Riptides and Other Life Adventures

Yesterday my sixteen-year-old daughter Lucia went surfing with her friends. She’s only surfed once before in Mexico and that was when she was ten or eleven years old. She went surfing with her cousin and two friends, all sixteen, to a beach two hours away.

We live in the Pacific Northwest and the water is cold. People die in that water every day. As a mother, especially the mother of a teen, I live in a constant state of low-grade anxiety for what I do not know and what I cannot control. I worry about the big bad world eating up my little girl and spitting her back out. 

At the same time, I want Lucia to have experiences in her life that will make her life richer, more fulfilling. I want her to do things that help her feel engaged and alive. When Lucia told me she was going surfing yesterday I immediately began to worry about her drowning. I didn’t even know one of the kids she was going with. Maybe he was an asshole, one of those kids you read about who is just a bad seed, who always brings trouble. Lucia assured me that this kid was a good kid and a good surfer.

When Lucia and her cousin got home last night they were rosy-cheeked, frizzy-headed, excited, and exhausted. Lucia told me how she’d been hit by a big wave and pulled out into the riptide. She said it was really scary, that she’d tried and tried to swim but felt like she couldn’t get anywhere. Finally, she was able to get back. It wasn’t that long, she said, but it felt like forever.

This is what I had worried about. That the Pacific Ocean would swallow her up and keep her. That her friends would lose sight of her or lack the ability to recover her. That she would die alone and afraid in the freezing cold water. But that didn’t happen. She saved herself. She figured it out. 

At that moment, time stopped. Light swooshed in and around me from all directions — from outside my body, from inside, from above, from below. I was like a time traveler coming back to the present moment. Everything was okay. All of my fears and worries, images of her lost at sea, whirled around me as I looked at my daughter — smiling, healthy, happy, and alive. This was reality. She’d made it. She had figured it out without me.

How many of these moments will my daughter have? Close calls? Almosts? Could have beens? And I will not be with her for most of these moments. The thought of her navigating all of that on her own overwhelms me. How do I prepare her for this life she is living, more and more without me?

When Lucia was little I had the daily satisfaction, a sense of immediate gratification when I helped her cross the street or put on her floaties so she could swim in the lake. I had so much control over keeping her safe. Now all I have are words that I hope she will hear and heed.

We talk about hard things all the time. About drinking and drugs. About dangerous things that might happen at parties. About sex and consent. About birth control. About drowning. But whenever Lucia goes out to a party or to the ocean or in her car, there is a part of me that worries that something will go array. The possibilities for danger in my crazy-mother brain are infinite and (often) irrational.

Yesterday when Lucia saved herself from drowning, I had a moment of clarity. My job is to plant seeds of guidance and wisdom and then nurture the seeds with water and fertilizer. I can share advice with Lucia and engage in regular conversations about risk and choice and discernment. But without sunlight, the seeds will not grow. 

That’s Lucia’s part. Each life experience she lives is sunlight on the seeds. Yesterday at the ocean when she got swept out and felt the fear of danger, that was a life lesson, sunlight on a seed. The time a few weeks ago when she had to call the ambulance for the girl at the party who passed out was sunlight on her seed. Negotiating with her boyfriend about how often she wants to see him is sunlight on her seed. 

I want to believe that with each of these life experiences the seeds are growing into thriving plants that will surround her like a beautiful garden as she moves through life, maybe even growing fruit trees or vegetables. Being the mother of a teenager is gut-wrenching but it helps me to look at it from this angle. These experiences that are scary for me are fruitful for her. Sometimes Lucia will fly too close to the sun, like yesterday in the riptide. I wish I could control that, but I can’t; without sunlight, seeds cease to grow.

In less than two years Lucia will be going to college. She’ll move away from home and have to make decisions mostly on her own. Until she goes I’ll keep planting the seeds, watering and feeding them. And she’ll keep being a teenager, going out and trying new things. And each time she does, I’ll take a deep breath, force a confident smile and say, “Be safe and have a good time. Don’t forget your sunscreen.” 

