Full-y Preparing For Empty Nesting

I put the word "full"y there in the title just to round it out with a counterpart for the word "empty", and not because I have entered the me-and-him-only season of our married life with complete preparation. 

Who can say when one is fully prepared for something, anyway? How do you pack sufficiently when you know you're going to travel somewhere, but you've never been there before and you don't even know exactly when you're leaving? You can toss things into your luggage as you think of them, accumulating items you guess will be beneficial and you hope will enhance your enjoyment of your stay, but there comes a point when you've got to close the suitcase and begin the trip.

 

We're not far into the journey, Ken and I, and although we seem to have reached at least the outskirts of Empty Nesting, I wouldn't say we've totally arrived. We've been on the road long enough, though, for me to observe a few things that I'm glad I've packed along on the trip.

I sometimes think about what I, from the vantage point of now, would tell myself as a young wife caught up in the weary flurry of mothering four littles and desperately longing for more time to spend with her husband alone. 

"Hang in there, honey", I'd tell her first of all. "Likely there will come a time when you'll have him all to yourself in the car, but here's a little secret - that ride won't automatically be without its ragged potholes and hairpin curves." 

I'd lean in closer and add, "There are things you can be doing right now, though, to prepare for the ride - to help make the travel transition easier and enhance your enjoyment of the trip, when its back to just the two of you in the front seat of the car."   

The things that I'd list for my younger married self could be illustrated in the story of a little overnight trip Ken and I took to Parry Sound about a year ago, just after we'd entered into our empty-nesting journey: 

1. Realize you will always be who you are. 

When you're down to just the two of you in your household, don't expect that the bad habits of you and your spouse will automatically disappear and good habits will magically show up to replace them. (If, early on in your marriage, he'd leave his apple core lying on the piece of furniture closest to where he finished eating his apple, and she'd trim her nails by ripping them off instead of using a fingernail clipper to cut them, chances are those irritating-to-the-spouse things will keep happening without definite intention to change, in spite of numerous reminders to the offender by the offendee.) 

Nope, entering the empty nesting season of your life won't make you a different person. You'll be working with the same strengths and weaknesses in yourself, that you've been dealing with over the years. Now that I'm an emptynester, I need to face it - I am still Danette, tending to clam up rather than to speak up when things don't go my way, feeling like a failure when criticized, easily seeing what could go wrong when presented with a new opportunity (especially one that I didn't dream up). 

If it feels to me like I haven't thought through everything satisfactorily, it's hard to release control and enter into my husband's planning well. So, when he suggested visiting our Parry Sound friends, Ken and Elaine, over Family Day weekend last year, I hesitated. 

Not that I didn't want to go and support my writer friend and her husband when he was so very sick with cancer, but what if it was merely a selfish desire on our part to be with them, and not at all timely and appreciated on their end? What if Elaine's Ken, in his pain and suffering, was past wanting visitors? What if Elaine was so exhausted with his care that she wouldn't want to see another person that day? What if family members would be there at the time, and we'd be barging in on precious last moments with their father and grandfather? 

"Just text her," my Ken urged. "Ask her if it suits for us to come on Sunday afternoon or evening. Tell her we wouldn't stay long..." So I did. Elaine soon responded to my message and we arranged a time to meet. If we were an intrusion that Sunday evening we knocked on her door, she never let on. She welcomed us in with open arms and graciously shared a brief, quiet, uplifting visit with her and her husband in the last days of his life. He died a week later. 

I'm so glad my Ken helped me plan for that visit. Much more than it being a time I will remember as us two utilizing team effort in my character development, it will be a precious memory of us being able to share poignant moments with friends.

2. Know how to have a fun Family Day even when there's no family around. 

That thing that they say about prioritizing your husband; to make him your first love, ahead of the children, because when the children leave home, then you'll have a relationship with him still intact? I really think there's something to that. Carving out alone times as a couple as much as you can when your nest is still full of fledglings will help to make the nest more cozy when they've all flown away. 

After our visit with Elaine and her Ken on that day in Feb of last year, my Ken and I went to a motel nearby in Parry Sound where we spent the night. The next day was Family Day, a day that some provinces in Canada have set aside in recent years for people to take a day off work and concentrate on family togetherness. 

