Surveying the Empty Nest

Age 3, the whole wide world and South Shore Park ahead.

I dropped my youngest child off at college this weekend. It was strange and exciting for both of us.

We drove out to La Crosse the day before to spend the night at my brother's house to make the move into the dorm the next morning a little easier. The back of the car was mostly filled with Quinn's new bike that we got her as a graduation present, which we thought might give her a little more freedom to travel in her new town. Aside from the bike, she packed light for such a move: Three IKEA bags filled with bedding, clothes, and everything else. Plus a laundry basket, and big batch of cookies she'd baked to share with her roommate and others on her floor.

We brought the dog, partially because the dog doesn't like to be apart from me, and partially because she would be good company on the drive home. We set up Domino's bed on the sideways front wheel of the bike in the back where she settled in and could see us both and look out the window. The idea of driving Quinn someplace hours away and leaving her there was incredibly weird. I needed to return with someone, so Domino got the job.

My brother, Barrett, teaches at La Crosse, and lives within easy biking distance from the campus. I think it's great that Quinn chose a school that's away from home, but still near family. It's a pretty area, and UWL is incredibly thoughtful and organized. Quinn signed up for more credits than is probably wise, but compared to the IB course-load she recently completed at Rufus King High School, she thought it looked doable, particularly since the classes meet on such a loose schedule compared to what she's used to. I told her to drop something if it gets to be too much, but I think for at least the first semester she can probably handle it.

Move-in was on Saturday morning, so Barrett was free to come with us and help unload the car. We drove behind him as he led the way by bike. Quinn was reassured by how much less traffic there was to navigate compared to the bike rides we've been doing to the farmers market at home. 

Before checking in, we needed to replace Quinn's student ID already. She thinks she may have lost it at orientation back in June. I found this alarming, but Quinn was unfazed. She said she lost her high school ID at least once a year and replacements are no problem. Sure enough, the student office was able to print her up a new one in a matter of minutes. 

From there, we decided to pick up her books since the bookstore was in the same building. I cannot believe how much easier things are compared to when I was in school (before laptops and the internet and I had to use a card catalog at the library and do my papers on a typewriter or in the computer lab... We may as well lump all of my experience in with playing hoop-and-stick at this point). Quinn swiped her ID, immediately got a printout of all the books she needed and where to find them (and if the super easy system was too hard there were at least half a dozen volunteers standing by to help), and when we took the pile of books to the checkout, they swiped her card again and that was it. The texts are rented and far more affordable than buying all the books used to be. (My oldest said at her school the whole process is even easier, because they scan your card and then collect the books for you to take to checkout. But I liked wandering around with Quinn to find the books.)

With books and ID in hand, we went to unload the car. The dorm is in a convenient spot, and Quinn's room was only a few doors down from the entrance. Unloading was easy. The roommate was very nice (and also a sophomore, which Quinn appreciates because it's like having a personal guide to how things work).

I left a note and a little present on her desk that I told Quinn was for later. (It was a mini Boggle game that I added a key chain to, and she figured out what it was the moment she picked up the wrapped package and heard that distinctive rattle.)

Barrett declared Quinn's bike lock insufficient for the amount of bike theft that unfortunately happens on campus, so he directed us to his favorite bike shop (with a sweet pit bull named Wilma in the sunny window) and we picked up something harder to cut. Fingers crossed. I've experienced stolen bikes a few times and I don't want Quinn to go through that. But honestly, as far as crime goes, if that's the worst that happens life is good.

After dropping everything off, we located the different buildings Quinn's classes are in. The biology lecture room turned out to be directly across the hall from Barrett's lab where he has key-card access, which is why it was one of the few buildings we could actually enter on a holiday weekend. We went from there to the student union to grab some lunch to eat outside in the beautiful weather.

Then we took Quinn back to her dorm, I hugged her, and as I watched her from the the parking lot she turned to wave every few steps until she disappeared inside.

I said goodbye to my brother, and told him how much it means to me that he's nearby if Quinn needs something. Then I called Quinn from inside the car because I missed her already, and to ask if a CD I had planned to listen to had accidentally made it into her bags. (It hadn't.) I took a deep breath, and gave the dog a pat in the seat next to me.

It was hard to drive away. 

I think the longest I've ever been apart from Quinn would be about two weeks. Walking past her empty room at home is startling, but I know it will become normal. The first few days of walking past Aden's room each time she leaves for school again is still a hard adjustment. Ian drove her back up to UW Stout the day after I came back from La Crosse. I can't believe there are no kids in the house. I like having them home.

Although I will admit, over the end of the summer break, it was like my kids were trying to make this transition to not having them around easier for us. The house was a wreck. I love Aden's creativity, but the number of projects in process on all the available surfaces was crazy. Quinn and I pulled out a card table for playing Boggle because everyplace else was too cluttered to use, including the table on the deck. We still have not retrieved all the dirty dishes from various rooms of the house, and we are still digging out the kitchen. There is a large bowl of oil the kids were saving for something that I don't know how to get rid of. Aden lost one of her hissing roaches before she left. (That will be a fun surprise if it turns up.) 

Quinn at least did a great job cleaning and organizing her room before she moved out. I had honestly forgotten she had a rug. At least when I walk by her door I feel a bit of delight about the state of the room to balance out the pang of pain that she's not in it.

It helps that Mona is still around. I'm sure we won't see her as often now that her siblings aren't here to hang out with, but she's nice to have along for errands when she's free. Maybe I can convince her to come with me to a movie. And having a baby-sized dog is comforting.

So far this empty nest thing is strange. It's quiet, and my schedule feels oddly empty even though I always have a lot to do. It's hard to adjust to the fact that this is the new way it's going to be. Not just some weekend where the kids are away, but the new baseline for normal.

It's not bad, and in some ways just a return to an old forgotten normal. We're back to me and Ian again. It's been a long time since we planned things for just the two of us. We've spent decades specializing in a divide and conquer approach to parenting, where between the two of us we could handle everything. He's always been in charge of dentist appointments, I do the doctor. He does the laundry and the dishes, I handle the food and clutter. He does yard stuff, I do holiday things. Between the two of us there has always been someone to open the store while the other handles errands and we'd tag team among the many shifting responsibilities that come with raising kids.

But now the kids are out of the daily equation, and it's hard to remember what we did before they came into our lives. It will be fun to rediscover a new/old rhythm. It will be nice to do things like eat out and go places that are simpler for two people instead of five. I suppose we're getting a well-earned break. 

We're in the process of rethinking the house. There is a renovation plan in the works to concentrate our lives on the first floor. My home shop will move to my work building (since the point of having a home shop was to accommodate balancing violin making and caring for kids and that's not relevant now), and that former shop space will become our bedroom. We're turning a small room we've used as a guest space into a bathroom with an accessible shower. The current first floor bathroom will become a laundry room. The entire upstairs will be set up for guests and kids returning on breaks. My problems last year with my knees gave me insight as to what elements of our house will become difficult as we age, so addressing much of that now before issues arise seems smart. Living on one floor also will make the house feel less empty and more manageable.

In anticipation of the renovation, we've started moving things around and getting rid of stuff. Gone are the outgrown bikes and the tiny tennis rackets. The old drill with the dead batteries we can let go of. Paint cans from past room makeovers will be going to the dump. The sand toys should be in the hands of kids again, not in a bucket in our basement. 