Opening the Joy Valve

Yesterday I was talking to a friend in England about the feeling of joy. We only talk once a month but it’s always intentional and enlightening. I look forward to these monthly chats. She associated the feeling of joy with the experience of discovering. For many years she was a teacher of young children, a path she chose because she loved being around them in their constantly discovering state.

I remember when my daughter was little. We used to take “night walks.” After dinner, with her sometimes already in her polyester Dora the Explorer short-sleeved nighty, we’d each take a tiny bowl of ice cream and walk up and down our street, eating little spoonfuls as we chatted. The walks were never more than a block or two because there was so much to see, so many questions to ask and answer.

We looked at the tiny blue weed flowers and took our shoes off to walk on the moss. Sometimes we picked blackberries or pondered over the big trash heap behind the house at the corner of the alley. After twenty minutes or so we’d head home, read a story (also an extended undertaking full of observations and questions), and kiss goodnight.

I was never bored by these moments. To be in proximity of my daughter’s experience of discovering was a joyful, energizing experience for me. I understand my friend’s desire to be around that kind of energy all the time.

Last week I had a clothing swap for several friends and their teenage daughters. It was the first large gathering I’ve had in a few years. The idea was for all of us to bring clothes, shoes, and accessories we no longer wore, sort them into huge piles, and then shop each other’s rejects.

The seven mothers and eight daughters perused the piles finding little treasures that they’d try on and either throw into a “keep” pile of their own or toss back into the sorted mounds. After the first go-round people started to form little groups on patches of grass — having a snack, catching up on life, or sharing Tiktoks.

And then slowly people would revisit the piles, this time finding items that might be good for someone else at the swap. This is when it really started to get fun. Someone would hold a blouse up and shout, “Laura, this is perfect for you” or a mother would hold up a dress for her daughter, suggesting she try it. Occasionally, the daughter would say yes but more often she’d roll her eyes and reply, “You try it!” 

It wasn’t the outcome that mattered, it was the exchanges, the interactions, the idea of sharing discoveries with each other. It was the laughing, the teasing, the trying on, and modeling that sparked moment after moment of joy.

For the past eighteen months we’ve been living in relative isolation, at first because we were in fear, but later just out of habit. Socializing became more of a special event than part of daily life.

Reflecting on the sheer happiness I had at this gathering, I could see clearly that I have been living in isolation for too long. Isolation is truly the opposite of discovering. Isolation is quiet, still, hidden, and closed. Discovery is expansive, unknown, exciting, colorful, and thrilling.

During the clothing swap party, I became engulfed in a twister of joy that came from each of us, alone and together, discovering. I discovered a tie-dyed silk dress that I never would have selected for myself. My daughter found a simple beige t-shirt that ended up being perfect for her new job as a busser. One of my friends whose daughters couldn’t come, went home with two bags of clothes and shoes for them to try at home.

When I told my friend in England about how profound my joy was during this clothing swap, she wisely observed, “You have been missing this part of yourself and it finally had a chance to come out.” She’s right. My discovery valve has been sealed closed during the isolation of COVID. On that sunny Saturday in my yard, it finally opened up and the joy was released.

COVID has revealed many truths about our world — vulnerability, inequity, divisiveness, and fear. And all of these things have invited, for many of us, isolation. I understood isolation to be protective, and it was. But this protective isolation also limited opportunities for discovery. One can only discover so much in the confines of their home. True discovery, at least for me, involves other people, fresh air, and possibilities. 

I loved those night walks with my daughter, those short journeys filled with possibilities for discovery. And I loved the expansive happiness of the clothing swap too. The joy valve is open and I can feel the difference. The hidden darkness has lifted and I’m ready to be in the world, to keep discovering.

Flooded with Possibities

Lately, I’ve been feeling identity fog. All my life I’ve been able to answer the question, “What do you do?” or “What are you doing these days?” with a sentence or two. I’ve been able to respond with “I’m in grad school” or “I’m working as a blank at blank restaurant” or “I run a business.”