It didn't work for us to get together with any of our offspring to celebrate Family Day, what with our daughters & Co. being in Guys Mills, PA, and our sons & Co. in our province but occupied with things around their own homes and schedules. Hence, Ken and I decided to have a fun day on our own in Parry Sound, a scenic lakeshore town about 3 hours north of where we live. A fun day, in our way of thinking, includes activities such as hiking, eating out, playing Boggle, and just simply being together.

3. Do things your spouse likes to do, even if you don't enjoy the activity all that much.  

After a leisurely breakfast at the motel in Parry Sound on Family Day morning, we set out to find some walking trails in the area. Ken wanted to do a huge walk to get in the steps for his daily goal. I love hiking, but I'm not as game as he is for the distances he likes to trek, now that he's taken great strides toward healthier lifestyle. But I went along on the 12km loop with him, anyway. It was a good choice. As we wound around the shore of the bay, the scenery just begged my stopping often to take a picture. Ken got numerous chances to surrender his desire to make uninterrupted progress on our walk as he catered to the wishes of his photographer wife. 

4. Be a team as much as possible. 

When we go on a hike such as we did on that Family Day, our experience as a couple is enhanced by both of us offering our individual expertise to the expedition. Ken's good at googling hiking trails in the area, and driving us to them, and I can spot signs and read directions quicker than he does. He covers distance on the trail; I linger over details. This means that sometimes we make great headways on our journey, and sometimes we pause and marvel over a unique bit of nature found along the path. 

If the trail is wide enough to accommodate both of us, we walk side by side, but when it narrows down to a single track, we hike one after the other. Sometimes Ken walks in front and leads the way, and other times he brings up the rear, making it easier for him to ask me how I'm doing and for me to hear his encouragement.

5. Get into a pattern of listening to the locals.

Eventually we got to the Parry Sound Harbor area in our hike, where the lake seems to narrow down into a river. The hiking trail took us by some shoreline shops, one of which was a Boston Pizza restaurant. "Let's walk to the end of the trail over on the other side there," Ken suggested, pointing way over yonder, "and we can come back here for lunch." That sounded great to me. We walked past a lighthouse, under the railway trestle, over a railroad-bridge-turned-footbridge spanning a river where dark water could be seen flowing among snow-covered rocks, and along a hard-packed snowmobile trail. 

On that side of the harbor, the nice walking part of the trail eventually ran out; it seemed to end as it came up against a side road. We turned back to retrace our steps and loop back into town. When we  came to a place where we could see out over the harbor, though, we got the idea to walk across the snow-covered ice on the snowmobile trail to the other side, where the shops were. We hadn't seen any people walking on the lake at that part of the harbor, but there had been plenty of snowmobiles criss-crossing that area, and there was a definite trail they had packed down that we could walk on to get to the other side. 

It was a beautiful trek across the close-to-one-kilometer span of frozen lake, but I was happy to make it to the other side and to rest during a nice lunch at the Boston Pizza. We were just finishing our meal when a weathered, snowmobile-suited chap walked over to our table and asked us if we're from the local area. Thinking he wanted to ask us about the Mennonites, or to make some connection in our social circles, we engaged in friendly conversation with him.

But, come to find out, he was there to share with us his concern and warning. He'd watched us walk across that span of harbor ice, and he wanted to make sure we weren't going to go back across it. The ice wasn't thick enough to be safe, in his estimation, since that area had been open water just days earlier! When we mentioned seeing snowmobiles doing that stretch safely, he patiently explained to us naive newcomers about the weight distribution and speed of a machine skimming over the surface as important factors to consider in comparison to humans walking across. I think we brought him great relief by stating that we had not planned to retrace our steps over the lake; it had been our intention to head the opposite direction all along. 

In processing the ordeal later, I vaguely recalled seeing a sign near the harbor with some warning about entering the ice at your own risk. I like to think that if I had had serious reservation about us crossing the ice on foot, I would've voiced it to Ken and even been courageous enough to put my foot down and said "I'm not going," if he had insisted on it in spite of my hesitation. As it was, together we chose to enter a danger zone, a place that could've had very tragic results. I'm grateful that someone saw, and cared enough to approach us with a warning to keep from going down that path again. 

