Confronting the Slipperiness of Time

Another fall rolls around with Domino

I've been working on a post for a while about the events of our summer. The main purposes of this blog are to stay on some sort of writing schedule (and this month's deadline is upon us in a matter of hours), and to document for myself basic family events and milestones. I will still finish my summer catch-up post, but not before the stroke of midnight this Halloween, so I offer up these thoughts in the meantime.

I am increasingly astonished as I get older how fast time slips away. This isn't surprising to anyone, certainly, but I'm thinking about it in terms of how some days seem over before they've even begun.

For instance, all I really want to do lately is work in my new shop space. We moved my violin making shop into the former teaching space in the back of the store, and it's wonderful. I have so much room and better access to everything I need, and when I'm in it, I don't want to leave. I started two instruments, and I'm at the point where I can begin shaping blocks. I'm excited to do that.

However, I have not had the chance to sit at my desk and do that for several days. It's frustrating. I find myself lying in bed in the morning, figuring out what's ahead, and being sad that getting to my desk is unlikely because all of my time already seems spoken for. Yesterday I had to factor in dog walks, a trip to the gym and a shower, deciding on some kind of lunch for later, repair work at my bench, errands to three different stores, and customer appointments that ran into the evening. I knew all of that was ahead before I got up, and felt like the day was gone before I got out from under the covers.

I love my life. If I were unaware of the state of the world, I would say everything is really good at the moment. I liked everything I did yesterday. I liked everything I did today.

The problem with projects that can be easily pushed back little by little, is they begin to feel like a mirage. I find myself looking up from my daily routine and responsibilities at a distant oasis I may never reach.

My writing projects are the biggest example of this problem. They are not necessary to pay the bills or to meet obligations to others. They are important to me, but are only on deadlines of my own imagining. The dog needing a walk can't be put off. Rehairing a bow for someone who needs it before their next rehearsal makes specific demands on my time. But my novels? The followup to my violin book? The only timelines for working on those are entirely made up.

As a result, a day easily slips by without doing that work. What's one day? I'm a busy person. Of course I didn't get to my edits today, because there are so many other things that have to come first. But then that quietly becomes every day.

Last summer I hired an editor to go through the next novel I would like to publish. This one I think has more commercial potential than the other things I've written, and I've decided to make a concerted effort toward traditional publication. If it doesn't happen, that's fine, but I just want to make the attempt so I don't regret in the future that I didn't take a real shot at a wider audience for my fiction. A writer friend recommended a lovely editor, she made suggestions, and under different circumstances I should have been able to do my rewrites in under a week because when I have clear direction, I am a fast writer. But the format of the editor's comments are awkward for me because I like to work from such things in a hard copy and all of this was digital, etc. etc. The upshot is, sorting out what I need to do is just painful enough that it keeps getting pushed back. One more day.

Then all of a sudden I look up and the days have piled into over a year. I have not touched this book in so long it's embarrassing, not to mention frustrating.

That's what happens in my violin building shop, too. Although I do have two people expecting instruments on some kind of promised timeline, so at some point panic will set in and I will start scheduling time at my desk again, rather than letting it all get used up in the front of the shop where the repairs never end.

But no one is waiting on my book except in only the most vague of terms. So any urgency about finishing it has to come from me.

Which is why I set up a writing retreat this coming week where I can be in a house in the woods with my dog and a fellow writer (who also has a project to finish), and we'll have a fire, snacks, and no internet. My plan is to buckle down and finish this book. And that apparently can't happen in my regular life where time is slippery and days follow days and writing ends up out of reach.

Who knows? I might be so productive I finish my novel edits early and can complete that other blog post. It could happen.
 

 

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

There's Always One More Thing

Thinking way, way back to when I had my first baby, one of the more vivid adjustments was to how relentless much of the responsibilities feel.

There were plenty of lovely, quiet moments. Moments when I would hold my sweet baby and watch her laugh, and feel her touch my face, and I would try to sear all of it into my brain so I could remember it for both of us. For the most part, she was an easy baby who grew into an adorable toddler and then a charming little girl, and eventually a very sweet teenager.

But at every stage there was always something to monitor, or get past, or solve. There was colic, or eczema, or weird rashes, or hives. Was she getting enough tummy time? There were vaccinations, and ear infections, and wondering if I was exposing her to enough new experiences. Figuring out school for our first child was an ordeal. At some point there were allergies and ear tubes and questions about socialization. There were concerns about how she was handling her dad's deployment. There were concerns about adjusting to his return. There were struggles with certain subjects, and drama with friends, and learning to drive, and cook, and how to frame her passions into something that looks like a future.

Today my daughter is in her last year of high school, preparing to graduate and applying to colleges. She's legally an adult now, but always my baby. There are new things to worry about, and to try and help her solve.

There is always one more thing.

I don't remember when tummy time officially ended. It was a regular real concern until it no longer was. Because whatever the new thing was, it took over, and we monitored and worked on that. And the cycle continues with each new thing, until you look up one day and realize your baby is eighteen and in some arbitrary official sense your job is "done."

But it's never really done. Because there is always one more thing. That's what life is.

And it goes by frighteningly fast.

Summer Time

I know all the logical arguments about why there is no justification for summer vacation anymore.  My children aren't needed out in the farm fields and the break in their formal education takes a toll by fall.  I suppose that all makes sense.  But I'm not one who obsesses over my children's academic lives, and our own work schedule is not jeopardized by the kids being home, so I can afford to get behind the concept of a real summer break.

I believe in the value of giant swaths of free time.  Creativity doesn't readily conform to a schedule.  There are projects I don't even start if I know I can't have several hours to alternately concentrate and let my mind drift.

And I believe one of the greatest gifts of childhood, if you are lucky enough to get it, is the chance to be free of certain responsibilities and come up with things to do on your own.  I like being able to grant that to my kids on a grand scale in the summer.  With a few exceptions, their time in summer is their own.

We don't have bedtimes during summer vacation.  The kids sleep in as long as they want to.  There are no rules about the TV.  The only rule about the computer at the moment is they have to use it in the dining room just so they don't get holed up in some dark corner of their room on a beautiful day.  If they use their own money they can flag down the ice cream cart whenever it comes by.  They can play outside until the sun goes down.  Friends from the neighborhood are welcome.  Quinn can't bike outside alone if a grownup isn't home, but otherwise they can bike wherever.  We keep track of them in a general sort of way, but our house with the trampoline the giant box of legos and the big supply of sidewalk chalk tends to be where lots of kids want to congregate, so we don't have to look far.

Quinn still has a couple of piano lessons to prepare for over the summer, and the girls still have violin, but that's about it.  We do a family word of the day for spelling practice, and as school gets closer we'll buckle down and review math again.  When their rooms get too messy we stand over them and make them clear a reasonable path.  But for the most part not much is expected of them.  They can decide what to do.

And what have they done with their time so far?