The cleaning and reorganizing are good activities that Ian and I can do together as we reshape how we move through our days now. It is fun being just a couple again, (if you don't count the dog at my heels). It's odd cooking for only two, but a lot less pressure to cook at all. Not being tethered to our children's daily schedules frees up ours. We are already planning trips to the cottage, because why even run your own business if you can't choose your days off once in a while? 

With the pockets of unexpected free time that come with not doing as many chores on a relentless loop, I am teaching myself piano, which is meditative and a good distraction from the fact that I have no idea what any of my kids are doing and I'm not used to that. It's hard to unlearn that kind of constant monitoring after decades.

It's wild that Ian and I fell in love in college, made people, and after so many years where the center of all our decision making has been based around our children, that that whole chapter is finished. We raised three children. Their childhoods are over. There are still things to manage for them, such as orthodontist appointments and walking them through filing tax returns, etc. But what an astonishing thing to step back and declare that job essentially done. I think we did okay. I hope we did enough. All of our children are compassionate, curious, and interesting people, and I know the world is better for having them in it. 

Back in June, Quinn and I did a similar drive to La Crosse to the one this past weekend. My daughter and dog and I went out to stay at Barrett's for freshman orientation at UWL, where Quinn signed up for classes, got an (apparently short-lived) ID, and toured the campus. It's just over three hours by car from Milwaukee to La Crosse, and Quinn read to me for most of it. 

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki had been on my to-read pile for a some time, primarily because it had a female luthier character in it, and had been recommended to me by several people for that reason. It's an unlikely melding of genres that includes demons from hell contracting for souls, plus space ships, but also lutherie, violin performance, donuts, and the experience of a trans-woman character. We didn't finish the book on that trip, but we read a little more of it to each other at the cottage, and were determined to finish it on this recent trip. We didn't want to finish it without each other. We got very close on the actual drive, to the point where Quinn even offered to keep reading to me as we walked the dog around the neighborhood before actually approaching her uncle's house, but Barrett happily came bursting out to greet us and we set the book down. 

We went out to dinner and taught Quinn's uncle, aunt, and cousin how to play Wavelength (our latest fun family game) while we waited for our food. We had a great meal, headed back to the house where we helped tune a couple of unusual instruments, and then another walk with the dog. A lovely evening all around, but Quinn and I were also anxious to finally finish our book, and when we said our good nights to everyone and she was settled onto her bed in the guest space, I pulled up a rocking chair and read her the last couple of chapters.

Somehow for me that was the most fitting thing we could have done on this milestone weekend. Yes, it was good to see her dorm and meet her roommate and have lunch on campus together and share a tearful hug goodbye. But to be able to sit near Quinn while she lay in bed listening to my voice, engrossed in a story I was reading, felt full circle. 

I loved reading to my kids. When the books had pictures they would gather close on one of their beds and follow along. When we switched to chapter books, I used to read from the floor in the hallway between the rooms they occupied. We've read many books aloud in the car on road trips. I loved having Quinn read to me. I loved getting to read to her one last time before she was on her own.

When Quinn was three, her dad left for his second deployment to Iraq. Aden and Mona had school, but Quinn didn't yet and was disappointed. I took her shopping for her own school supplies and we set up a desk at the violin store for her to do "school work" while I repaired instruments. We referred to that setup as the "School of One" and Quinn had lots of papers and coloring supplies and she did a lot of map puzzles. To transfer any of those supplies back and forth from home she had a purple backpack.

 

She took that same backpack to college this past weekend. 

  

She's literally carrying her student history with her into this new phase of her education. It's been such an honor to watch her grow up. I hope she has what she needs. 

Easing toward the empty nest

My kids are currently 23, 21, and 18. The oldest is away at college. The middle child lives in an apartment in our violin store building and is an apprentice at a tattoo shop across the street. The youngest is in her final year of high school and we are still waiting to hear back from the last couple of colleges she's interested in.

Officially they are all adults. Realistically they are all still supported by us as they continue to build skills that will help them live on their own at some point. We're glad to help. We're also glad that we didn't go cold turkey from having kids around, to their complete absence in our day-to-day lives. I like when the oldest returns on school breaks. I like that we see the middle child more often than we did when she lived in our house and retreated (as teens often do) behind her bedroom door. I like that my baby is around for games of Boggle most evenings. She's quiet and keeps to herself, but she's definitely still home.

I feel like we're easing into the empty nest years. It's an interesting transition, because if you'd asked me when my kids were small how I would be handling this concept, it would have sounded too sad. I love having a front row seat to my kids' lives. But I may also be ready for something new.

Someone asked me recently what having just one grown kid still at home even entails. I was a little taken aback because I definitely still feel the weight of parenting, but truthfully my daughter doesn't need much. She's in charge of dinner four nights a week (we get a Hello Fresh box which cuts down on decisions and shopping and food waste, and delegating dinner in this way was one of the best ideas we ever tried). She takes the bus to school. She seldom if ever needs help with homework and is handling all her IB classes just fine. It's not like with little kids where you have to help them bathe and dress, etc.

But it definitely impacts your life to be available all the time. Parenting a self-sufficient kid is like being on call 24/7. If she misses the bus, we have to drive her across town. There are still doctor and dentist appointments. There are still prescriptions to keep track of. There are piano lessons, and for a while she had debate that she needed to be picked up from twice a week, along with occasional meets on weekends. We went to our very last parent-teacher conference over a week ago. We may not have to technically do very much, but we still have to be ready to drop things at a moment's notice the way parents are sometimes called to do.

I don't envy people still in the early days of their parenting journeys. It's a lot. It can be great fun, and I'm glad I got to do much of it, but I've reached a stage in my life where it mostly looks exhausting. I may never be lucky enough to have grandchildren, but I understand the appeal. Getting to visit some of those experiences again without having to commit to them full time sounds great.

Starting this fall, we expect to have no children living at home most of the year. Having grown children means rethinking what holidays mean, what travel can be, and not being tethered to the particulars of a school calendar. The amount of time saved simply from reductions in meals, dishes, and cleaning opens many possibilities.

The first big thing on our agenda is doing a remodel of the first floor of our house. Last year at this time I had a frustrating experience with my knees that required weeks of physical therapy, and it gave me a preview of potential complications from aging in the future. I really like our house and would prefer not to move ever again, so we're going to bring our bedroom down to the first floor, add a real bathroom with a walk-in shower, and bring the laundry up from the basement. We'll move my home shop upstairs (because one day if that's an issue we can always bring it back down), leave our youngest's room alone for a few years, and make our current bedroom into a proper guest room. It's a big project, but the idea of living entirely on the first floor seems like a good long term plan, and one best started early. None of that would be comfortable to do with any kids still living at home.

I'm looking forward to going out with my husband occasionally. Four or five people going anywhere is a lot of money and/or effort. Just two of us trying a new restaurant sounds so easy. Buying only two tickets to a movie or a show sounds affordable. 