As a couple, it's not easy to take advice from older ones when you're newly married. I'm finding out that it doesn't get much easier as empty nesters, but it seems like any practicing we have done along the way will help. I hope that in our marriage Ken and I will always have those around us who know the territory well; those who are brave enough to share their wisdom and concerns with us. And to them I hope we always stay approachable.

6. Embrace surprises.

On the last stretch of our trek, we wended our way through a gorgeous, snowy section of woods. We had just passed a tiny little bridge when I suddenly found myself lying flat on my back in a snowdrift. Here Ken had sneaked up from behind and pushed my knees forward so that I toppled backward toward him. He broke my fall enough that I didn't crash down dangerously; maybe he would say I was laid down neatly but to me it felt a lot like being thrown down on purpose. 

At first it made me mad. I sputtered my consternation at him, but then, there he was, bending down close enough to kiss. Sometimes you have to seize an opportunity to forgive when it appears. 

Then, since I was down anyway, I just lay there in the snow awhile, looking up at the circle of blue, blue sky fringed by treetops. The world looked different from that angle - unique and beautiful.  

I suppose at any point in one's marriage, whether preparing for empty nesting, or fully there, one could consider this advice: Don't expect Love to sweep you off your feet, but when it does, embrace the sweet surprise, and enjoy your new point of view.

Empty nesting is not all it's cracked up to be - it's more. When else is it easier for the two of you to pick up and go for a drive on a whim, to communicate with each other without distractions such as your tribe making a joyful or otherwise noise, to play a game without constant interruptions, when you can be more lax about closing room doors if you feel like it, and shout sweet nothings to each other? (Of course, the latter may soon be of necessity as one's hearing and concentration fades with age!)

I have a hunch that no matter which installment of life's series one is in at present, there are things to grieve and things to welcome. There are difficult challenges to face, yes, but among them there are beautiful discoveries to be made.

What do you love about your current season?

Food for Thought Processor

 

Autumn is considered the season for processing. Processing food, that is, as it pertains to canning and preserving all sorts of fruits and vegetables that make up harvest’s abundance. Presently we are dwelling in winter, already a notable distance into the season after autumn, so why bring up the processing topic now?  One reason, I suppose, is that there are other types of processing (besides food) to be considered. And processing thoughts can be done in any season.

 

I’ve always had this rather vague thought that processing something meant you chop things up finer, as in a wood processor cutting and splitting big logs into smaller sticks of firewood, or a meat processor grinding up chunks of pork and fat to make sausage, but the term has other nuances as well.

 

Processing can mean “to perform operations on something in order to change or preserve it” or “subjecting something to a series of actions in order to achieve a particular result.”

 

Processing thoughts, then, can be less like taking ideas and emotions and chopping them up smaller and more like taking the already small separate items and performing operations on them to bring more order, bringing the pieces to peace, as it were. We process things in our minds to bring meaning to an event or situation.

 

People process their thoughts in different ways. Some individuals have to go verbal with them. Getting together with a friend and pouring out the words as freely as the coffee does wonders for their processing mechanism. For others, tears are greatly involved. (I wonder if some people, like me, have more capacity in their God-noticed tear bottles than average.) Some people – although I’m guessing this would be a bit more rare – need to draw or sketch out their thoughts in order to process them satisfactorily. Others may pray the whole deal out, meditate it out, or write it out.

 

Being the listy and wordy person I am, I write it out.

 

Let’s say neighbor Mrs. Weeblechink up the street sends me a message telling me not to bother giving her and her family the annual jar of my homemade salsa in times to come, because this year’s batch wasn’t hot enough to suit her. Doesn’t have enough zinginess, she says, to zing her children out of bed in the mornings.

 

Well. This message stirs up all sorts of things in me. Before I know it, chopped retorts, minced phrases, chunks of misunderstanding and shreds of rejection start flying around in my mind.

 

But eventually I must get out my notebook and pen to begin processing by writing things out. Listing thoughts is the very best way for me to begin.

 

1.  No one says I have to give salsa to Neighbor Weeblechink’s family. No one says Mrs. Weeblechink’s family has to receive my salsa. But I have given the salsa; she has received it. Now she has given the feedback; I have received it (and now I must deal with it).

