Snow and Chairs and Slippers

 The house still smells faintly of the Indian food no one else eats, and a pair of emoji slippers sits mere steps away from the back door. Out in the sunroom, the office chair is almost in the center of the room, as though someone pushed it back from the table and just left it there.

But the driveway is empty.

She's gone back home. 

I was in a Zoom class when she left, and I missed her by less than ten minutes. I got to give her a quick hug between classes, though, and to tell her how much we enjoyed having her here. The quiet I'd hoped for has returned, but it feels more melancholy than peaceful.

This empty nest parenting of a young adult is a tricky business, a constant balancing act between hovering and relishing every moment she's back under our roof. I know I hug her too much and complain too much about the disarray she creates in typically clear spaces. I struggle to relax into a routine that allows me to accomplish my day-to-day responsibilities while being flexible enough to be available for things she wants to do. I don't have much of a poker face, and when I am worried or annoyed, it shows, no matter how much I don't want either of those things to color her visit, or how much I know I'll regret moments lost to such emotions when she heads back home.

She's happy. She's independent. Level-headed and kind, working in a field where she shares that kindness with others, making their lives better in the process. She has, indeed, surpassed all we'd hoped she would become, and this gives us reason to feel proud and oh so fortunate, knowing that not all parents are lucky enough to say the same thing.

I know from experience that this melancholy will dissipate. Like the aroma of the meal she microwaved for lunch, it will hang in the air for longer than I'd like, but not long enough to be unbearable. We'll fall back into our routine and she'll fall back into hers, keeping in touch from a distance. I know, too, that these feelings are the flip side of something very, very good: the joy I feel in having a child with whom I enjoy spending time. 

It won't be long until she's back for another visit-- or we go out to see her -- because she likes spending time with us, too.

And that -- that being chosen -- by itself, makes up for the melancholy.

Remembering

  Today, I'm thinking of my dad, who lives not too far away from me, and my mom, who's no longer with us, on what would have been their 65th wedding anniversary. I'm thinking about how lucky I am to have had them, their love, and their example for so much of my life, and how much I learned about relationships just from watching them. The older I get, the more I recognize my mom in me, but I still have a fair bit of my dad as well. The same is true of my daughter, a mix of not only her father and me, but of her grandparents on both sides as well, and I am grateful for the role every one of them plays in my life.

From the time I was born, my mother tells me, I looked like my dad. These days, as middle age takes my hair strand by strand, this is perhaps increasingly true. When my friends met my dad at the rehearsal dinner for my wedding, they immediately matched my temperament to my dad's as well, getting quite a good laugh at the glaring similarities between the two of us.

Then one day, a few weeks ago, my aunt jokingly called me "Joy Jr." Joy, as you can no doubt tell, is not my dad, but rather, my mom. Physically, I bear little resemblance to my mom, something I, as a mother, find patently unfair since she did all the heavy lifting for the first nine months of my existence. Still, while my looks and sense of humor are unadulterated McCabe (Dad), clearly my mom's influence is represented as well. The older I get, the more I see the myriad ways in which this is true.

This is probably a good thing, this mix of qualities--something that contributes to not just a good family joke, but to survival as well. As any parent will tell you, a shared understanding between a parent and a teen with similar temperaments is not enough to stave off the battles fought between birds of a feather. The opposite parent is quite often the one who can attract family harmony.

As an instructor of psychology, I could go on and on about nature and nurture and survival of the fittest. I could talk about family dynamics and the way we simultaneously copy and reject the lessons of our youth.

But I won't.

What I'll say instead is that I'm grateful, as both parent and child, for the blend that makes each of us who we are. From the moment the pregnancy test comes back positive, we're secretly (or, perhaps not so secretly) wishing for our kids to have that mix--her brains, his athletic skills. His math skills, her facility with language. Her sense of humor, his height.

In the end, these are the things that connect us--the shared traits and the shared experiences. They makes us a family and they prepare us to deal with those who are like us and those who are not. To develop empathy and wisdom and strength. To spread our wings, and to fly back home.

Me? I've got my mom's eyes and my dad's hair. Her sense of what a mother is and his sense of humor.   Their values, their lessons and their integrity have shaped me, as my husband's and mine have shaped my daughter. My life experience has refined that shape, for better or for worse, and, as my daughter steps out into the world, she'll be refined as well.