My husband is also a lot easier to convince to do anything. Trying to dislodge the kids from the house has always been a challenge. They like doing things once we're out, but dragging them to any of it is often more work than it should be. Seriously, my mandolin orchestra may possibly got to Cremona, Italy this fall, and I invited my middle kid along since the town is her namesake. The other two will be in school, but I figured her schedule has more flexibility, especially with this much notice, and she's on the fence about it. How? Who turns down a free trip to Italy? Anyway, I love the idea of finding dog-friendly trips to take where Ian and I can close the store for a few days and go see something or visit someone just because we can.

I'm also getting absurdly excited by the idea of cleaning out our house. That's somehow hard to do with extra people in it, and I'm not even sure why. I want get rid of anything we don't use, starting by emptying the basement. There are small bikes and old pots and pans and dried up cans of paint and old floaties, etc. There are some useless things that I still want but that need to be better organized. There is a section of the basement I'd like to paint and make more habitable for my bandsaw. But most of it needs to go! I spend what little time I have for cleaning simply repeating myself with clearing the same surfaces over and over that using that reclaimed time to finally tackle messes we've put off for years will be satisfying.

I even have visions in my head of creating a once a month quartet meet up at my store after hours, where anyone who feels like doing a bit of chamber music purely for the joy of it can come over and pull up a stand. Wouldn't that be lovely?

When imagining empty nest possibilities, I tend to remember a two week stretch where my husband took all the kids and their cousin to the cottage and I had to stay behind with the dog. A friend invited me for an evening bike ride that she did with a group once a week, and at first I turned her down. I never had time to spare for something like that. But my first day home alone I cleaned the house, and the second night I realized I didn't have to do that again. It stayed clean. There was no laundry to do. There were no dishes. I realized I did have time to go on that bike ride.

I'm sure life will throw challenges at us and anticipating any sort of smooth sailing in life feels foolish at best, but currently the idea of my husband and I only having to be responsible for ourselves in the coming years sounds like a well-earned break, rather than the lonely existence I once would have pictured with the kids gone. 

We did okay, I think. We got the kids this far. There's still more to help guide them through. Do we ever stop needing our parents? I know I still need my mom. I expect my kids to still need me. As long as they keep coming back regularly enough that I can hug them and occasionally cook them something they like, I think this new phase will be fine.

I'm excited to see what they will do. I'm just as excited to see what I will do.

Having a scoopable baby-size dog also helps

Moving On and Up and Out

There's this funny sense many people have that parenting means getting your kids to 18, and then you're essentially done. Sure, there's usually college to get them through, and being available to help get them on their feet out in the world, but otherwise, you know. . . Done.

Not so much though. Legally, I guess if I thought of any of my kids as a burden or a menace, I could wave goodbye when they technically hit adulthood and not look back. But that's insane. There are still things to teach and hugs to give and traumas that wrench at your heart as if their suffering is your own. 

My oldest is 21, and she delayed starting college because of Covid, but she's now a couple of years in and her new life living in dorms has its ups and downs even though she likes her school. Last year she worked at a summer camp over break and wasn't home much, but this year she came home for nearly the whole summer break.

My middle kid is 19, and until recently was living at home since graduating high school a semester early, and she wasn't interested in college. She's spent the last year or so applying for jobs and working on sewing plushies for her Etsy page, but she recently began an apprenticeship at a tattoo parlor that is opening up across the street from our violin store and is excited about having real direction.

My youngest is 16 and in her junior year of high school. Although she's technically the only kid at home we're responsible for, often she's the one that seems to need us the least right now. 

When my oldest left for college a couple of years ago, the room she shared with her sister essentially ceased to be her room. It's not a big room, so the idea of expecting its remaining occupant to be limited to just a small part of it when nobody was on the other side was unrealistic. But that meant when my oldest came home from college in June, the best place for her to stay was in a small guest space on the first floor that we call "the nook."

By the mid-summer, however, the middle kid with the room to herself upstairs, moved into our Airbnb above the violin store. She wants to be more independent, and we still want to support her while she's working on her education (even if it's unconventional), so we figured this would work out well. She'll be living across the street from the tattoo place, and in lieu of rent we're putting her in charge of all the building chores (shoveling, mowing, weeding, cleaning the halls and teaching studio, etc.) and she'll get experience paying her own utility bills and budgeting for food. I'm glad she'll be close for a bit.

With the room at home empty, I offered to paint it and help rearrange it to the needs and tastes of the oldest kid. I know she'll only be there during school breaks, but it made me sad that she has been feeling less a part of our home. We picked out a nice new color for the walls, and I got the whole room finished over a couple of nights. We found a new dresser, rug, and curtains, and moved over a couple of bookcases and a desk from her youngest sister's room. And we hung art! That's always my favorite part of setting up a new room. We even got a print by one of her former teachers framed as an early birthday present. The room looks great, and it feels like her own.

(Here are the girls helping paint their room when we first moved into the new house. I split the room and let them each pick their own color for their half. The new single color is a very pale blue that helps open up the room a lot.)

The youngest kid turned down my offer to paint her room, too, but did need a new light fixture, and agreed to some new furniture. She requested a night stand, and a better system for storing and displaying her things, so we ended up assembling one of those walls of cubby box shelves that looks nice. Those things, along with a new small bookcase that better matches the other furniture and a new rug, have given her room a nice update.

We did a whole musical chairs thing with the beds. When the oldest went to college we threw away her mattress and replaced it with one guests would like better. She didn't like the new mattress, so she kept her bed frame and took the middle kid's mattress, while the youngest kid didn't like anything about her bed, so she got the middle kid's bed frame and the newer guest mattress. 

We also sorted all the stuffed animals. That was more involved than you might imagine, because the oldest kid is deeply sentimental, the middle kid is practical, and the youngest is somewhere in between. The piles of what to keep, what belonged to whom, what to give away, etc. got some people rather teary, to the point where I offered to simply scoop up some things to put in storage for another time. The emotional line between being an adult and a child is as fuzzy as a stuffed bunny sometimes, especially when standing in a space where you've experienced being both.

All the shifting about and moving things around has been interesting and odd. Dropping my oldest off at her dorm for the first time a couple of years ago was hard. I was leaving her somewhere far from me for the first time, and I didn't like it, even though I knew it was good for all of us. We found a new way to live that didn't include her being around. But then she was back for months and we developed a whole routine with her being involved in daily life again, and with her at school once more I've had to get used to her being gone all over. 

By comparison, the middle kid completely moving out with little chance she'll ever live under this roof again, has barely been noticeable. During the summer she was over to continue binge watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel with me and her sister each night as usual. She sometimes makes her own meals out of our fridge when she visits. So far she's got the best of both worlds, where she can hang out with her family like a kid when it suits her, and then go home to her apartment and do things her own way when she wants to be an adult. I'm jealous. I've always thought it would be ideal to be able to visit with my relatives without the complication of someone needing to be away from home to do it. I would love to go to dinner with my mom at her house, but still sleep in my own bed that night. I'm glad my own kid gets to do that.

With the oldest back at college, and the middle kid in her own space, we're down to one child at home. And she's the quietest, least conspicuous of the three. She's had an uptick in after school activities, so there is some chance to talk as we drive her places. She's still in charge of making dinner for the family from a meal kit a few nights a week, and sometimes she'll use the computer in the dining room, but otherwise we don't see her much. I feel as if the transition in a couple of years to me and my husband being empty nesters won't be as much of a shock as I feared. 

