The Artful Empty Nest

And so it begins...

For 23 years, my life has unfolded in the same way a bird's flight is influenced by the elements in which it flies.  In spite of a bird's best effort and practice in flying, she is always, albeit sometimes imperceptibly to the naked eye, affected by the wind, the weather, the currents and the changes in temperature of her environment.  The same bird who is focused on her nest and her tasks must also submit to the influence of the elements that delay or change her course.  There have been times in these 23 years where my children have been my baby birds (safe under my watchful eye in our well- appointed nest) and there have been many times when they have been the buffeting wind that changes my course. 

In all our phases of being together, this one when my last child has been safely installed in her freshman dorm and I fly back to my suddenly empty nest, is the one for which this blog is dedicated.  I am writing it because I am mindful of how important these life transitions have been to shaping what will come to me next and in the future and so I pay special attention to this latest transition.  I hope my meanderings from the perch of my own empty nest bring comfort, humor and maybe some courage borne of identification to my fellow mama birds, present, past and future.

I have named it “The Artful Empty Nest” to demonstrate my commitment to approaching my own empty nest creatively, mindfully and passionately. I move forward purposefully in gratitude to a Higher Power that has blessed me in more ways than I can repay by living gratefully. So, my empty nest affords me a chance to spend more time in different ways of service and this blog is my humble way of sharing with others now that my children don’t need me home and on call.

Perhaps you will join me in this journey or share your own experiences with me. Even if I stand like a bird on the edge of my empty nest looking out over a quiet expanse, it will still be a beautiful sight worth taking in and I am grateful for the reflection. From that place, I will sing my song. Rumi said “Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being.” And so, I will let the waters settle.

I will not walk this way again

On my way home from work today, I passed the elementary school near my home and saw the families leaving "Back to School Night."  They had the telltale signs of having just attended the beginning of the school year extravaganza with the requisite papers clutched in one hand and little Johnny in the other.  A quick glance up to the informational sign on the corner of the school yard confirmed what I already knew from dozens I had attended over the years. In that instant, memories flooded back to me.

From my firstborns first day at the sweet preschool all my kids attended run by an old woman and guarded by a giant tortoise named Daisy who had been at the school since some of the parents had attended thirty years prior, the parade of memories of school events washed over me like a warm bath and I was transported back to when my life was very magical and simple and I luxuriated in the joy my children experienced.  

I remembered feeling I was being healed from my own traumatic childhood as I held my children's hands and walked through their wonderfilled childhood moments, each and every one.  Those years at the magical preschool evolved into the elementary school years where my kids enjoyed the learning disguised as play at the progressive school I chose for them because it was so different from the structured religious and Ivy League prep school education I endured.  Now that I look back on it, I orchestrated through my careful selections that my kids would be kids for as long as possible and I got to be one a little bit too. 

As a boy and his family crossed at the light where I was waiting, I noticed his Spiderman backpack and remembered the year my 7 year old son wouldn’t answer to anything but "Spiderman" for six months and burst out laughing. At that moment, the family turned and looked at me alone, behind the wheel, laughing hysterically and picked up their pace across the street.

I am not one to reminisce. In fact, I very rarely look back. I am not a scrapbooker, I don’t surround myself with pictures of my children’s youth and I don’t own a single video of my kids rites of passage. But recently, I have been flooded with memories and some real sadness as I accept that I will never walk some very sweet paths again. 

India Dreaming

So, the bad news is I haven’t added to this blog in a few days, but the good news is why. It’s because I was practicing Dreams 2, 4, 9 and 10 in India!

Who turns down an opportunity to go put out a professional fire in India and experience an amazing new place and culture after years of being all about house and home? Um… rhetorical question with only one answer… Pick me! So, when I returned from dropping the little chick off at college and heard there was a need for a ruffled feather smoother at our offices in India, I flew at the chance.

The years I willingly and enthusiastically prioritized being a present Mom for my kids and during which I fully participated in each crazy twist and turn also clipped my wings and I didn’t fly off at a moment’s notice without a thought about who would watch and water my kids. One of the hallmarks of this new phase is the one and only text I sent to my offspring before I sprung off to an exotic location;

Off to work in India for a couple weeks.

Reachable by work email and back the 9^th.

Love you three more than anything.

M

 The newfound freedom of being the mother to three adults!