How about you? What shape are you? What shape do you wish you were?

Overdue

 Starting a new semester can be a challenge. Though most of the material is familiar, most of the students are not. Even when there are familiar faces, there are still a lot of names to learn and, occasionally (like this semester, for example), I've made content or textbook changes extensive enough to leave me feeling as though I'm (barely) one step ahead of my students. My schedule may or may not be the same as it was last semester (it isn't) and, even when it is, it doesn't coincide with the waking and sleeping patterns that come naturally to me when I have time off between semesters.

Is this terrible? Not by a long shot. I love the flexibility of my job and the freedom I have to change a daily lesson or even a textbook. I enjoy what I teach and am excited to share it all with my students.

But that's where I run into trouble. 

Sort of.

The week before classes started, I got a notice that my library books were due. Fortunately, I was able to renew them and avoid getting to the point where they moved from due to overdue.

Little did I know that would be the theme of the next two weeks.

Getting adjusted to new students, new approaches, and the myriad details that accompany the start of a new semester means that more than library books meet this fate. It also happens with laundry, household projects...

And blog posts. 

I used to think I'd hit a magical point of experience where this transition would smooth out; only recently have I accepted the fact that that train is not on any track in sight. 

Consequently, I've made some adjustments. I've learned to start my prep earlier than I think I need to. I've learned to prioritize the projects on my overly optimistic to-do lists, focusing my precious end-of-break time on the ones that will bring me the most peace of mind. I've learned that, most days, I'll run out of day (or energy) long before I get to everything I hoped to do and, because of that, some tasks will move from due to overdue.

Like this blog post. 

I've learned to set practical guidelines for myself, like "no laundry on Wednesdays unless it's an emergency" because Wednesdays are my office hour days and therefore the days on which it's most likely that things will not go according to plan. And, on those days, when I get home, I'm not up for facing a load of wet clothes in the washing machine.

Even when things go smoothly, a transition can still feel like a bumpy ride. And, on bumpy rides, things get jostled, and maybe even fall out of the vehicle, especially if we've overpacked it in the first place. And, when that happens, all that's left to do is pick them up, dust them off, and take care of them.

Even if they're overdue.

Snow Many Choices

 Baby, it's cold outside! 

I started the day in the sunroom, as usual. The one advantage to the frigid temperature is that it's preserving Sunday's snow, making the view from our sunroom a lovely one. Still, one of the advantages of working from home is choosing where to do that work, especially when I have the house to myself.  Cold as it is, I decided to give the heater in the sunroom a rest. 

Until tomorrow. 

In re-reading the post below (from seven years ago!), I realized that my snow days have come almost full circle. These days, I'm more likely to do classwork than write, especially when the snow arrives the week before classes start. There's something inspiring about the snow, though, whether it's inspiring ideas for my books or ideas for the classroom.

There are many things I miss about those hectic snow days when my daughter was small but an endless parade of wet clothes and dirty dishes is not on that list. Today, I'm grateful for the luxury of a warm, quiet house that offers me my choice of spaces in which to do the work I must get done.

Image by Terri Cnudde from Pixabay

It is snowing. And snowing. And snowing. I finally got the snow day I've been hoping for.

And I am at loose ends.

When I was single (many, many years ago) and living by myself, snow days were a lovely gift. They came with permission to sleep in, do whatever I wanted and hang out in my pjs all day if I wanted to. And I often wanted to.

When I was a newlywed, this changed very little. My husband's office didn't do snow days, so my snow days proceeded much as they always had. Sure, a few household things made it onto the to-do list for the day, but I didn't feel too obligated to stray from my usual snow day plan, though I made sure to shower and put on real clothes before he came home.

When I became a parent, the rules changed. Suddenly, someone else was hanging around for the duration of my snow day, and she wanted to be entertained. This was fun most of the time, and indoctrinating my daughter into my "all day in our pjs" plan took very little persuasion.

As my daughter grew older, she took on her own snow day plans. Picking up wet clothes, making hot chocolate and trying to get a few things done around the plans she made began to impact my lazy day-at-home-plans. When the weather was bad enough to keep my husband at home, too, I managed to get some writing done during their jaunts outside.

