I miss the camaraderie of working together toward shared goals, and it’s not lost on me that our camp chores have divided along gender lines: house-building and protection from bears the man’s job; cooking, cleaning up, and nurturing children the woman’s.
~ Uphill Both Ways
|
|
Over this holiday season, I've been conscious of experiencing many lasts as I contemplate the twins heading off to college next year--the last time I'll slip an ornament, a clementine, and chocolate into each shoe hastily placed before the wood stove on St. Nicholas Eve, the last time we'll trek into the woods as a family to find the perfect Christmas tree, the last time we'll fashion a Yule log menorah from a piece of firewood and invite friends over for latkes and dreidel. While all three kids will likely come home for some period of time around Christmas for many years to come, we'll no doubt let go of most of the small celebrations I've built in over the years to extend the holiday season, dissipate some of the anticipatory build-up of pressure around one big day of greed and gluttony, and focus on non-consumeristic, non-obligatory, non-performative ways of enjoying this time of year. Some of those rites have already gone by the wayside: the boys outgrew the Christmas Book Countdown years ago; they lost interest in the 12 Days of Christmas calendar a while back; and this year I had a book event on the Solstice, so we didn't have our traditional hike and small fire by the river.
It's a funny thing about parenting, how we anticipate, make note of, and remember each first--first clap, first word, first time riding a bike without training wheels--but lasts slip by without notice. Sometimes we don't even realize it was a last until weeks or months or years have passed. When was the last time he said 'vigenar" or "skabetti"? When was the last time I tied his shoes for him? When was the last time I could pick him up? So being aware of lasts as they happen is a strange feeling. It's tinged with both nostalgia and relief--nostalgia for the sweet time in my kids' lives when the holidays were full of magic and relief that I will soon be freed of the effort of keeping that magic alive.
People have been asking me for a while now if it isn't going to be hard to let my youngest two kids go when they head off to college next year, if I dread facing the empty nest. Of course I'll miss my kids, and I'm sure people mean well, but I have to admit to taking umbrage at the question. First, this was the goal of the whole project: to raise competent humans who can launch themselves out of the nest and live their own lives. I'm thrilled for them, and excited to see what this next phase brings. Second, the idea that something essential will be missing from my life with my kids away fails to account for the immense amount of self-sacrifice and physical and emotional labor I put into raising them or consider that maybe I'm exhausted by the effort and due for a break. Finally, the question implies that I *am* my kids, that I don't have an identity outside of "mother" and won't have a raison d'être once they're gone. So forgive me if I respond with a glib statement about being well shot of them as I dust my hands together.
While the time when I get to (more) fully inhabit myself as an individual human being is months in the future, I've been getting a preview of what it will be like to extract myself from the mother identity this week as I've begun recording my dreams and goals for 2023 and beyond. I still have to account for them and their not inconsiderable needs over the next nine months of getting them into and off to college, but after that there's a bit of a blank slate. Thinking about extracting me from them feels a bit like trying to take off a snug jacket with the zipper jammed in the up position. For so many years my goals have had to be either expanded to encompass a family or truncated by the limitations imposed by family life. I'm not sure I even know how to dream big anymore, or what my life will look and feel like next September. I had thought, at one time, that I'd drop the twins off at college and then keep on driving, west in a camper van, to explore deserts and mountains and rivers. But as the time draws nearer, I see that's not an entirely realistic plan. For one thing, I don't even have a camper van.
2023 will be punctuated, no doubt, by many lasts, many moments of nostalgia and relief, as all three of my kids make big steps toward being their own adult selves. For me, I hope it will be marked by a few firsts, as I fiddle that jammed zipper loose, try new things, and learn to inhabit the post-mom me.
|
|
- Book Reading, February 8, 2023, 11:45 a.m., University of Maine at Augusta French Club
- Book Reading, March 15, 2023, 5:30 p.m., Northeast Harbor Library, Northeast Harbor, ME
Check out my events page for updates about readings and events as they're scheduled. And if you'd like to schedule an event at your local bookstore, library, school, or book club, send me an email and we'll put one together!
|
|
|
2022 Publications
- "100 Words of Writing Advice" Literary Mama blog, January 2022
- "From the Editor" Literary Mama, May/June 2022
- "Stay Together, Learn the Flowers, Go Light" The Art of Everyone, May 2022
- "Alligator Pear" Stonecrop Review, June 2022
- "River Revival: Clean Water Act 50th Anniversary" Green and Healthy Maine Summer Guide, Summer 2022
- "10 of Maine's Best Lakes to Visit" Green and Healthy Maine Summer Guide, Summer 2022
- "Citizen Scientists Key to Maine's Clean Lakes" Green and Healthy Maine Summer Guide, Summer 2022
- "Five Hundred Miles" Deep Wild, July 2022 (reprint)
- "'Mother Brain' delves into the science of how our brains are rewired by parenthood" Maine Sunday Telegram, October 2022
|
|
|
With Gratitude
As this year draws to a close, I want to thank all of you for letting me pop into your inbox once an month and share what's going on in my life. I especially want to thank those of you who have helped make this Uphill Both Ways book publication year a success!
|
|
|
- Thanks to all of you who purchased and read Uphill Both Ways
- Thanks to all of you who reviewed Uphill Both Ways on Amazon, Goodreads, Instagram, or another platform
- Huge thanks to friends and family members who purchased multiple copies to give away as gifts (shout out to my parents, Cloe, Barbara, Cheryl, Christine, and Charlene)
- Thank you to friends who organized book readings at their local libraries or bookstores or invited me to their book club (shout out to Alicia, Sarah, Cheryl, Charlene, and Chelsea)
- Thanks to Jennifer Dupree for organizing two joint author talks
- Much gratitude to all of the libraries, bookstores, and other venues for hosting me--either remote or in-person
- Thanks to all of you who attended book readings and events
- Big thanks to podcasters and YouTubers who invited me onto their shows
- Thanks to Sheepscot General, Liza, Jenna, Sue, Tina, and others who helped throw a fabulous book launch party and to the big crowd that showed up to give my book a warm welcome into the world
- Thanks to all of you who subscribe to and read this little newsletter. I know there are a lot of other worthy demands on your time and attention, and I appreciate you spending a few moments a month with me!
|
|
|
Get Your Copy of
Uphill Both Ways
Or visit your local bookstore and ask them to order a copy for you
and a few to put on the shelves for other customers.
|
|
|
|
Check out the beautiful November/December issue of Literary Mama. |
|
|
Happy New Year, friends. Here's to dreaming big!
~ Andrea
|
|
|
|
|