In the meantime, there is always another thing to manage with kids whether they are home or not: Trouble with health insurance and prescriptions, banking questions, arranging rides, coordinating errand schedules, figuring out dental appointments, replacing lost retainers, helping start a car that won't run, etc. Not the most warm and fuzzy bits of parenting, but all ways of being connected even after kids technically become adults. We can still be helpful. We can still be a safe place to land.

The lovely thing is to learn that my kids still want that connection even when they have other choices. My oldest was recently back for a few days because she was homesick, and our neighborhood is really fun at Halloween. She was happy to be in her updated room. She drew out both of her sisters and I was able to spend time with all three kids together. I used to worry that when my middle kid moved out that we'd seldom see her, but she regularly invites me along when she makes a run to the fabric store or Home Depot. This gives me hope that even as we don't see the youngest much at the moment, that we will still warrant visits when she moves on in the future. 

I'm kind of excited to imagine the next stage of our lives where Ian and I can make plans primarily around just each other again, without kids as the primary focus. It will be interesting to use our house in a different way, and figure out what we eat when we're only two people, and travel places without kids. 

But not quite yet. (I'm glad it's not quite yet.)

Was it enough?

We dropped our daughter off at college last week.

We got her set up in her dorm room. Very easy move in. She has what we're calling her "limbless couch" under her lofted bed, where I expect she'll spend a lot of her recharging time. (The couch is armless, and also sits directly on the floor, so, no limbs.) We took her to an early dinner. We walked around some of the campus and a bit of the main street in town. We met her charming roommate from Pakistan. And then we left her there at North Hall.

I didn't cry until that last hug. Aden said something about it feeling strange that we were leaving her and she wasn't going home with us. I told her I've spent her whole life trying to not leave her behind anywhere, so it was odd for me, too. She stood on the sidewalk and watched us walk away. And I burst into tears.

Her first night in the dorm was Thursday. She's now spent three nights away from us. She's fine. It's all fine. But the closest thing this feels like to me is when we moved her as a baby into her own room to start sleeping through the night. We kept our babies in a co-sleeper attached to our bed when we brought each of them home. It was a safe space for a baby to sleep where I could still scoop them up easily when needed. I liked having them right there essentially in my bed where I could watch them breathe. But then at four months when Aden didn't need to eat in the night anymore, and was sleeping seven hours or more at a stretch, we moved her to her own crib and I cried. It felt stupid to cry. But I missed her.

I miss her now, too. And just like when she was a baby, and I could count easily on one hand how many nights she'd spent in her own room, it's hard. In a few weeks, I won't be able to recall exactly how many nights she's been away. But today that number is three and I feel it acutely.

Technology is easing things, though. When Aden was originally preparing to leave for school in 2020 (before the world shut down and she deferred college), I asked what the easiest way to stay in touch with her would be. I'm not a person who texts or video chats, but I would do those things if that meant keeping in touch with Aden. She told me she prefers Discord. So I joined Discord as "Aden's Mom" since she was the only person I planned to talk to there. But then things got extended into various family chats, and it looks like I have confessed to a favorite child because I am "Aden's Mom" in all of them until I can figure out how to change it.

Through Discord I've gotten to see Aden's new art supplies and admire her new textbooks. (UW Stout is smart about everything, so the art supplies are bundled into affordable kits at a local store, and all the books are rented and collected from the library.) She got help from her dad for her roommate's phone problems. Last night we gathered as a family online to play a couple rounds of Jack Box, and it was fun to hear her laugh and interact with her siblings like normal. We were even able to watch another episode of Star Trek together by streaming Netflix over Discord, and we commented as usual about Klingons and Vulcans during the show. Aden was watching from her bed with headphones on, and I could hear her roommate chatting once in a while with someone on the other side of the room.

It's comforting, because she's away, but she can still participate in regular family stuff here and there. I suspect once classes start we'll hear less from her, but for now? While those nights away I can still count on one hand? I like that she's as close as my phone.

I can't imagine anyone is surprised by the idea that I miss my daughter. But the main thing I'm pondering as she ostensibly begins life on her own as an adult is did I do enough to prepare her? And was her childhood okay?

Because it sort of hit me all at once that her childhood is over. Officially and forever done, so whatever I meant to do by now as part of that, I've missed my chance.

We did lots of good things, but was it enough? There were books I didn't read her, and movies we didn't see. Did I take her enough places? Add enough special touches here and there? Should I have made her practice more? I'm feeling guilty about any time that I yelled and I shouldn't have. We got her a dog, but he was so weird. I think I should have taken her roller skating more often. I feel like there were crafts we were supposed to do together, or wisdom I should have imparted.

Was it a good childhood? Because it was up to me to make it so, and I hope I did okay.

And is she ready to be an adult? In many ways, more than I was when I left for college. But in others, maybe not?

She still doesn't have a driver's license. She does know how to vote. Cooking we've got covered, because at this point she's a better and more adventurous cook than I am. She can swim, so at least I made sure that happened. She doesn't use the phone well and she's bad at making appointments, so maybe I should have done more there? How? 

My mother once told me that she never wanted keep us as little kids because she loved interacting with me and my brothers as adults, but that it would be nice to go visit us as small children again. Isn't that a lovely idea? I think about it a lot. But I also think it would completely tear my heart apart to go back and see Aden as the chatty three-year-old she used to be, or the clever eleven-year-old, or the mysteriously empathetic baby she was in my arms.

I still remember that baby in my body, kicking me at orchestra rehearsals every time the music stopped. Eighteen years seems like a long time to get to show things to a person. How did I miss so much? How can it be done already? I cannot believe my first baby is in college.

I miss her. I'm excited for her. I hope she's doing okay. I hope I gave her enough.

 

Dear Dad, 2021

Hi Dad. I miss you.

It's been almost six years. I know because your youngest grandchild is six. I haven't seen him in over a year because of the pandemic, but in pictures he's looking so big compared to that tiny baby you got to hold before you died.

Six years is a long time, but on the upside, I can now talk about you at some length without bursting into tears. I'm able to share stories about you with my kids that make them laugh or smile without it also bringing me down. That doesn't mean your absence isn't still difficult, but grief is strange like that. I've adapted to it. Although that sometimes means it hits me in a wave at an unexpected time.

This year is looking up compared to last year at this time. I'm actually surprised by how quickly we're able to go back to normal in a lot of ways, considering how practiced we got at our socially distanced protocols. Things are opening up instead of closing down. It's amazing what it does for your attitude to know you could go out and do something, even if you stay home anyway.

But this Father's Day we did go do something! Mom is here (after a visit to LaCrosse) and we got tickets for all of us to the Milwaukee Public Museum. We have a membership, but you need timed tickets as part of their Covid protocols. Plus we all wore masks, which is no big deal at this point. We mostly wanted to see all of our old favorite displays before the museum moves in a few years. Things like the giant T-Rex eating a Triceratops in that spooky storm setting probably won't survive because they are out of date with current science, but it's fun to visit while we can and remember how nervous it used to make Aden when she was little. We even had the fun on this trip of introducing a family to the hidden snake button. (No kid should go to the Public Museum without getting to push the snake button.)

