Just because the nest is no longer crowded does not mean it is empty. It may hold more than you'd ever imagined.
By Susan Creamer Joy - Friday 18 Nov 2011
Recently my daughter moved away – drawn by irrepressible optimism and a teaching opportunity from a wonderful college which was offered to her husband, they set off to settle their newlywed bones in another state.
The night before their move and after a full day of loading the contents of their apartment onto a rented trailer, my daughter wanted to go see a movie, a comedy. As we sat together in the dark theater flanked by our respective husbands, it occurred to me that where once our arms would be linked and our heads inclined in conspiratorial laughter, this honor now went to her husband; and as I watched them leaning into and upon each other, their hands clasped tightly together throughout the movie, I knew she was going to be just fine in this new life of hers.
The following morning as they drove away just after sunrise, in spite of the tears that quite naturally fell and the part of me that she took with her tucked inside the corners of her dreams for the future and her memories of the past; I knew I was going to be fine, too.
It is all part of the gig, the flight school of life.
But how does one negotiate a successful departure from hands-on domesticity to that of a maternally vested remote viewer?
Should I have known this was coming and have padded the void with more solid, long-term distractions well beforehand? Am I thinking too much? Who am I and when do I officially become old? If I am no longer actively mothering, do I say I am retired?
In lieu of sleep these were among the questions that drowsed through the background of my mind last night like the uneasy chatter between strangers on a train; and as another sleep-deprived passenger, I strained to hear them over the productive noise of nocturnal locomotion. The monotonous undertone and restless murmuring of all these unresolved thoughts gripped my body in a tense hold of anxiety until my pillow felt like the steel side of a boxcar. At that stage all I could do was ride along for the duration and pray I reached the station of full consciousness by daybreak.
Fortunately, this is not a routine condition and I attribute it to my current stage in life, the one that now surfaces as the sum of my past actions along with the unrealized personal visions that have been necessarily sublimated by a life demanding conformity and cooperation. Presently, it is a life that rests at the halfway station between pride and regret and reluctantly thrives on the indecision that dwells in that wide gap between habit and hope.
Suddenly, and for the first time since gravity has turned against me, I am forced to reconsider my options, fully recognizing the diminishing potential for making changes if I don’t act quickly.
Unlike the last time that I faced such expansive choices decades earlier, the years have advanced enough to clearly reflect their gravitational consequence in body and bone, significantly narrowing my physiological margins; and while that is not the best news, they do appear to have had quite the opposite effect on both my mind and inner countenance and have only heightened my enthusiasm and curiosity about what may lie in store for my ripened soul.
Of course, without the worried enterprises of maternal and domestic obligations to distract me, I am also now left with a hefty dose of fear. Thinking back I now understand that I allowed those distractions to weave that gossamer netting of legitimate excuses about why I had not done more with my life. Uncertainty and a strong desire to always do the right thing goaded my heart until I cowered in shame at the idea of forging an identity which was solely my own and of ever considering self over family.
Now, without the very real and valid priorities of hands-on motherhood and domestic arbitration, there is nothing to prevent me from taking those willful strides into autonomous action. Is there?
Well….is there?
For the first time in nearly thirty years I have absolutely no excuse for holding back, and I find myself greeting this upcoming passage with a confounding mixture of absolute ecstasy along with a niggling side dish of abject terror.
On the one hand I am thrilled at the prospect of reacquainting myself with myself and investing the majority of my time and energy into my work (whatever that is); yet on the other, it is this very prospect that terrifies me because I know that by fully engaging it, my life will morph into something else and that there will be no turning back once it does.
Ironically, in the early years of marriage and motherhood my internal struggle centered around not being able to both fulfill my personal dreams as an artist, poet or writer and to also be the kind of interested and available mother that I wanted to be for my children. I kept up with my artwork, filled journals with my ramblings, and took on the occasional freelance illustration job only to the point that it would not interfere with my availability to my family.
It was just enough to keep me from imploding.
