Posts Tagged ‘family life’
Cindy on January 1st, 2010
And now, let us welcome the New Year/ Full of things that have never been.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
It’s perfect — how the month of January is named for Janus, the Roman god of gates and entrances, beginnings and endings. With his two heads facing opposite directions, Janus inspires us to look backward and forward as we step over the threshold and begin again.
Last year was a year of change and transition for me and my small family.
My only child, who moved to Chicago after graduating from college in 2008, purchased his first condo in the summer. On moving day, his dad helped him haul boxes up and down the elevator of his new residence while I organized his kitchen. Unpacking my son’s dinnerware and utensils, I recalled other “firsts” in his young life. First day of kindergarten. First formal dance with his girlfriend. First day of driver’s ed. First day of college at Notre Dame. How quickly those days flew off the pages of our family calendar.
Meanwhile — almost overnight — my widowed mother lost her old spark. Independent for years, she began forgetting things. Important things. She forgot that certain people in her life had died. She forgot phone conversations we’d had the day before. When tested by the neurologist, she couldn’t recall the name of the county we live in, or what day of the week it was. Not surprisingly, in November she was diagnosed with early stage dementia — a diagnosis that immediately reordered my priorities and changed the shape of my days.
Looking forward; looking back. My son moves ahead with his new life in Chicago while my elderly mother’s world grows smaller and smaller. Clearly, the seasons of family living are unfolding exactly as they should. And despite the inevitable heartache, I find myself feeling deeply grateful for every step, stumble, or leap that brought me to this path, this life of mine.
As a freelance writer with a supportive husband, I’m lucky to have the flexibility to help my mother when she needs me. Impromptu trips with Mom to the doctor’s office or the emergency room aren’t fun — but they’re not as much of a challenge now as they would have been when I had office jobs.
Still, there’s no denying that it’s been a very tough year for every writer and journalist I know. If there’s a silver lining in any of it, the sad state of journalism here in Detroit forced many of us to try markets we’d neglected or overlooked when we were employed full-time or working other assignments. Out of necessity in 2009, I developed new writing workshops. I worked harder at promoting Writing Home. I outlined a viable idea for a new book project. Several of my personal essays were published in national anthologies and magazines. Best of all, a piece I wrote about my Zen garden was accepted for the March/April 2010 issue of Victoria — a lifestyle magazine I’ve read and admired for years. Regardless, freelance writing is a crazy business, so I’m forever grateful to my local writer pals and support groups for keeping me (somewhat) sane last year.
Typing these notes, I’m also overcome with gratitude for all of you who read my reflections here. Your comments and support always cheer me. And I apologize for not visiting (and commenting on) your blogs and Facebook walls as often as I wish I could. Too often lately, real life has made it impossible to spend as much time on my computer.
I’ll be offline for most of next week too. It’s time to pull down the Christmas decorations and begin the ritual of clearing out things I no longer need — holiday treats and leftovers; old clothes and grudges; bad attitudes. Getting started this morning, I opened our front and back doors to let the old year out and welcome the new one inside. It’s an old Celtic custom that’s still praticed in parts of Ireland and Scotland, and it makes perfect sense to me. The first cold blast of January wakes me up and hurries me back to work.
So there you have it. Doors opening and closing. Endings and beginnings. I wish you all a peaceful, healthy start for your own new year. — Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on November 8th, 2009
Tradition is a guide, not a jailer.” – W. Somerset Maugham
Over dinner with my husband’s brother and his wife last year, my husband and I broached the delicate subject of … The Holidays. I appreciated the chance to have this discussion with my in-laws. Celebrating the winter holidays, after all, is an emotionally loaded topic even among the most cordial and caring families. People-pleasers, especially, get wigged out at the very thought of trying to appease every relative perched on the family tree.
Regardless, the four of us began sharing a few of our favorite memories and traditions — the mother who stuffed the perfect Martha Stewart turkey, the barrel-chested grandpa who played Santa on Christmas Eve; the cookies we decorated with fistfuls of red and green sugar. We agreed that the nostalgic traditions of childhood are vastly different now. And still changing. They no longer involve the proverbial jaunt “over the river 
and through the woods” to Grandma’s house. Our grandparents all reside in cemeteries now, and our kids are making nests of their own.