 I then giggled my way through the airport, savored British Airways gentility that made a 20+ hour flight enjoyable and even felt sorry for the women traveling with small children who certainly weren’t having the same experience I was binge watching British TV series across the Atlantic and then sleeping soundly across the continent to India.

 And India! Since I had never been there, I indulged in every curry tasting, sari shopping, bangle buying and “Yes, Madam” civility that crossed my path.  I even fulfilled a lifelong dream of traveling over a weekend up to Agra to see the Taj Mahal which was just as awe inspiring as my mother, an avid world traveler whose 6 filled passports of stamps from leisure travel over 40 years puts me to shame, told me it was when she insisted I make the time and spend the money to take full advantage of being in the proverbial neighborhood of the magical Taj.

 I can’t imagine a man who would love me so devotedly as to build me a marble monument after I died in childbirth with his 14^th child.  Of course, I can’t imagine being pregnant 14 times.  The fact that I did it three times was a testimony to my short memory and uneventful pregnancies and birth experiences.  Like one of those women who gives birth in the late morning in the rice paddy and then straps the newborn to her back to keep gathering the yield, I did the same with all three of my kids, efficiently and without any drama or war stories to tell visiting relatives.

But, I don’t even remember getting a trinket nonetheless a marble monument to our love. Of course, he did fly in rugalach overnight from my favorite NYC bakery when I gave birth to his first son.  It was damn good rugalach, so that definitely counts as a grand gesture!

I wonder what other new mothers got to memorialize the birth of their child from their mate. Any grand gestures of  your own to share? 

Dreams take flight

When I first got divorced after a long marriage to my children's father and was grieving deeply, I experienced moments of tremendous generosity when total strangers lifted me up and carried me forward. Even though I felt like I was walking neck deep through thick mud, I still had to show up for work and for my children and accomplish all the everyday tasks. It was during the commission of one of these tasks as I was standing at the check out counter at my local grocery store silently with tears streaming down my face that the checker finished scanning and bagging my items and then came around the island, hugged me and whispered in my ear “You will be alright because your children need you to be.”

It was during this time I resolved to save myself for myself and for my children.  Luckily, my deeply rooted sense of self- preservation kicked into high gear, steered me away from tumbling headfirst into a bottle for a good, long period of numb and brought another revelation that put me on solid footing of the road of healing. I realized one of the most difficult parts of the divorce process (second only to the grief of losing the love I had counted on for a lifetime) was that all my dreams had departed with my husband.  All those years, I had enjoyed dreaming dreams that were written for that relationship, located in that house and cast with the members of the family we had created together.  There was not a single dream snapshot I had that did not spring from that relationship. 

As another positive step towards my future (post-apocalyptic divorce) was setting my mind on new dreaming new dreams.  They were my safest method of propulsion through the days, weeks and months when I could not self-propel.   As silly and far reaching as they seemed, I forced myself to dream them through lawyer visits, family counseling sessions, mediation, packing up and moving out of our family home when it sold and the divorce settled, finding a new job and moving my children into the tiny rental that was all I could afford as I rebuilt our nest twig by twig.  Those dreams gave me joy and hope and all the things my children desperately needed to see me inspired by. 

I know the practice of dreaming new dreams works for me and so I have been thinking of new dreams to feather my empty nest in luxurious softness. My rules of dreaming are simple… no budget, no timeline, no limits, no edits. So, here we go!

Dream 1: Spend time everyday writing a little and daydreaming a lot.

Dream 2: Become VP of the company I work for and love showing up to be of service to everyday.

Dream 3: Go on a yoga retreat in some exotic location

Dream 4: Fill the pages of my passport with fantastic stamps of places I have not yet been like Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Bora Bora, China.

Dream 5: Write a card and mail it to someone I love every week because there might be nothing more exciting than receiving a thoughtful card in the mail from a loved one and there are too few of them in the mailbox anymore.

Dream 6: Find a hot playmate and play... a lot.

Dream 7: Practice Italian, go to Italy and find my retirement nest.

Dream 8: Buy a Cadillac, because I deserve one.

Dream 9: Take more baths in a deep bathtub with fabulous, frothy bath bubbles and a good book until the water turns cold.

Dream 10: Eat fabulous food that I don’t have to cook myself.

Well, there’s a start!  What are your dreams feather your empty nest?