knowing that treasures are shared is palpable.

Given that their mom is living vegan these days, I was graced with a Cadillac food processor to shred the heck out of any vegetable that would defy me.

And, from my youngest, an amazing heart gift.  He recorded a CD of original compositions.  The CD carries his voice and his thoughts and his evoking of real through guitar and piano and mandolin and there he is, my son, trusting his parents and the world enough to share his tender and fine heart.

The house is now quiet.  My children have gone to the places that hold them as they make life.

And this heart of mine gives thanks for holding and loosing and borning and the wonder that is love.

 

treasure

Posted on by
1

And so begins another season of life here on Blaisdell.

Oldest daughter Leah and her wildly alive Pit Bull have moved out.  The room that housed her life treasures (and mine, for surely she is life treasure extraordinaire) is emptied.

It surprises me each time I go upstairs, this vacancy.

I am filled with wonder about this elastic and colossal thing called love.  It is a force in life that finds endless ways to hum between parents and children, partners and pets.

Children come, they go, they partner with others, they hurt, they triumph and always always there is space and hunger within me for their being.

I had lunch with my girls yesterday.  We walked arm in arm down the streets of St Paul and shared Thai food, laughter, and hearts.  Advice was sought and shared, notions played out and life swapped.  This morning I had breakfast with my 21-year-old son.  Always this child has been tender of heart and voracious in his hunger for life and living and while being a sometimes terrified bystander to his questing is rough going, my faith in his amazing beauty is boundless.

I have loved every phase of their being, these people who shared my body for a time.  I sometimes long for the days of sleeper jammies and newly washed heads under my chin for reading marathons.  I long on occasion for the days when I could tuck them in at night and rouse them in the morning.  Their presence in my every day was ground of my being.

And, it still is.  They are flown, my babies.  Flown to the lives they are creating through their willingness to engage and stretch and live.

They are treasure unbound.

who’s on first?

Posted on by
Reply

It is a morning of intentional deep breathing for me and for this living thing called my home.

In the next week two people are moving out and two people are moving in.

Rachel is vacating the nest she has lived in for two years.  She has been a most delightful roomie, breezing through the days with updates on life and adventures.  While working AmeriCorps, the third floor of our home was a cheap place to live (the coffee pot is always on, not a bad side benefit).  Now that she has a grown-up girl job in her field (pinch me!  It’s so fine!) she is moving into an apartment with friends.  It’s time and it is right and I will miss her.  Luckily she will be only five blocks away.  This I like.

Son Jameson is moving out.  He landed here six weeks ago after a near-year adventure in New Orleans working AmeriCorps.  At 21, his sense of play and need for friend gaggle is great, so having a house of his own is a near desperate desire.  He got the word yesterday that his rental dream house is his, so he will move this week.  He will be a mile or so away, able to come and go and congregate and music make as he pleases.  This is good.

With Rachel’s move in the offing, we decided to rent out the third floor, so on the 31st we will move into uncharted while familiar territory:  sharing our space, but this time, with a renter.  She will have access to the kitchen and will need to enter and leave through common space.  She is a nice young woman.  I think this will work.

And, frosting on the cake and almost unbelievable to my heart, my eldest daughter is moving back to her people.  Leah has been in Denver making life and learning much and having done her time, she is coming home to a great new job and a rejoicing fan club.  It hasn’t really sunk in yet.  I don’t have to steel myself for inevitable good-byes.  I get to see her and hear her and be with her and love her crazy from a much kinder distance.  She will live here for a time until she finds her own abode. Our house will be filled with her beauty and the fruits of her tiny bread-kneading hands.  She returns bringing with her Chela, a pit bull mix.  I’m trying to send peaceful energies to my creaky black lab and to the energetic and not-well-dog-socialized Chela.  May peace reign in their hearts!

So, a Saturday morning spent alone in this house soon to be stirred into changed and new life is a precious gift.