Complicating the mix, our extended families keep extending – which makes it impossible to fit everyone around the same dining room table, even with an extra leaf in place.
One solution was to meet in smaller numbers on ordinary evenings, just as we’d done that night. Why wait for a major holiday to be a family? There, at a cozy Italian restaurant in Troy, the four of us were enjoying a rare opportunity to share what was on our minds and in our hearts. No other gifts required.
Not long after, I talked with a grieving friend who lost her mother and is struggling with a different holiday dilemma. As the eldest daughter, she inherited the tradition of hosting a Christmas Eve dinner that typically included up to 30 guests. As my friend explained, her mother was “a generous cook” who’d invite every known relative within reasonable driving distance, plus a few stray neighbors and friends who had no other plans for the evening.
“Having the house crammed with people was my mother’s idea of a perfect holiday,” my friend said. “I feel guilty, but my house is smaller, and I’d much rather have a quiet celebration.” So my friend decided to trim her guest list to a manageable 14. To honor her late mother’s memory, her siblings will bring a favorite family dish to the potluck.
Tradition is a good thing when it keeps us connected to people and places we love. It’s the essential ingredient in our most treasured family recipes. Baking shortbread, for instance, is a comforting ritual that links me to my Scottish ancestors, and it’s the only time I use pounds of real butter without flinching.
But tradition is not a good thing when it’s a futile taskmaster.
“It is my opinion that Norman Rockwell and his ilk have done more to make already anxious people feel guilty than anyone else,” wrote the late Gourmet magazine columnist Laurie Colwin. “The fact is, family is variable, but our stereotypical image of it is not.”
For the record, the family life of Norman Rockwell, “America’s painter,” was colored by three unhappy marriages, including one to a long-suffering alcoholic.
All said and done, we can’t possibly replicate our nostalgic past, nor should we feel obligated to remain frozen in someone else’s sugarcoated holiday vision. Ideally, we can combine the best of both worlds – the cherished recipes and rituals we’ve inherited, along with a few newer customs that have meaning to us.
As we mature, we’ll likely have to negotiate some holiday changes with our families. This might require that we welcome a sibling’s new spouse and step kids, or a gay cousin’s partner, to the table. We might have to learn how to bake our mother-in-law’s pumpkin pie from scratch. Or, we might decide to throw in the dishtowel, turn off the oven, and host the whole flock at the local diner. Meanwhile, I’ve decided to relax and count my blessings — which include several festive restaurants within a three-mile radius of home. Here’s to a happy, stress-free holiday season for every woman! — Cindy La Ferle
– This essay originally appeared in Strut magazine–
Cindy on July 22nd, 2009
I feel safe in the neighborhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Special Note: On break from blogging this month, I’m running favorite pieces from my essay collection, Writing Home. This piece reflects on the importance of real neighborhoods. Feel free to share your thoughts on “community” in the comment link following the essay …
It had been a little while since we’d been together. But despite the unseasonably cool weather for June, the talk was as warm and familiar as the coffee mug in my hands.
This time, we were celebrating the high school graduation of one of our kids. It struck me, as I glanced around the room, that no matter how much time passes or where I move in the future, these folks will always feel like home to me. They are my old neighbors.
My family and I moved a few blocks south of their Royal Oak enclave a while ago. And as much as we enjoy the neighborhood we live in now, I have to admit I left part of my heart, not to mention a spectacular lilac bush, in our former back yard.
I was pregnant with Nate when Doug and I moved there. Obsessive new homeowners that we were, we spent our free time renovating and decorating. It wasn’t until Nate needed playmates that we started connecting with other families on the block. As another mom told me, children turn your street into a neighborhood.
Unfortunately, that street was a shortcut to Woodward, one of the busiest thoroughfares in Oakland County, and too many drivers were oblivious to our residential speed limit. It wasn’t unusual to spot carloads of teenagers (or clueless adults) speeding past our house en route to the drag strip at the end of our block. And how could I forget the inebriated savage who stumbled out of a car and relieved his bladder on the new pine tree I’d just planted next to our driveway?