It took me years of aggressive effort to settle my restlessness enough to stop dreaming about some sublimely creative future that could exist for me once all of the children were grown and even more time to banish the brooding undertow of discontent and resentment. I’d like to believe I succeeded and ultimately, that I was able to be that kind of attentive mom. Of course, in light of the troubled passage of my eldest son, I have now (with much contrition) also sidled up to my passive-aggressive friend, Guilt, thus assuring that some torturous emotion still lingers to dissuade me from feeling entitled to own a piece of my own dream. I jokingly encourage others to view my maternal journey from a statistical perspective alone as the percentage reflects a much more successful motherhood than do the facts: Of the three kids I have raised, only one of them went to prison.
I am the domesticated version of the Fool in Tarot.
The Fool represents new beginnings and the unknown but also the elements of impulsivity and risk. The illustration shows a figure walking with his head held high, eyes half closed carrying a stick and satchel (his worldly possessions) and holding a rose. The sun is behind him and a frolicking dog is at his heels. He looks to be the epitome of carefree abandon and joie de vive until you realize that he is blithely unaware that his next step will take him off the edge of a high precipice, possibly to his death.
Then again, possibly not.
We aren’t really privy to the entire picture and for all the viewer knows, what we assume is the edge of a cliff could very well be only a small gap between the ground he is on and another patch that we cannot see.
This, of course, is the message and promise of The Fool. It is the ability to take risks with the innocent trust of a child and the deep knowing that everything will work to your best advantage if only you have enough faith.
It is also a warning to us not to merely assume that the future will support our dreams just because we want it to but that there also needs to be some practical preparation and planning, perhaps a road map or at the very least, a compass and an extra bottle of spring water. Without a bird’s eye view of the landscape, our best perception must come from the heart.
My husband has a saying which I’ve never liked but one I’ve heard him repeat with comical regularity over the years: “If a bird had your brain, it would fly backwards.”
In all these years I never knew quite how to respond to that.
However, in the growing clarity of this fresh and blessed silence and with the ever-expanding view through my endless hope, I now know with absolute certainty, that would be one friggin' awesome bird.
It may have been long in coming, but I believe I have some latent soaring to do.
The night before their move and after a full day of loading the contents of their apartment onto a rented trailer, my daughter wanted to go see a movie, a comedy. As we sat together in the dark theater flanked by our respective husbands, it occurred to me that where once our arms would be linked and our heads inclined in conspiratorial laughter, this honor now went to her husband; and as I watched them leaning into and upon each other, their hands clasped tightly together throughout the movie, I knew she was going to be just fine in this new life of hers.
The following morning as they drove away just after sunrise, in spite of the tears that quite naturally fell and the part of me that she took with her tucked inside the corners of her dreams for the future and her memories of the past; I knew I was going to be fine, too.
It is all part of the gig, the flight school of life.
But how does one negotiate a successful departure from hands-on domesticity to that of a maternally vested remote viewer?
Should I have known this was coming and have padded the void with more solid, long-term distractions well beforehand? Am I thinking too much? Who am I and when do I officially become old? If I am no longer actively mothering, do I say I am retired?
In lieu of sleep these were among the questions that drowsed through the background of my mind last night like the uneasy chatter between strangers on a train; and as another sleep-deprived passenger, I strained to hear them over the productive noise of nocturnal locomotion. The monotonous undertone and restless murmuring of all these unresolved thoughts gripped my body in a tense hold of anxiety until my pillow felt like the steel side of a boxcar. At that stage all I could do was ride along for the duration and pray I reached the station of full consciousness by daybreak.
Fortunately, this is not a routine condition and I attribute it to my current stage in life, the one that now surfaces as the sum of my past actions along with the unrealized personal visions that have been necessarily sublimated by a life demanding conformity and cooperation. Presently, it is a life that rests at the halfway station between pride and regret and reluctantly thrives on the indecision that dwells in that wide gap between habit and hope.