These days, my husband and I are empty nesters and technology has made it possible for both of us to work from home on my snow days. As the partner who works from home for at least part of every day, this requires some adjustment on my part. I love having him here, but our work styles are very different. I work best in silence and I put on a sweater when I get cold. He sets the thermostat higher, likes music in the background and frequently makes noise in my quiet house. This is only fair, of course, since he lives here, too, and I have no right to complain, especially some of those noises come from things like emptying the dishwasher and running the snow blower. Still, as the person who works from home on a daily basis, I find myself struggling to accomplish the things I set out to do on my beloved snow days.

Jill111 via Pixabay

This, too, has changed. I'm less likely to curl up with a book, or stretch out on the sofa and watch a movie. The time available in a snow day, like currency, is finite and I want to spend it wisely. I usually sleep in, nearly always write and try to do some adulting (household projects, neglected to-do list items, laundry) as well. Still, these days go much too quickly.

As I look out on the beauty just outside my window, it seems only right to take a deep breath and seek to inhale a dose of the serenity the snow on the trees evokes. An antidote to the need to succeed that accompanies the lists I make and the tasks I set for myself, maybe it's trying to tell me something.

Like it's (still) okay to spend the day in my pjs.

Me First

Image by kp yamu Jayanath from Pixabay

 My life is busy (isn't everyone's?), and much of the busyness feeds my heart, soul, and self-confidence, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exhaust me. Days have only 24 hours and finding a balance between engaging in those important and necessary activities and taking time for ourselves can be very challenging.

I recently downloaded a book with short daily reflections – not the first one I’ve downloaded like this -- but this one has turned out to be an excellent fit. Not only is the material relevant, but I found an unexpected bonus in that the brevity of each reflection belies its value. 

When we think of self-care, we think of long stretches of time – days off, weekends away, beach vacations -- or at least I do. But in order for self-care to be consistent and effective, it has to fit into our lives. And when our lives are busy, sometimes self-care has to fit into really small spaces. When that happens, it’s important to find activities that are short enough to allow for consistency, but valuable enough to actually give us the self-care boost that we need.

My point (which I seem to have taken a long time to get to) is that the value of the activity doesn’t always lie in the amount of time it takes. A quick reading that touches your heart, makes you laugh out loud, or feeds your spirit is counts as self-care as much as a day at the spa. Even better, it costs only a small investment of time, making it accessible to those of us who don’t have the means or opportunity to go on a cruise or a spa weekend. 

Yet, its impact can echo. Whether we're reading or journaling (or both),  the words can linger long after we've finished reading them. Sometimes, they can even spur us into action, making them (arguably) more valuable than a pricey experience whose benefits diminish almost as quickly as the value of a new car does when we drive it off the lot.

Self-care matters, but we often dismiss it or find that it gets pushed to the bottom of (or even off of) our to-do lists. We all have a few minutes here and there throughout the day. Whether we spend them reading, journaling, meditating, exercising, taking a nap, writing a blog post (or some combination of these) is up to us. How we spend them is much less important than the impact they have. 

The first step in establishing a self-care routine is deciding what self-care means to us. How will you start?

Writing Rhythms

 Six years later, every word is still true.  

When my husband proposed, he didn't know he'd be marrying a writer. Then again, neither did I.

I mean, he knew I liked to write but, when we met, community theatre was my creative pursuit. Writing was something I did sometimes. Community theatre shows came with a schedule -- albeit a very-time consuming one -- attached.

Writing does not.

When we first met, I was working full-time as an elementary school counselor in a large school district. A part-time opening arose in a smaller district and I jumped at it. Suddenly, I was working four days a week instead of five.

So, on the fifth day, I wrote.

Life was so much simpler then. It was just the two of us and, although I took my writing time and my budding freelance career seriously, I could compartmentalize it. It was not yet a career unto itself with a tendency to ooze outside the walls in which I contained it.

Fast forward two decades (give or take). Motherhood, a different job, regular writing gigs, book contracts and the occasional show at the community theatre all clamor for the time that was once allotted for just my husband and me, and none of these things has any desire to stay in its lane. Once adept at exiting one lane and merging into another at a moment's notice, I now (often) feel as though I'm navigating oncoming traffic. It's kind of exciting (when it's not terrifying).