I intentionally took some time off from defining myself that way, hating the question every time someone asked it of me. But my break is over. I’m ready to move on. I’ve had a few interim jobs, places to hang my professional hat, during the last few years. I’ve been totally open, saying yes to lots of things. I intentionally spent these past years actively releasing myself from the need to define myself for the sake of answering the proverbial, “What do you do?” question. But lately, I want to answer the question for myself. I want to feel more focused, more rooted. I want to be able to answer that question for myself.

I am a curious person. When I go to Costco I think the people who work there look happy and I wonder what it would be like to work there. When I walk in the park and see rangers giving little kids tours of the waterfowl I fantasize about doing that job. Every time I go to the post office I can see myself in knee-length blue shorts and a matching baseball cap delivering mail. I dream of working in health care, real estate, finance, and baking. 

As a result, I am flooded with possibilities and the feeling is exhausting. I imagine a flooded street after a hurricane or heavy rain — lawn chairs, couch cushions, picture frames, cars, teddy bears bobbing around a flood-formed river. All of these lost items floating somewhere near their home but undiscoverable in the flow of the water. These items cannot be restored to their rightful owner until the water recedes and the lost objects stop floating.

I have lots of possibilities right now — potential roles I can fill, jobs I might take, that will make me feel like I am on more solid ground, out of the flood. And that’s part of the problem. All of these possibilities are floating around inside. For some reason, I’m unable to claim any particular one of them and hold on to it. 

I remember reading about a woman who had a beloved, prolific heirloom tomato plant that was returned to her after a flood. Someone in the neighborhood had recognized the pot and returned it to her. She was so happy to reunite with this plant that she’d grown and cared for and loved. She nursed it back to health and celebrated its new harvest. 

I find myself waiting for something to stick. I want one of these ideas that are bobbing around in my brain to stop moving so that I can attach to it, welcome it, and engage with it like that woman with her lost tomato plant. 

This morning I realized what’s missing. In an attempt to follow my curiosities I’ve sped up my daily pace and, as a result, neglected a daily contemplative practice. Only a few months ago I had a years-long daily meditation practice but in my busy-ness, I’ve let that go, replacing it instead with activities related to my searching. 

I will stay flooded until I make way for the waters to recede, for the sun to come out. I know myself and I know how to do this. I have to be quiet and still. I have to resume my daily meditation practice and make way for the flooded waters to drain. I know some of the ideas and possibilities will wash away as the water drains; other ideas will remain. 

Once I see what is left, I can assess the situation. I will be able to look at what remains on the street in front of me. I will pay attention to what calls out to me the loudest. Which of the items do I want to run to, to scoop up and hold onto, to dry off and nurture like that woman nurtured her heirloom tomato plant? I hope the answer will be clear. I am ready to be out of the flood. 

The Hurricane is Coming: This Time I'm Not Evacuating

Last weekend I held the second annual Mother-Daughter Clothing Swap in our backyard. We hosted the first one a year-and-a-half ago, just before the first wave of the COVID Pandemic. 

In January we held it inside, taking for granted that this was normal and okay.

Then, in March of that year, everything changed. Inside living became verboten and, if we gathered at all, we scrambled to find ways to socialize outside in the fresh air where the germs would not spread as easily.

We are now chugging up the long mountain of COVID’s Delta Variant in a shaky little gondola, puttering up the top with no idea when we will get there. We have the return of the mask mandate and an alarming number of COVID cases among the unvaccinated and vaccinated. School is in person and we’re going ahead with much of normal life as if we’re going to be okay, even though we have no idea what the height of this wave will look like.

At the same time that all of this is going on, Hurricane Ida is raging on the gulf coast. My partner Nancy is from New Orleans and most of her family and many of her friends live there. She is in constant communication with them about the impending storm and their evacuation status.

Nancy said that growing up her family evacuated many times for different hurricanes. Often the efforts of shuttering up the house, packing the car, and driving several hours north or east were for naught. The storm passed over and their evacuation had been unnecessary. 

Yesterday Nancy’s brother sent his two teenage kids and their grandparents (his parents) to Dallas to escape the storm. They will play it safe and hunker down in this place away from the storm where they can wait out the danger of it. 