Naturally, we wanted to protect our kids as well as the peace of our carefully groomed street. So we banded together — about a dozen of us — to devise a plan. We would storm City Hall and demand that our officials close our street. My husband, the resident architect, drew up plans for diverting traffic. All of us took turns hosting civic meetings in our homes, not realizing at the time that we were actually cementing a lifelong friendship.
Of course, the city had no intention of redesigning our street. As a token gesture of compromise, we were given stop signs, which mysteriously disappeared a few years later. But our “town hall” meetings didn’t stop. Instead, they morphed into coffee hours and block parties and semi-annual dinner outings.
You hear a lot of talk about community these days – why it’s not as easy to cultivate and what we can do about it. Blaming our corporate work ethic and the time we spend on the Internet, sociologists claim that neighborly activities like pot-lucks and plant exchanges are remnants of the Victorian age.
Not so, in my experience. My family and I learned the secrets of community building in our early years as homeowners, thanks to a handful of neighbors who cared about something bigger than their own backyards.
Today, the little ones we were trying to protect from traffic are licensed drivers. Some, like the one whose graduation party I attended last week, are leaving for college in the fall. But they all seem to appreciate the friendships that grew around them years ago, and they promise to keep coming back to celebrate.
– This essay originally appeared in June 2003 in my “Life Lines” column in The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, MI) –
Cindy on July 15th, 2009
“You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.” — Franklin P. Jones
Special Note: On break from blogging, I’m running favorite pieces from my essay collection, Writing Home. This one recalls my first attempts at camping when my son was younger. Share your own camping memories in the comment link following the essay …
Thanks to my previous career as a travel editor, I know how to rate a mattress and a motel bathroom. I’m right at home in a wicker rocker on the porch of a quiet country inn, sipping a tall glass of Long Island iced tea while watching the sun dip behind a mountain range.
But until my son joined Cub Scouts two years ago, my getaways did not include wilderness adventures. To me, communing with nature meant reading Thoreau or potting begonias on the patio. Spending a weekend in the woods of rural Michigan — with a chorus of bull frogs, sundry snakes, ticks, two dozen little boys and their suburban-Detroit mothers — didn’t sound like my idea of a good time.
Like most parents, however, I’ve learned to adapt. And while I am not exactly what you’d call a happy camper, the Scouts have taught me to appreciate the Great Outdoors. In fact, this fall I’ll embark on my third annual “Mom & Me” camping weekend with Nate’s pack. These weekends were designed to encourage mother-and-son bonding, and to refute the theory that women will not sleep with insects.
I’ve also learned that the travel writer’s motto, “Always pack light,” doesn’t apply to north woods camping. On our first outing, for instance, Nate fell into a bog within fifteen minutes of our arrival at the camp site. He had to borrow my hiking boots until his own dried out the next day. Meanwhile, I had no choice but to tour the swamp in soggy tennis shoes.
“This weekend is an endurance test for parents,” one mom confided, half-seriously.
The following year I stuffed half a dozen pairs of boots into the back of our Jeep, but forgot my own raincoat. Of course, that was the weekend it poured and poured … and poured. I’ll never forget the sight of six devoted moms building a campfire in the evening drizzle. (We were determined to do this thing right: We were going to roast every single hot dog and melt every marshmallow we’d hauled along with our Dura-flame logs.) Our boys, however, were smart enough to hide from the rain. Searching the campground by flashlight, we finally found them in one of the cabins playing Life, the board game of the moment.
“Bring the hot dogs in here,” one nine-year-old demanded as he scooted his car-shaped marker across the board. “I’m getting ready to sell one of my houses and I’m having a midlife crisis!”
If we’re very lucky, the hike to the public restrooms is only 15 minutes (uphill) from our campsite. The trick, I found, is to keep a spare flashlight in your sleeping bag so that you can grab it quickly if nature calls at 2:00 a.m.
Nobody sleeps much on these weekends. The kids are buzzing on caffeine, having consumed several gallons of Pepsi and Mountain Dew. The moms, smelling like a bonfire and desperately wishing for one hot shower, toss fitfully in their sleeping bags while the boys play flashlight games and tell ghost stories.