It's a good life in which ideas reign, jockeying for position alongside relationships, holidays and life in general. But the trouble with ideas is that they don't tend to stay in their own lane. Although sitting down to write at a specific time builds a good writing habit, it doesn't necessarily mean the ideas will show up at the allotted hour. And the trouble with the aging brain is that it can't hang onto the ideas that pop up unexpectedly, like a great roadside attraction, as well as it used to.

In the first writing class I took, I remember being advised to carry a notebook around with me to jot down those ideas as they popped up. As a twenty-something with a reliable memory, I didn't fully understand the importance of that advice, but I do now. I have notebooks everywhere -- in my purse, in my school bag, in my car, in my office and in the dresser beside my bed. My husband barely even notices when I open the drawer beside the bed at 3 AM to jot down something I don't want to forget. Today, before putting the finishing touches on this post, I consolidated no less than five lists with ideas, to-dos and random thoughts.

Welcome to the inside of my brain.

manueldesign via Pixabay

My husband has been a pretty good traveling companion, especially for someone who had no idea what this ride would entail. He doesn't understand that writing is like a small child. It needs attention and it needs down time to consolidate all that has happened. If ignored, it will pester the writer, making her cranky until she attends to it and, for her part, if the writer is away from the writing for too long, she will miss it. Absence will, indeed, make the heart grow fonder, engaging the writer's selective memory so that she recalls only how lovely it was to spend time in writing's presence, but not the long silence, angry spats and misspoken words.

For writing, every day is the same. It doesn't understand, nor does it respect, weekends, holidays and a full night's sleep. It will call the writer away from all of these things, luring her with a new idea, a well-turned phrase or the perfect plot/character/ending/beginning that it has withheld for so long.

As I write this, I am being interrupted every ten minutes or so by the kitchen timer, reminding me to take Christmas cookies out of the oven. After I post this, I will want nothing more than to move on to another writing endeavor, but errands, wrapping and other holiday responsibilities will pull me away from my keyboard.

Wherever I go, writing will be my traveling companion, growing more vociferous the longer I stay away. Like a child, it doesn't yet understand that, no matter where I go, I carry it with me and no matter how long I am away, I will always be back.

I am a writer, and those are the rules of the game.

Jersey Girls Don't Rule -- Except When They Do

 Once upon a time, a school counselor wrote a book of scenarios for adults to use with children of divorce. Each scenario featured different characters and situations and each character had his or her own voice. Some were compliant; others were strident. Some were sad; others were defiant. Some spoke properly; others saw grammar as merely a guideline. 

As a result, some were more easily accepted into a book written to be used by school counselors who, after all, worked in schools where things like proper grammar and a lack of defiance were valued.

One of these characters, a girl named Keesha, had a good heart, but lacked not only the finer things in life, but also the polish that comes from having those things. This lack of polish led to her exit from the book.

But Keesha would not stop talking. She knew she'd found an audience in the author who had created her, and she insisted that the author make a place for her, ideally in a book of her own.

The author tried to honor Keesha's wishes, but other editors and agents were similarly put off by Keesha's voice, which frequently hid the tender heart that she went to a great deal of effort to keep a secret.

Or perhaps they didn't like the writing. Or there was another issue. In any event, Keesha remained homeless, at least in the publishing world, and eventually her voice grew faint, even to the author who had created her. 

Then Amazon, who had made a home for Marita and her friends, started a platform called Vella. Because Keesha was written more for children than adults, a serialized platform seemed like a good place for her to try out her voice, one chapter at a time. 

And, for a while, it was.

But eventually, Kindle closed down the Vella platform. Once again, Keesha was homeless.

And once again, she refused to be silenced. She's pretty determined that way.

So, on a January day, Keesha moved out of Vella and into a home of her own between the covers of an ebook. Her voice, still as strong as ever, could now be shared all at once, or a little at a time, depending on the preference of the reader.

But, because not everyone likes ebooks, Keesha insisted on another format as well. And so on Monday, January 20, Keesha's story will also be available in paperback.

Keesha is very happy with this ending, as is the author who created her. 

Keesha is also pushing for a sequel.

We'll see.