Last year when I wrote you, Aden was getting ready for her first year of college. That's where we still are, because she wound up deferring both semesters. Covid not only made us nervous, but it made the college experience look really rather abysmal. But our whole family is now fully vaccinated (YAY!) and things are looking up for fall. I think things will be normal enough at Stout again that it will be worth going. The silver lining in the deferrals is that not only did I get an extra year with Aden at home (which I've really appreciated), but she kind of has the fear of leaving home out of her system now. She's had a LOT of home lately, and is ready to move on. It's nice to see her excited rather than nervous. I think she's going to enjoy college.

Mona finished her virtual Junior year fifth in her class. Virtual school has been a mess for many, but a boon for Mona. She's on track to graduate early, and I'm trying to convince her to go back to in person learning for her last semester. I think she needs friends and socializing and time out of the house, but she wants us to sign her up for the continued virtual option. We'll see. Mona remains complicated in many ways, and it's hard to know sometimes if we actually know what's best for her. Currently she's excited about applying to art schools, both near and far, and she's been using the studio at the violin store to work on pieces for her portfolio. I wish you could see it.

Quinn graduated from Fernwood and will be moving on to Rufus King High School in the fall. He may have to take a city bus there, so that's something we still have to figure out. After a year of virtual schooling, he's ready to be in person. He did get to do the last month or so of eighth grade in person, but it was still odd with masks, and partitions at lunch, etc. The graduation was weird. It was held in the Bay View High auditorium so we could all spread out. The one part of the ceremony I was really looking forward to was the slideshow of the photos. Each kid was supposed to submit a baby picture, a slightly older picture, and a current picture, and they would show them on a big screen to music. It's fun to see how each kid has grown. And I submitted photos for Quinn twice! Both times under the wire--first time by email, second time by text as requested. So I was, um... disappointed when on the screen under his name they had to use a stick figure as a stand in because the pictures somehow didn't go through. Oh well. (It's kind of funny, and I have it on video.) 

Anyway, Quinn is now the tallest person in the house, and definitely has the longest hair. He's still smart and funny and sweet. He'd give you a good run for your money at Scrabble. (Remember when he tried playing with us when he was really really little, and he put down "Japon" and we had to explain that "Japan" wasn't spelled that way, but more importantly you couldn't use proper nouns? He was so embarrassed. We should have just let him play whatever he wanted, but he would have been upset with us later for not making him stick to the rules. He still likes rules.)

Ian likes not being in the Army anymore. I definitely like him not being in the Army anymore. He's doing a great job running the building and keeping the finances in order at the shop. I married a good man, Dad. I remember how you had your doubts twenty-something years ago when I told you we were getting married. That upset me until I talked to Grandma about it, and she just smiled and said, "Do you think there is any man you could pick that your father will believe is good enough for you?" I know you came around eventually, but I thought you'd like to know it's still good, and we're happy we're together.

Business is busy. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed lately because there is so much to do, and I'm about to lose my assistant. She only came up about twice a month to work, and I know that's not enough to count as really putting a dent in my workload, but it was nice to occasionally not have to do everything. It's hard doing everything. But I am grateful to have a job that survived the pandemic. I just keep hoping at some point I'll catch up on all the work at the store, and have more time for the projects I need to finish on my bench at home. I put in long hours, but never seem to get there.

But there's lots to pay for coming up, so I should just be grateful for the work. Besides college to fund starting this year, our deck out back is falling apart, and we have to replace it this fall. Remember how weird that deck is? At first glance people always think it's great, but it's ridiculous. Too many levels accomplishing too little. And it's just rotting all over and is officially a hazard. The new design should be scaled down, but with more space that's actually usable. We'll see. We really didn't want one more big project right now, but we don't really have a choice. (Short of not stepping outside the back door anymore to be safe.)

Chipper died back in March. That was hard. He was such a weird little thing. I know it made you sad that you couldn't pet him. I wish there had been a way to explain to his little doggie brain that he didn't need to fear all men. Anyway, I think of him most when I'm in the kitchen. I was used to him planted at my feet with that hopeful look on his face as I chopped things. I miss him being underfoot, and I miss his wanting me to scoop him onto the bed in the mornings. Did you have moments when you missed Anna? She was a weird dog, too, and I know you and mom were relieved not to have to factor her into your schedules anymore once she died, but wasn't it kind of nice having a dog? Someday we'll get another one, but not soon. That freedom from one more responsibility is definitely nice, but I miss having something to pet when I sit on the couch.

Writing is sort of stalled. I need to get the last project wrapped up before I can put my brain into the space of the next one, and I'm sort of stuck as I send out queries and wait to hear back from people. I hate waiting for other people to do things when I want to move forward. But I do still need to do a full couple of rounds of editing, so I have to make time for that. I wish you could read the new novel! I miss your proofreading skills, although Barrett (and occasionally Arno) has been wonderful for that.

You know what you would have loved? Visiting college campuses with Ellora. Arno described to me their process of visiting potential schools, which in pandemic times means no tours, just wandering outside of buildings and getting the general vibe of an area. They visited Yale and Amherst and Harvard, etc. It sounded like a lot of fun, and right up your alley. We still haven't seen Aden's college! I'm taking Aden up in August for her orientation, so we'll see it then. It has me thinking back to when you and I visited Oberlin. Remember how the dorm I was supposed to stay it looked too freaky, so I ended up in your hotel room instead? I liked that trip. I feel like we didn't have enough trips together like that, but I don't know when we would have had the chance.

What else would you want to know about this past year. . . Politics improved a bit. Trump is out and Biden is in, and I don't miss the daily weight of panic that the news used to bring. The Middle East is still on the brink of mayhem, racism is still a dire issue, environmental reports and mass shootings usually make me want to cry, but at least there are grownups in charge again, so I don't feel desperate about breaking news every hour. You would find so much to clip in the papers, some of it better.

My orchestra gets to play in the new fancy hall this coming season! I wish you could come! I'm still glad you got to hear me play in that Russian concert back in the Pabst several years ago. That was a good concert. I'm lucky to get to play with such talented people. I discovered during the pandemic that if I don't have something specific to prepare for, I don't take my instrument out of the case. So I guess my idea that my viola should be on my "if stuck alone on a desert island" list isn't a good one. 

Aden and Mona got to take a trip to New York to spend a couple of weeks with Arno! I drove them out there and stayed a few days to help get them acclimated, but then they were on their own to learn to navigate the subway system, etc. It was a good growing experience for both of them. They learned things about themselves and each other that were surprising. Mona even called me one night to say that she hadn't realized how much I usually facilitated certain conversations, and that she was having trouble finding things to talk about with her sister. Without someone there to dictate the plans, etc., they had to negotiate between themselves, and they have very different ways of moving in the world that don't always mesh. I know it upset them both not to be in sync, but it's part of learning to be with others. I think it was good for them, even when it was hard.

My kids are getting so grown up, Dad. I mean, Aden's going to be 20 this year. 20! It's simultaneously really young and really old. I don't know how to process it some days. How did you deal with it when I moved away? I remember my friend Alit saying at lunch at your house after she had her first baby how she was having nightmares about something happening to her child out in the world, and she wondered when that goes away. You said it didn't.

What were your worries? Were there any moments where you felt more reassured that I was doing all right? Knowing my girls made it to and from Central Park on their own made me happy. Aden's actually been using the bus since she returned to Milwaukee, because now that doesn't seem daunting compared to NYC. I hope the world is kind to them so I don't have to worry too much.