Nancy’s brother would stay put with the two older kids and hope for the best. He, like many of Nancy’s friends, will shutter up his home, make sure he has enough food and water, fuel up the generators, and have faith.

The clothing swap yesterday felt like the last hurrah before people start evacuating away from COVID. I was aware that this might be the last gathering for a long time. The feeling I had yesterday as fifteen mothers and daughters gathered in my yard, stepping into the basement room with all the doors and windows open to try on clothes, was a sense of elation that bordered on mania. 

I actually felt like I was under some kind of influence; like I was drunk or stoned. The happiness and excitement to be gathering like this were profound because I knew this might be the last time for a while. Every sensation in my body was amplified. I was jumpy and giggly; I felt an explosion of energy, a rush of blood to my chest and head. I felt like I was on the upside-down loop of a roller coaster with both arms flying high above my head. 

In March of 2020, when COVID first hit, I was petrified. I feared COVID. It became enormous, a killer, a death wish. Following this fear, I evacuated with my family into the safety of our home, away from the virus. I didn’t trust that we’d be okay if we lived our normal life, even masking and social distancing —  I would never have held that clothing swap last year.

But this time I’m not evacuating. There are some changes in place that make this an easier decision for me. All of my family and friends are vaccinated and in our city vaccination rates are high and COVID rates are comparatively low. That doesn’t mean a storm isn’t coming, it just means that I’m more like Nancy’s brother this time, staying put, trusting that I’ll be safe, having faith in a positive outcome.

I’ve read the headlines and I know the Delta storm is building strength, that the eye has not yet touched ground, and it’s scary. But this time I feel more confident, braver. I’m not going to evacuate. I will metaphorically board up my windows by wearing a mask in public and keeping social distance. I will be prepared with daily vitamin supplements, a healthy diet, and plenty of sleep to keep my body healthy. I will get a vaccination booster when it is offered to me.

But I won’t evacuate my life this COVID go-round. I won’t live in fear. I can’t do it again. The storm might be bad but I can’t hide out like I did last year. I feel different. I feel more resilient, stronger, more capable. I know what I need to do to stay safe. I know that I don’t have to run away from the world to protect myself.

It’s more a state of mind than any kind of action. This time, as I watch the path of the COVID storm, I’m going to stay put, trust what I’ve learned, use what I know, and have an occasional, very safe, outdoor clothing swap. 

I Kind of Want to Die

Last week I went for a walk with a friend. We’re old friends and have gone in and out of seeing each other for the past thirty years. As we walked through the arboretum talking about all of the hard, sad things in this world right now I said something I would only say to a longtime friend.

“I kind of want to die,” I said to her. I am not suicidal at all and feel grateful that I don’t have any acute mental health concerns right now but I look with envy at my ninety-three-year-old stepfather sometimes. He’ll surely die before this world becomes truly unlivable.

“Me too!” my friend exclaimed, “I totally get where you’re coming from. We’ve lived a good, long life and we could be done.”

A few days later I was talking to another close friend. As always the conversation turned to the lamentations of our upside-down society and tortured planet. “Sometimes I really just want to die,” I said to her.

“I’ve felt that way,” my friend said, “last month when I was camping and I imagined having to pack up all the gear and all the food I thought to myself, ‘if I died now I wouldn’t have to do this.’” She continued, “Really, I would be okay dying now.”

She told me that her husband never feels this way but she knows that another friend we share does. 

When I got home last night I told my partner about these conversations. “I’ve felt that way,” she said, “I understand how you feel.”

I deliberated a lot before I started to write about this “I kind of want to die” attitude. But hearing my friends and learning of this shared experience of feeling the “I kind of want to die” bolstered my confidence to write about it. 

I am a mother and a wife. I have a large extended family and a huge community of people I love and care about. But some days, even on days when I am not aware of the ins and out of the news, the bad outweighs the good.

I’m just being honest. The intensity of the sadness, loss, division, racism, infighting, pollution, and denial is greater than the joy and delight that come from the daily interactions I have with the good parts of life. I can remember a few years ago, right after I sold my business, I was floating in a happiness bubble. Everything seemed to be coming up roses. My family was good. My friends were abundant. There was no COVID. Life was good and all was well. 