“Did you hear the one about the one-eyed man who went berserk in the north woods and was NEVER FOUND…?”
After two nights like these, the long drive back on Sunday is tolerable only with a mug of instant coffee and the promise of a warm bath. Completely exhausted, Nate and I usually ride home in silence. But last October, on the way home he mumbled, “Thanks for the weekend, Mom…Great weekend.” It was a rare moment of sincere, unprompted gratitude.
Catching a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror, I remembered I wasn’t wearing makeup. My eyes looked older, and in an instant I saw the years racing past me like the cars on the expressway. My boy looked older, too, his lanky body slouched on the seat next to me. Suddenly, that weekend — my endurance test — seemed awfully short. I was proud of myself for hiking swamps and building fires in the rain. – Cindy La Ferle
– This essay orginally appeared in The Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine (Cleveland) and MetroParent (Detroit). It is reprinted in Writing Home. –
Cindy on June 13th, 2009
“Mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
My favorite comedy routine is the one in which Steve Martin blanks out in the middle of a monologue, then beams a vacant smile and informs his audience that he’s momentarily “visiting the Bahamas.”
Martin redefined the ultimate dream vacation — which seems to be the only type of vacation most women can schedule these days. As a younger parent in my ‘hood reminded me recently, “Summer vacation is no picnic for moms.”
Back when I was editor of a travel magazine, I studied the psychological benefits of taking real vacations. At a seminar for innkeepers and hotel managers, I was excited to learn that scads of research had been done to determine what made female guests happy, and what inspired them to return for future holidays. Was it a room with a gorgeous view? Complimentary chocolate truffles? Bellhops who looked like Brad Pitt?
Women responding to the survey listed crisply laundered sheets, spanking-clean bathrooms, and attentive room service as top amenities on the hotel surveys. A mother of three, for example, explained that the best part of her family vacation to Disney World was returning every night to the hotel suite and discovering that the cleaning fairies had made all the beds.
So, lately I’ve been thinking: If women love to be pampered, why is it that so few of us book personal vacations — just a little time out — when we need them? Why is it so hard for us to hit “pause”?
Whether we’re buying groceries for a family of five or sprinting to the next marketing meeting, our lives are fractioned like the to-lists in our day planners. Worse yet, the media have brainwashed us into thinking that free time isn’t for leisure anymore. If we’re not designing our own line of furniture or auditioning for the symphony on our lunch breaks, we’re made to feel like slackers. How can we justify a fifteen-minute soak at home in a Crabtree & Evelyn bubble bath — let alone a week at a spa?
Years ago, when I was a younger mom with an office job and a preschooler, an editor with whom I worked was kind enough to share her well-thumbed copy of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s inspirational classic, Gift from the Sea. First published in 1955, this little book of reflections was written during the famous author’s solitary retreats to an isolated beach house on Captiva Island.
Using seashells to represent the various stages of a woman’s life, Lindbergh wrote with amazing clarity about issues that still baffle us today — how to find spiritual serenity in suburban chaos; how to manage work and family; how to jazz up a droopy marriage.
Just as Virginia Woolf reminded us that we need a room of our own in which to dream and create, Lindbergh gave busy women permission to schedule precious time alone. I desperately needed that permission – and am forever indebted to the editor who loaned me Lindbergh’s book.
“The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence,” Lindbergh wrote. “It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life.” A deserted beach is the ideal place to hear one’s inner voice, she emphasized. Wandering the shore minus goals, deadlines, or diaper bags, a woman can replenish her depleted soul and reclaim her sanity.
Revisiting Gift from the Sea 20 years later, I realize I still need “a central core to my life” that will enable me to carry out my midlife obligations – caring for my aging mother; being a supportive wife; cheering my son’s independence; putting wings on my own dreams. I’m sure that a solo flight to a cabana in the tropics would help me find that central core. A pina colada with a cute paper umbrella would help, too.
But right now, there’s a list of summer chores and deadlines competing for my attention, including a backyard garden that needs a good weeding. For now I’ll have to settle for a quick mental escape to a fantasy island. Once I get there, maybe I’ll run into Steve Martin. –Cindy La Ferle