Sheesh, I feel there is a lot more I should be telling you, but my mind is sort of blank. The pandemic stuff made everything blurry and flat. It's hard looking back on the past year and to put anything in any order, or see anything as significant. Maybe next year's update will be more exciting! I would say for this year, things are okay. Life is never easy, but I have what I need. You don't need to worry. I hope part of this reality is that your nightmares are over.

I love you.

Happy Father's Day.

Kory

 

Testing the Waters

Last night I got to swim again for the first time in nearly a year.

With the exception of occasional walks on the treadmill while watching Star Trek, or travel home from work on foot, any real physical activity became one of my basic losses of the pandemic. Right around my birthday in mid-March 2020, my county pool shut down. There is talk it may never reopen. In the meantime, the impact on my body of no longer swimming a few times a week hasn't been good. I feel less capable in my skin, like I've suffered a power drain.

So I asked around to see if there were any pools in our area that had found a way to allow people to swim safely, and I found two. One is north of us, a bit far, a bit expensive, but has excellent protocols. The other is south, closer, cheap, but a bit more lax. The one to the south was incredibly convenient (no reservations, evening hours), so my oldest daughter and I decided to give it a try and see if we felt safe there or not.

At first, it didn't look promising. There were swim lessons going on, and too many people indoors without masks for our comfort. I left my mask on until the last minute and got into the pool. I figured once submerged, it couldn't get much safer. I have noticed over the years that the odds of my even picking up a common cold were greatly diminished when I swim regularly, most likely because soaking for long periods in chlorine kills anything I might have picked up. Aden stood at the far end of the pool where there were fewer people and waited for most of them to leave before she took off her mask and ventured into the water.

But then after the swim lessons ended, and the parents and children cleared out, we had the entire pool to ourselves! A lone lifeguard sat off to the side in a mask and looked on while we didn't drown. After a little while, they shut off some of the overhead lights and turned on the lights in the water to make it glow, which was really beautiful.

I hadn't intended to swim a whole mile, because I didn't want to make my body too sore after such a long hiatus, but it felt so nice to move I went ahead and did it anyway. The first few laps felt good and familiar, but also like a strange adjustment. My back didn't seem to understand what was happening, then got used to it. By lap eight, my arms were feeling it, but they got used to it, too. By the thirty-sixth lap, I knew I would be sore today, but it was nice to know it would be the good kind of sore. Not the feeling-old-while-I-get-out-of-bed kind of sore. Sore like I earned something. Sore like I can feel my body working the way it's supposed to.

Aden simply enjoyed floating about and being out of the house for a change. She agreed a pool to ourselves (or even at some point with a couple of other people in the other lanes) was not a big risk. We are going to do our best to stick to a regular schedule and swim a few times a week.

One of the things I appreciated while doing my laps again was the ability to think and sort out ideas. I can do that in a way in the pool that I can't quite do anywhere else. And as I was literally testing the waters again, returning to something that used to be normal and now feels noteworthy, I started to imagine what it will be like building toward an old life that seems new again.

I have orchestra back. It's different, and now carries an undertone of anxiety not related to simply sorting out rhythms and fingerings by a certain deadline, but it's part of my routine again. It requires I keep track of the days once more. I have to plan ahead to have gas in the car, and to eat before I leave to be someplace on time. "On time" has not been a concern for many months.

I'm working on a project for the Racine Art Museum's "Peeps contest." It was canceled last year, and my kids and I couldn't find any Peeps in the store anyway. (One of many unexpected shortages due to Covid.) I received a notice in the mail inviting our family to please participate this year. The Peeps contest is back! As are actual Peeps. I'm looking forward to sharing more about that as our projects come together this week.

"Looking forward to" is a nice phrase I haven't gotten to use in a while. There have only been vague plans and unfinished chores and no structure to anything. I didn't normally think of myself as someone needing structure, but I know better now.

I don't need rules so much as rhythm. I've missed anticipation, interaction, conclusion, accountability, and a predictable level of repetition that allows you to plan. I've missed planning things.

I told Aden I really believe she'll be able to start college in the fall. Finally. She's not convinced. She's had this rug pulled out from under her twice now.

I believe this past year has been hardest on her of anyone in our home. Virtual schooling as worked out very well for Mona, and doesn't seem to bother Quinn. This year would have been an adjustment for Ian anyway having retired from the Army, so he was already going to have to sort out what role to play at home now. I have good days and bad. But Aden was supposed to be able to finish her senior year of high school and spend the summer with her friends and move on to a college adventure. I was going to send her care packages and enjoy hearing stories of life on her own when she'd visit at holidays. Instead she's been without direction or a social scene that requires she get up from the couch. Compound that with the guilt of being anything short of grateful for a home where she's safe and a family that is healthy, and it makes for a fairly dismal gap year.

But I really do think with a year of her college figuring out what works and what doesn't, people getting vaccinated, better and more rapid tests becoming available, and her own new habits for staying safe, Aden will get to go away to school. Which means thinking about things like packing, and classes, and... And all the things a 19-year old should be thinking about. I'm excited for her.

We're a long way from normal. And there are some things about the old normal that I don't think I want back. But swimming again on a regular schedule is a big step in the right direction for a change. I feel it in my muscles today. And I feel it in my heart.

Update from Our Corner of the Pandemic

The short version, if you have no time to read, is we're doing fine. We're healthy, and we're adapting.

The longer version, as with everything in these strange times, is a bit more complicated.

I keep thinking back to my birthday. My birthday was March 14th, same as Einstein and Telemann and Billy Crystal. It was a matter of weeks ago, but feels like ages. It was a Saturday. I was at work for most of it. Saturdays are usually my busiest day at the violin store, and this particular one last month was probably typical, but now in my memory it feels almost frantic.

There were people in my store--actual other people who do not live in my house. I kept them spaced apart using appointment times, and I washed my hands before and after each visit, and I required everyone wash their hands the minute they arrived. One family was in masks. I broke social distancing rules for them so I could fit the kids for rental instruments, but I did it as quickly and efficiently as I was able. It was nerve-wracking. I was honestly relieved when the official lock down order came the following week, and I didn't feel as if I needed to let people inside my store anymore.

I spent a quiet couple of weeks in lock down doing shop tasks. I sharpened my tools. I got to work on the non-pressing, time-intensive projects that most violin shops have lurking in their corners. I passed along a couple of those projects to my assistant down in Chicago so she could still clock in hours from home if she wants to.

Then the calls started to come. I knew they would, because music is definitely something many people stuck at home want to do, and with all music lessons being taught at a distance, there were bound to be broken strings as people with no experience started trying to tune violins. Then there was a rash of fingerboards coming off instruments for some reason. And violins getting dropped. So I had to develop new protocols for doing work out of my shop.

Currently the way we operate is this: We are by appointment only. No one is allowed inside the store. Simple things like changing a string, I can do out on the front steps while wearing a mask as people wait more than six feet away, and I wash my hands thoroughly before and after. More involved repairs sit in a quarantine line. There is no way for me to disinfect a violin or bow currently, other than with time. (And I've already heard of parents who have taken a Clorox wipe to their kid's instrument and were shocked the varnish came right off. My post-pandemic work load will not be pretty.) Violins sit in a row on the floor, tagged with dates, until they are safe for me to handle. (I recommend people also let the instruments sit at their end when they get them back, but I can't control what other people ultimately do.) Any work I can't figure out how to do safely (such as soundpost adjustments where I need the player in the same space and we have to pass the instrument back and forth between us several times) I have to turn away.