Now I feel like I scrape together happy moments like puzzle pieces, trying to create a full scene of goodness that I can step inside of like Mary Poppins’ chalk drawings. I try to breathe in every moment of a satisfying conversation on a walk with a friend. I intentionally slow down the family dinner, fully appreciating the precious time of everyone being together. I meditate quietly, closing my eyes to imagine what will feel good today. 

I’ve reached a new threshold, a higher level of tolerance for bad shit than I’ve ever had. It’s okay. I know things will probably get worse before they get better and then better again before they get worse again. I’m learning that this is life. The older I get the more I know and the more I know the harder it gets. 

 I have always been privileged, comfortable. I have always had enough, more than enough. I live in a country free of (for now) dictatorship, in a safe neighborhood. The critic in me scoffs. The gall of it — me saying, “I kind of want to die.”

The truth is that I feel liberated when I say, “I kind of want to die.” It unlatches a tight, little, bursting at the seams Pandora’s box in my chest. Life is too much sometimes and I want to escape. Saying the words is my permission to honor that experience of too much-ness. And it helps. Just saying those words, confiding in a friend about how big the feelings are, eases the pain. The box opens and a little bit of sadness hisses out so I can close it again and carry on. 

The Things We Carry

Yesterday morning I went down to our local COVID test site to check my status. It’s my fourth test this month. These are the times we’re in. Every time I get a cold or scratchy throat I go do a nasal swab. At least the testing trailer is in a beautiful place. It’s only about a mile from our house and sits right on the lake next to a park. 

Yesterday I brought my dog and after the test, we walked around the park next to the site. While I was walking I noticed an older woman, about my age, walking quickly with a heavy pack on her back. She was tan and healthy-looking and her gait was one of intention and determination. I wondered for a moment if she was homeless and I started crafting the story of her life in my head.

Then I saw her stop, drop her pack, and do standing push-ups on the park bench next to the restrooms. “Ah,” I thought to myself, “she must be in training for something.” In the Pacific Northwest, it’s not uncommon to see people in training for long hikes like the Pacific Crest Trail or some other big hike in the area. 

As I wandered around the park with my fat, slow dog I watched the woman put her pack back on and walk strongly away. I wondered how far she’d walk today, how long she’d carry that heavy weight on her back.

Lately, I’ve been feeling heavy. A lot of this weight is rooted in our return to worry and fear with the surge of the Delta Variant. The norms we established sixteen months ago are coming back — no hugging, no traveling, no inside socializing. I know I can do this because I’ve done it before, but it’s heavy. I feel the burden of it.

This distance in my daily life makes me miss my faraway family even more than I already do. I only see my parents, and my sisters and brothers, and their families once or twice a year as it is, but somehow COVID makes the distance feel even greater, more pronounced. This unfulfilled longing is adding to the heaviness I carry.

I have no control over COVID other than to follow the guidelines and get tested when I have any kind of suspicious symptoms. And I have no control over this distance with my faraway family members. We live on opposite sides of the country. We have for years. Yet I carry the sadness more in these times we’re in.

If only I could just accept that this is what life looks like now. If only I could embrace the present moment as I’ve trained myself to do with meditation and yoga for decades. I try but I still feel the weight. It’s with me. I’m carrying it.

Yesterday, as I watched the woman with the backpack, I felt admiration for her fortitude and intensity. Her gait was strong and deliberate. Her long steps were directed and intentional. She walked as if she could go for miles and days. She carried that heavy weight in preparation for something bigger, something special, a goal, a dream, a line item on her bucket list. 

Maybe I can reframe this weight I’m carrying into something different. Maybe I am training myself, in preparation for something bigger, more significant. Of course I am. I am in training for life. Life isn’t easy, nor is it linear or logical. 

This heaviness I carry is training me for whatever comes next. I think of that woman, her serious, resolute face, her long, strong limbs putting one foot in front of the other, marching on. I can do this. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. This heaviness I carry is building my strength and resilience. I just have to keep on walking, carrying this pack, putting one foot in front of the other.