2.  Neighbor Weeblechink is putting expectations on salsa that are unrealistic.

3.  Since I made the salsa, I feel like the unrealistic expectations are put on me, too.

4.  I’m zinging angry! (stupid jalapenos)

5.  I love making salsa and sharing it with neighbors.

6.  Starting annual traditions and being loyal to the yearliness of them gives me energy. 

As I gather these fragments on paper, I sense that I have some choices to make for the outcome of this processing.

 

I could choose to corral bits of green pepper and chunks of tomato and herd them into something useful, not allowing them to whir around and around in the blades of my chopper until the salsa is unrecognizable puree. (I should have at least kept the lid on, I think as I scrape red sauce off the kitchen walls and ceiling.)

 

On the other hand, I could try to keep the ingredients as they are, entirely whole or in large chunks so I don’t have to go through the chopping and the stirring and the simmering it takes to process them. But that would be almost like glaring at the vegetables on the counter and commanding them to hop into the jars and be salsa – salsa with the perfect sort of zinginess, I might add.

 

What I might really feel like doing is gathering up and sending Mrs. Weeblechink a jar of my salsa-making scraps before they go out to the slop pile. I could pack up the whole mess of remnants (garlic skins, onion peelings, gougings-out of the tomatoes where they’ve gone bad, pepper membranes and seeds – especially the seeds, since they pack the heat) and let her figure it out.

 

Or, I could send her a pint of fresh jalapenos, labelled NeverFail Morning Zingers. That’s what I could do! But I’m afraid my joking about them wouldn’t keep them from looking to Mrs. Weeblechink like so many green hand grenades nestled there in the jar.

 

I could choose not to send her anything. Instead, I could invite a few trusted salsa-zinginess judges over to share my own perfect brand of salsa with. As we relish its deliciousness with tortilla chips and gooey globs of melted cheese, I could also serve up the myriad and juicy bits of the Weeblechink scenario for us to process together. Would the latter dish, though, be worth the bitter aftertaste it could leave in our mouths? 

 

Or I could make a batch of salsa with just a notch more zinginess than usual, just for me. There’d be nothing to keep me from secretly labelling those jars (in my mind only) the Weeblewink brand of salsa. Nothing hindering me from remembering what I learned from this experience every time I dip a chip into its nip of zip.

 

“Hmm,” I can picture saying to myself as I chew thoughtfully, savoring that unique and savory bite, “this may well become my favorite recipe for salsa.”

 

How do you typically process things? 

I wish you just the right amount of zinginess in the salsa of your life!

Into It Like a Five-year-old

I didn't even want to plan Christmas this year. Since we couldn't legally get our family together (including our local married children) all under one roof - and, more specifically, the roof of our very own house - what would be the point of laying out schedules and making any preparation thereunto? 

Looking back over it now, I see I should've "gone into it like a five-year-old".

Meaning carefree and unassuming, I suppose, oblivious to past glitches as well as present ditches and snares of comparison and whatotherpeoplethink. That's probably what my friend meant, anyway, when she used the phrase about just going into it like a five-year-old to describe how a group of ladies could successfully circle up and enter into dialogue without relational pitfalls tripping them up so easily. 

I'm guessing my friend was referring to the way a five-year-old would typically approach a current situation with a lot less inhibition than, say, a fifty-five-year-old would, due to what went wrong yesterday and what is likely to go wrong tomorrow.

Maybe if I had gone into Christmas like a five-year-old, I wouldn't have ached quite so much for the way things used to be. I wouldn't have strained my anxious eyes by peering into the future so intently. I could have reveled more in the delight of the present. 

I probably still would have shed a few tears over the frustrations and disappointments of an abnormal Christmas and New Year's. But I would've been quick to let them go in my eagerness to embrace the novel immediate. And I'm pretty sure I would've been startled by the kind of joys that often spring out of the unexpected. 

Such as...

...the way my family humored me by illustrating portions of Luke 2:1-20 in our traditional reading of that passage before the opening of gifts. This involved a Q&A about political figures, a "multitude" of stuffed animals, piano playing, colorful computer screen backgrounds, and a real live child (who didn't exactly enjoy being taken upon a lap when Mary "laid him in a manger", and started wailing!) all in a Zoom meeting with a rather shaky start due to an unstable Internet connection. 