Suddenly, and for the first time since gravity has turned against me, I am forced to reconsider my options, fully recognizing the diminishing potential for making changes if I don’t act quickly.
Unlike the last time that I faced such expansive choices decades earlier, the years have advanced enough to clearly reflect their gravitational consequence in body and bone, significantly narrowing my physiological margins; and while that is not the best news, they do appear to have had quite the opposite effect on both my mind and inner countenance and have only heightened my enthusiasm and curiosity about what may lie in store for my ripened soul.
Of course, without the worried enterprises of maternal and domestic obligations to distract me, I am also now left with a hefty dose of fear. Thinking back I now understand that I allowed those distractions to weave that gossamer netting of legitimate excuses about why I had not done more with my life. Uncertainty and a strong desire to always do the right thing goaded my heart until I cowered in shame at the idea of forging an identity which was solely my own and of ever considering self over family.
Now, without the very real and valid priorities of hands-on motherhood and domestic arbitration, there is nothing to prevent me from taking those willful strides into autonomous action. Is there?
Well….is there?
For the first time in nearly thirty years I have absolutely no excuse for holding back, and I find myself greeting this upcoming passage with a confounding mixture of absolute ecstasy along with a niggling side dish of abject terror.
On the one hand I am thrilled at the prospect of reacquainting myself with myself and investing the majority of my time and energy into my work (whatever that is); yet on the other, it is this very prospect that terrifies me because I know that by fully engaging it, my life will morph into something else and that there will be no turning back once it does.
Ironically, in the early years of marriage and motherhood my internal struggle centered around not being able to both fulfill my personal dreams as an artist, poet or writer and to also be the kind of interested and available mother that I wanted to be for my children. I kept up with my artwork, filled journals with my ramblings, and took on the occasional freelance illustration job only to the point that it would not interfere with my availability to my family.
It was just enough to keep me from imploding.
It took me years of aggressive effort to settle my restlessness enough to stop dreaming about some sublimely creative future that could exist for me once all of the children were grown and even more time to banish the brooding undertow of discontent and resentment. I’d like to believe I succeeded and ultimately, that I was able to be that kind of attentive mom. Of course, in light of the troubled passage of my eldest son, I have now (with much contrition) also sidled up to my passive-aggressive friend, Guilt, thus assuring that some torturous emotion still lingers to dissuade me from feeling entitled to own a piece of my own dream. I jokingly encourage others to view my maternal journey from a statistical perspective alone as the percentage reflects a much more successful motherhood than do the facts: Of the three kids I have raised, only one of them went to prison.
I am the domesticated version of the Fool in Tarot.
The Fool represents new beginnings and the unknown but also the elements of impulsivity and risk. The illustration shows a figure walking with his head held high, eyes half closed carrying a stick and satchel (his worldly possessions) and holding a rose. The sun is behind him and a frolicking dog is at his heels. He looks to be the epitome of carefree abandon and joie de vive until you realize that he is blithely unaware that his next step will take him off the edge of a high precipice, possibly to his death.
Then again, possibly not.
We aren’t really privy to the entire picture and for all the viewer knows, what we assume is the edge of a cliff could very well be only a small gap between the ground he is on and another patch that we cannot see.
This, of course, is the message and promise of The Fool. It is the ability to take risks with the innocent trust of a child and the deep knowing that everything will work to your best advantage if only you have enough faith.
It is also a warning to us not to merely assume that the future will support our dreams just because we want it to but that there also needs to be some practical preparation and planning, perhaps a road map or at the very least, a compass and an extra bottle of spring water. Without a bird’s eye view of the landscape, our best perception must come from the heart.
My husband has a saying which I’ve never liked but one I’ve heard him repeat with comical regularity over the years: “If a bird had your brain, it would fly backwards.”
In all these years I never knew quite how to respond to that.
However, in the growing clarity of this fresh and blessed silence and with the ever-expanding view through my endless hope, I now know with absolute certainty, that would be one friggin' awesome bird.
It may have been long in coming, but I believe I have some latent soaring to do.