I’ve lived over half a century. I’ve had eighteen years of formal education, dozens of jobs, lived in two countries, four cities, and sixteen different homes. I’ve made friends from school, from traveling, through other friends. Over the years I’ve formed friendships with neighbors, parents of my daughter’s friends, people I volunteer with, play sports with, and take workshops with. If I made a list of friends I’ve made over the years — and I’ve tried — it would be hard to capture everyone.

But I am out of touch with many of these friends from over the years. Where have they gone?

I am lucky that I have a partner who is present and engaged. We are often home alone together with the dog and that is a great comfort and security to me. I talk to my mom almost every day and I have a solid group of local friends who I see or talk to regularly. 

But I feel out of touch, a little bit lonely. I am in sporadic touch with my four siblings and I miss them. There is no malice; everyone is just busy parenting and working. My sixteen-year-old daughter is off on her own adventure most of the time and when she is home she is aloof, our interactions cursory. 

Sometimes when I have a free moment, often in the early morning by myself drinking coffee, I wonder where all of these people in my life have gone? I wonder if I have done something to make them distant. I feel like a tiny ant wandering in a patch of grass underneath the picnic table, trying to find my fellow ants who are feasting away above me. “What is everyone doing up there?” I wonder, “what’s going on?”

Last night a group of family friends got together to celebrate the departure of two college freshmen who are leaving the nest. It was a lovely gathering with four moms and seven kids, all celebrating the two young women who are flying off on a new college adventure. It was delightful and connecting. We were a bunch of ants all together, snacking on a big hunk of chocolate cake. 

My daughter, always with other plans, made an effort to be there but I could feel that she had one foot out the door. I felt insulted. Why wasn’t she more engaged, more present for this celebration? I took it personally and I wondered if she was angry with me for making her come to this gathering. I felt myself feeling hurt by her lack of participation. 

And I realized that this is often how I feel about my siblings or old friends with whom I am out of touch. I think I have done something to cause the space between us, that somehow I am to blame for the distance and lack of communication. But when I thought about where my daughter was mentally and emotionally I was able to find peace with how she was acting. She is sixteen. She was sitting on the edge of her seat halfway in because she had a party to go to, an outfit to plan, mascara to apply and friends to text to finalize plans.

Recognizing this — that my daughter’s dharma right now is to find her place in the teenage wonderland she inhabits — helped me. The distance I felt with her had absolutely nothing to do with me. I was, and often am, a microblip in her world. 

This realization helped me understand some of my other long-lost relationships. The world is big, geographically and metaphorically. My family and friendship realm alone spans far and wide, and each of the people in that field has their own networks. So really, we are all microblips in each other’s worlds. There simply is not the amount of time, connection, or energy to feel truly connected to all of these people all the time.

The relationships I have that feel close and connected are the ones I pour regular, dedicated energy into. I suppose, if I wanted to I could try harder —  make more phone calls, send more letters, travel around the country more extensively. 

I read once that each of us only has a certain amount of willpower every day. We only have that specific amount and then it is gone. That’s why it is hard to be on a diet and study for the LSATS or start a new exercise regime and start meditating at the same time. We just do not have enough willpower bandwidth to do that much. 

I think the same is true with relationships. We each only have so much to give. Once we’re relationally tapped, we’re truly empty, devoid of energy to give another person. 

The loneliness is real. And with the pandemic, it feels amplified. I do miss the people in my life that I am out of touch with and I reminisce about the times when we were closer. But I no longer feel responsible for the distance. I can see that I haven’t done anything to cause it, it’s simply a function of living life in a big, wide, open world with finite emotional bandwidth.

Half a century is a long time. And I’m healthy so I think I’ll probably live a lot longer, making new friends, maybe having grandchildren and great-nieces and nephews. I’ll have more jobs and more neighbors and more friends. And I’ll be close to some of the same people for a long time and some of them I’ll lose touch with. My daughter will come back from teenagehood at some point. My siblings won’t always be so busy. 

We are all tiny ants in a very big world. Sometimes we find each other and sometimes we wander, looking for our friends. We are all in this together, doing our best with what we have.