Business is certainly way down compared to normal, but I am far from bored. I'm maintaining a similar work schedule. I actually kind of like the built-in "stop switch" that comes with the quarantine lineup. Normally I am compelled to keep working until everything is off my bench, which means I often put in late nights. Now? Well, there is work to do, but I can't touch all of it. I have to stop and go home at some point. Which is good. I like the extra time with my family.

Which brings me to the first and most important way in which I am lucky during this pandemic so far, beyond not being sick: I really like the people I'm in lock down with. I like our home, I love my husband and kids.... And we're a whole group of introverts who get along fine. Especially on cold, rainy weekends, we're doing exactly what we'd normally be doing. We're each doing our own projects kind of near each other, and then gathering together periodically to watch a movie or play a game or eat a meal.

Our house is just big enough there is space for any of us to retreat from the group if we want to be alone. We have a treadmill that we moved into the room with the TV. I set up a card table in the living room with a jigsaw puzzle people can work on when they feel like it. I've been reading aloud to the kids in the evenings sometimes. (We finished The Hobbit recently, and just started Sophie's World.) We have movies, books, recipes to try....

My head is still not in a good space for creative work yet. I need the house to be less cluttered for that to happen, and two adults and three teenagers inside all the time is making that difficult. But I'm not stressing about it. I am making it a goal to get into my workshop in the next couple of weeks, and I may just dive into an early edit of my next novel, even though the one I released this year didn't even get a real launch.

The issues with contemporary fiction writing are funny right now. I was originally concerned that my next novel got locked into 2019, and that that would feel out of date by the time it was released in 2021. Now it's fine, because I don't have to include the pandemic in the story line. I recently heard an interview with Stephen King, where he said his current story had a plot point where a couple of characters go on a cruise in 2020. He had to bump it back to 2019 for it not to ring false for readers. A lot of writers are debating if we integrate these weird circumstances into our fiction or not. Most seem to agree that unless it's integral to the plot, we should ignore the pandemic. It will certainly date the stories the same way the Blitz would.

Which brings me to my kids, because I've been thinking a lot about how this will be a defining period for them that they will be asked to describe for children in the future. The same way 9/11 is something my children only know from history books, but it's a vivid memory for me. I hope regardless of what is happening in the world at large I am helping guide them through this time in a way that is healthy in all senses of that word.

The first few weeks of lock down and social distancing were unsettling. We all had adjustments to make, and things to give up. There were moments of stress that caused everyone to break down in tears at different times. Things have turned around, and at this stage we're all faring better.

I was most concerned for my oldest, because she's the most social of all of my kids, and to have her senior year come to an unceremonious halt was rough. But she's found ways to do Dungeons and Dragons online with friends. She meets someone down the street for a socially distanced Pokemon battle about once a week. She's learning guitar. And when I reminded her that we have the violin store building to safely retreat to for a change of scenery, and that there was an empty Airbnb just sitting there, she devised a schedule for coming out with me to work three days a week. She has the little apartment above the store set up as an art studio. She's been improving her painting skills, getting better at drawing hands, and enjoying a break from her siblings. Real time alone to both relax and be productive has greatly helped her mood.

It's also helped that she finally came to a conclusion about college. That was a lot of stress even without a pandemic looming all around us. Aden was accepted everywhere she applied, and was offered some impressive scholarships, but nothing felt quite right. So a week before all the deadlines were coming due to commit to a school, we did a Google search, and found a new one that checked all the boxes. We got the acceptance letter from UW-Stout a couple of days ago, and Aden is actually excited now about the prospect of college. We still don't know if she'll be able to attend physically in the fall, or what kinds of changes the school will have to make to accommodate college life in the midst of a pandemic, but it's fun to see my daughter looking forward to the next step of her education. We all feel good about it, even if certain elements remain unclear. However it pans out, Aden's not alone. The class of 2020 will be forever bonded through these strange rites of passage.

My middle child is simply enjoying being at home. She misses her friends and her teachers, but the chronic pain she suffers (still undiagnosed, but there's an appointment lined up with a neurologist in a month) makes life in the noisy school hard. It's helping that she can sleep when she needs to, or take medication without a hassle if her headaches get too bad. She's been diligently doing some online classwork every day, even though the district already declared everyone Pass/Fail for the term. If they ever convert that into real grades, the work she's doing now can be used toward improving them. Early on in the lock down, Mona was doing a bit of sewing and made me this adorable fish:

She'd like to sew more, but is awaiting inspiration. She's doing well with this overall, and I'm glad.

My youngest simply takes things in stride. He seldom understands why anyone makes a fuss about anything in general. He's been doing mandatory online school for about a week. It took the district some time to make sure every student who needed a laptop had one, and now that there is a modicum of equity, classes have begun again. We set him up in a little room off the kitchen that we call "the nook" and he gets himself up in the morning and sequesters himself in there with his computer and his lap-desk until noon.

Quinn's cast is off, so I don't need to be his other hand in piano anymore. Which is too bad, actually. I liked having time with him at the keyboard, laughing as we tried to coordinate our efforts into a coherent piece of music. The trip to the clinic to remove the cast was an adventure. I figured the last place I'd want to take my kid right now was to the hospital, but Children's made it about as safe as you could ask. They sent us to a satellite clinic for non-covid-19 patients only. We were pre-screened on the phone, screened again at the door by a man in full PPE, I was given a mask since I have a cough from an unrelated issue. We never saw another patient once inside the building. The people at reception were in masks and behind plastic sheeting. We never shared a room with more than one medical person at a time, and they did as much as they could at a distance as possible. It was far less nerve-wracking than the grocery store.

In any case, being 13 meant my son spent a lot of time in his room with the door closed anyway. I don't know how much quarantine has changed things, other than his friends from down the street can't join him on the trampoline now. He's made using the treadmill part of his daily routine, and he's always willing to accompany me on a walk with the dog if I invite him. He has Minecraft, and a dry erase board to doodle on. If he's suffering in any way, we can't see it. He's about as nice a person to be cooped up with as one could ask for.

My husband remains the person who keeps things working and I'm grateful for that every day. The biggest recent project was when the dryer stopped working. That's the kind of thing if I were on my own with the kids (like during the deployments) would have put me over the edge. But Ian simply consulted YouTube, took the dryer apart, and fixed it. He's amazing.

Ian's also been sweet about indulging my scavenger hunt obsession. Our little corner of the south side of Milwaukee is called Bay View, and I really appreciate the kind of caring, creative place this neighborhood is. A local record store put together a scavenger hunt all over Bay View to provide people with something to do when out for socially distanced walks. It's based on a box of 64 crayons, and those crayons are in shop windows and on display outside of historic locations. It's great, because it directs people toward local businesses that could use support. (Last week I picked up pie from one of the locations when we went to collect the information we needed off their crayon. Without the scavenger hunt, I wouldn't have realized they were even still open and offering curbside service right now.) Anyway, I've learned a lot about my community in the past few weeks of solving clues and hunting down crayons. And every time I have a hunch, Ian's happy to go with me there, by foot or bike or car.