...the pleasure we got from helping to put a touch of hominess into someone else's Christmas. A number of the Trinidadian guys who work for Martin's had to stay in Canada over Christmas because their government was not yet accepting the workers back into their own country. Martin's appointed Ken to purchase and deliver gifts to this group of men who were spending the holidays in a country not their own, apart from their relatives and friends back home. Ken decided on a few small items such as a flashlight and a Canada toque, and I baked cookies to add to the gift for each fellow. Kerra and I joined Ken in packing the 60-some bags and I got the privilege of writing the individual names on the tags. On the day before Christmas, I enjoyed traveling with Ken to his Vienna workplace and handing out the gift bags to some very appreciative "stranded" workers. 

...the fun of having Ken join me in the kitchen to make Christmas Dinner. There were only three of us in the house on Christmas Day. Kerra was still in her mandatory two-week quarantine following her entry into Canada from Faith Builders, the school she's attending in the States. She wasn't supposed to be working at my elbow in the kitchen just yet, so Ken offered to help me create the meal we wanted to be special for Christmas Day. He thought we should add mashed potatoes to the menu I had planned  (ham and butternut squash and salad), and he offered to do the peeling to make that happen. He also peeled apples for our dessert - apple pie. He made the filling while I made the pie crusts. Teamwork with him like that in the familiar space of my kitchen makes my heart so happy.

 

...the discoveries of bird life in our woods on Christmas Day. We3@home decided to take a walk together that day, since it's okay for someone in quarantine to leave the house and get outside for exercise periodically. Ken and I wanted to show Kerra the cabin back in the woods. We had described the cute little structure to her, but what we didn't think to tell her about were the cabin birds, and the possibility of chickadees eating right out of her hand. Before we even got within view of the resident flock though, a huge bird swooped in pretty close to Kerra, startling her into a shrieking question, "What was THAT?" When I saw the "bird as big as a crow, but with a red head" later, high up in a dead tree, I recognized it as a pileated woodpecker. What a treat to be able to watch this fantastic bird doing its mealtime drill for quite a while. It was also a treat to introduce Kerra to the perky little chickadees near the cabin, too.

...the inspiration I received from various things that I've read and heard in recent weeks. I especially resonated with something that podcaster Nathan Rittenhouse said, in commenting on the aspect of hope during Advent in this crazy Covid year: "Real, legitimate hope brings us peace in the present... Celebrations of the goodness of what will be [don’t] negate the beauty and the blessing of what is in the moment." He pointed out that the angels sang with joy the very night Christ was born, that Simeon, when he held the Baby in his arms, was grateful right then, and that Mary pondered those current events in her heart. Knowing what Christ has done for us and what He will do for us need not hold us back from celebrating Him this year's Christmas. "Hope for the future does not exclude joy in the present; in fact, it opens us up to a level of gratitude that brings us peace in the present." 

I think that sounds like a blessed way to approach the New Year, too. While I'm longing for the time when Covid regulations will be behind us, I don't want the negatives of the past nor the bright expectations of the future to obscure the beauty of what is right in front of me. 

If going into the new year like a five-year-old means entering 2021 with a childlike heart full of wonder, count me in.

What are some ways you've experienced the recent season "like a five-year-old"? 

Mentioned in the Podcast

I am sharing a poem titled "Autographed" in this post, as promised in the previous blog post. I wrote the poem years ago, and referenced it in the conversation I had with Rolin when I was a guest on his podcast recently. He suggested I make it available again to readers by putting it up on my blog, so here it is:

Autographed 

God’s signature is everywhere –

His mark to show that He’s been there.

Our God, to rightful honor claim,

Creates a thing, then signs His name.

 

Observe a fragile-petaled rose;

With care, God’s name it does disclose.

His name is seen in every line

Of spiders’ webbing, penciled fine.

 

At sunset’s hour, God strokes His name,

With paint as orange as fire’s flame.

On wintry mornings, God has dipped

His quill in white, for frosty script.

 

You see His name in heaven afar;

It’s jotted there with twinkling stars.

On mountains rising to the sky

Is penned the name of the Most High.

 

God also longs to do His part

To write His name upon the heart

Of every man who walks this sod –

Have you been autographed by God?

 

                                       ~ Danette Martin