In fact, last Saturday was the first day in all of this that I felt unabashedly great. Since we're by appointment only at the store, and no one was scheduled after noon, we closed up just to explore some scavenger hunt options. We ordered a sandwich ahead, and walked in the sunshine together, and went through our list of clues. We walked by the lake, found some crayons, split our sandwich, and enjoyed each other's company. The loop we made was about three miles, and then we got some more work done at the store. I loved it. On a normal Saturday I'd never be able to take a break like that. Ironically, because of the lock down, I was not trapped in the store.

I'm starting to become aware of all the ways during normal life that I box myself in, and how too full a schedule can look like a form of quarantine. There are normally days where every hour was spoken for: The alarm would go off at six, I'd prepare breakfast and make sure everyone got off to school, swim my mile, get to the violin store with hair that was still wet and get to work, try to get home in time to see the kids for a few minutes before heading off to a rehearsal, and crawling back in bed where I started sometime after ten. It was all stuff I had chosen and that I enjoyed, but with that kind of schedule I was quarantining myself off from time to create, time to read, time with people I care about. I'm wondering how to restructure my life when the pandemic no longer dictates my options so that I have more true freedom.

I feel right now that we have reached a good place. I know I have. I'm past the grieving and the ennui. I'm excited to get up in the morning and tackle things, which was hard about a month ago. (Not everything, but enough. I'll get there.) Limiting the amount of news I listen to has helped. I acknowledge I am in a privileged position where other than the general isolation, we're not in distress. But I don't think anyone should feel guilt about being happy right now if they can be. I lived through enough of that during the deployments. When Ian was in Iraq, and one of the kids did something adorable, it was bittersweet, because I was always acutely aware that their dad was missing it. And there was an underlying sense of it being inappropriate to have fun while he had to be at war several time zones away.

My heart breaks for people who are enduring great loss at this time. I have concerns and fears about the future. But that's true every day, not just during a pandemic. I can be sad for others while still being proud of my daughter for getting into the school of her choice. I can honor people's sacrifices while still being glad to get to snuggle with my son on the couch during a movie. I don't have to feel guilty when our chattering bird makes me smile. Hardship comes to everyone at some point. No one escapes pain in life. So if you've managed to escape some now, during these peculiar and difficult times, appreciate it. Don't try to mitigate it to balance things out in the world. Take joy when you can get it. Especially now.

On Not Drinking

I don't drink.  I've never had a drink.  I have no interest in drinking.

This is just a regular fact of my life, so I don't give it much thought, but a little while back on a long drive with a cousin she asked me "Why not?" and I had to provide an answer.  It's interesting to try to explain something about yourself that you don't usually articulate, and it's easy to forget that something that is normal for you is different for other people.  I forget that drinking for many people is a common experience, so in case anyone is curious about a slightly different perspective, here's mine.

Skill Sets

Having my family away for a week recently was weird.  I've been away from my husband and kids before, but it's rare to have a stretch of time that long where they are away from me.  I thought I would be productive having the house to myself.  But I wasn't.  I was uninspired and listless.  I found myself sleeping in while cuddling the dog, eating cereal, and binge watching things like Breaking Bad and Call the Midwife.  Which is essentially what I would do if I were sick.  So what was that about?

It got me thinking about skill sets.  We specialize in activities in our own little worlds, and develop expertise in trivial matters that most will never appreciate.

When I was in college I was a research assistant in a Music Cognition Lab.  Ohio State had one of the best such programs in the world at the time.  I had deep admiration and respect for my boss who I thought ran her lab smoothly and well, and I enjoyed my work.

Happy Halloweeniversary (Babble)

Ian and I met on Halloween in 1989.  I can’t believe that was twenty years ago.  I have now known him half my life.  Halloween is one of the harder days to be without Ian.  The only other time we’ve been apart on Halloween was his last deployment in 2006.

We met at a party where everyone was asked to wear black and bring something grotesque sounding to eat.  String musicians own a lot of black clothes, so that part was easy for me, and I brought a box of vanilla pudding I figured we could call phlegm.

The party was loud, and I ended up wedged between my stand partner from orchestra and what looked like a young republican in a suit.  My stand partner was annoying and I really didn’t want to have to chat with her outside of orchestra, so I was stuck turning to suit guy.  On closer inspection I realized the suit was an ROTC uniform.  I come from a family of artists.  I thought ‘Hair’ was a very patriotic movie when I saw it at age nine.  I didn’t think I’d have anything in common with an Army guy.  I remember having the very conscious thought, “Well, not fair to judge a book by its cover….” and I said hello.

I find it impossible to picture my life today if I hadn’t gone to that party.

No Ian in his ROTC uniform means no Aden, no Mona, no Quinn.  I might not even be in violin making because Ian supported me and gave me encouragement all through my apprenticeship.  I don’t know who I would be right now.  I don’t know where I would be living or what I would be doing.  I’m sure I would have picked a different path that would appeal to me and I would be happy and fine, but the mere idea of a world where my kids never existed is unsettling.  They are supposed to be here somehow, I just know it.  Which brings me back to Ian in his ROTC uniform.


He told me later he specifically wore it just to be counter-counter-cultural.  He wanted to see if anyone in the all black wearing dancer/musician crowd would talk to him.  We had one of the best conversations of my life.  I had just finished reading “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” and really wanted to discuss it with someone, but no one else had even heard of it–except Ian.  We laughed together over the safe cracking chapter, and talked on and on as if we’d known each other a long time.  As if he weren’t in a uniform.  As if I didn’t come from a family that would be baffled about what to do with an engineering major when I brought him home.

Eventually, I had to go.  I had a paper to write and it was getting late.  I said goodbye and walked home alone, rerunning parts of the enjoyable conversation over and over in my head.  I’d sworn off dating for a bit because I was having a rough time at that point in college, but after a few days I realized I wanted to talk to the guy in the Army suit again.  I told the person who had invited him to the Halloween party to give him my number.  I thought that was very clever because he could call me, but he knew ahead of time I wanted him to.  A fabulous plan, except that at the time Ian was not good at calling people.  I ended up calling him myself, and left messages twice.  I should have figured it was a sign he wasn’t interested, but that conversation on Halloween had been so nice….  It just couldn’t have been my imagination.  The person I talked to would want me to try again, I just knew it, despite whatever signals I seemed to be getting.

When I tried the third (and in my mind, final) time, I actually caught Ian on the phone.  I asked him to a movie that night, and he said, “No, I can’t.  But don’t hang up!”  I hadn’t imagined it.  We had another great conversation.  We met the next night for a movie.  We’ve now had twenty years of great conversations, and mundane conversations, laughter and comfortable silence, and the occasional movie.  I still have the box of unopened phlegm pudding in the cupboard.  One day it will be a fun anniversary treat to make.  (Or at least an interesting experiment about the shelf life of instant pudding.)

I never imagined I’d fall in love with an Army guy.  It’s not always easy, but the proof that it’s right is in the form of three remarkable people who I get to tuck into bed each night.  I miss my husband.  There is no one else I’d rather talk to right now.

(Happy Anniversary, Ian, if you can read this.  I hope next Halloween we’re together.)