Holiday Fever

Something happened this year. I do not have the usual Holiday Fever—the rush to plan and implement activities throughout December. I think I am somewhat depressed, largely due to the worsening conditions in the world and our country’s role in all of it. But I think there’s more to my story. Perhaps my children’s busy lives on the Left Coast making it impossible for them to come visit this year is bearing down harder on me than I thought. Maybe it’s my friendship that went south last fall and is seemingly in a permanent stall pattern that’s got me down. I miss her. A lot.  Maybe it’s that I succumbed to pressure to stage my home in Florida (which is still for sale) so it feels like I’m constantly wandering around in a model home looking for all kinds of things—everything from my home gym, my art studio, my family wall of photos, flower vases, mementos of our family life, cookbooks, the loose change box, my favorite PJ’s, or the phone chargers that are supposed to be in the junk drawer in the kitchen. Stuff like that. Part of my frustration is trying to figure out what got lost in the devastation of the hurricanes, what got shipped to North Carolina (and is still in boxes), and what is just misplaced. And then there’s just the regular pace of life at almost seventy years old. Finding out I have cataracts, that I need a colonoscopy, that thinning hair is a thing at my age, and that I’m shrinking (and not just my weight loss). I’m a half inch shorter than I was five years ago. This all sounds petty and the things a privileged person has time to think about. Maybe so. But it is my reality and as terrible as negativity is, so is toxic positivity, in my opinion. Being joyful and positive is a choice I make every day. But so is being reality based. True to myself. Honest with the world’s condition. It feels like my cage got opened, turned upside down, shaken out, and slammed down on a shelf with the door left open. So that’s a good thing—the door being left open. I could just escape. Some days I want to. But I am a solutions-oriented, problem-solving, figure-things-out kinda girl. I know that an open door also means new opportunities.

So here I sit at five a.m. writing for my life-style blog and beginning my December day in a different way than in Decembers of years past.

I returned almost two weeks ago from a whirlwind trip to California where I was fortunate enough to steal my girls away from their busy lives for a few days. I saw them individually on this visit, not a real sense of family closeness per se, but as our family has aged we are creating new patterns and dynamics.

Both of my girls are deep feeling and sensitive people, worried and active participants in the world they inhabit. While we didn’t spend an enormous amount of time on “heavy-osity”, we did talk about some of the pressing issues of our current world—each of my girls with me, alone in a dialog. My younger daughter said that it seems like everything she was taught as a kid, feels like a big lie. I have had similar conversations with her since the presidential election results last year. The economy, the environment, women’s rights, justice for all, the leadership of the United States in the world, safety and security, family, and religion to name a few of the ever-present disturbing issues. Every institution it seems has disappointed her at best and failed in its worst iteration. I wish I could honestly say she is wrong, but I think her perspective is largely, on point.

Truth is on everyone’s hearts and minds, not just my kids’. My world has been rocked too by institutions I came to rely on that weren’t honest. But of all the grievances she has, the one that struck me the most was changing family values and dynamics. I am her mother after all. Our idea of family, like many of the institutions that seemed permanent, has become challenged. The collective idea of family, not just ours.  If you don’t like the family that you came from, create a new one. Just make a family of choice. That is the natural progression, even in traditional families—to make a family of choice. But the “old-fashioned” way was to blend families, and eventually the old folks passed on, and each generation stepped into the sequential senior position. With the traditional family model, early family life creates a mentoring program of sorts, and ultimately, a succession plan. But that system is fading out because of the global economy and families being separated. A lack of accountability and “all eyes on you” is becoming a relic. Yet what I am observing even in these newly crafted families, is a transiency—a lack of permanence. Moves, job changes, political climate, and other community changes create transiency which in-turn creates a lack of familial stability.  And I believe nothing is permanent if family is not. If going rogue is the de rigueur behavior of our time, to borrow from the corporate world, who will preserve the generational knowledge base?

I know the pendulum swings back after going too far. Or does it? I should have paid closer attention to Foucault’s pendulum at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on my many school trips there both as a student, and as a mom. It’s a wonderful science museum. But in terms of all the rules, boundaries, and institutions we once held sacred—have we changed it all up so much that the generations that follow are now left with a social system modelled after the Wild West? Have we abandoned our values or just mixed up many systems all at once, so sifting and sorting requires a PhD—or a lot of therapy? Will the proverbial pendulum swing back? Are we longing for connection and family enough to make that happen? Will I ever hang the stockings by the chimney with care with more predictability?

As a mother, I have suffered the most intense scrutiny of my life. For thirty-seven years now. And that is saying something given my previous professional commitments. Little watchful eyes turned into big watchful eyes. They notice everything, just as I did with my parents. But they are free to talk to us about our lives, our choices, the world—almost everything is grist for the mill, unlike my relationship with my parents. My husband and I have an open communication with our kids, and with each other. They are free to question us now that they are adults, and we learned by trial and error like many parents where their boundaries are as they were growing up. We quickly adjusted our sensors for which lines were permeable and which were permanent and unopen to our opinions and scrutiny. I did not have that experience with my parents. That is not to say that I didn’t live my life very differently from theirs. We simply never discussed my choices.  

I have always tried to lead by example. First and foremost, I lead with Love. I honor my parents. I treat others the way I want to be treated. I believe in a Universal sense of Goodness as my north star—my guide. I tell the truth. I give back to my community. I work hard. I share my good fortune. I am fair. I try to stay informed. And I change with the times. I am not stuck. None of this do I perform perfectly, but I do the best with whatever resources are available and wherever I am in my life. When I learn something new, I say, “Well I can’t ever say I don’t know this, now.” You can’t unknow something once you know it.

So, what does all of this have to do with Holiday Fever? Traditions. The Succession Plan. Leaving imprints of your family history along the way. My mom’s homemade peanut brittle, and pecan tassies. My mother-in-law’s challah. My grandmother’s chicken soup. My other grandmother’s lentil soup. My great-grandmother’s rhubarb pie and the scent of her violet perfume. The din of family while I nodded off after eating too much of my mom’s mashed potatoes and gravy. The memories that get passed down in stories every time a new baby joins the family. Shared joy. Shared sorrow. Shared everyday life stories. Friends joining the table for a bit. Music. Singing. Clapping. Dancing. Hugging. Kissing. Belonging. A place called home.

That’s why I fussed all those years. That’s why I showed up at extended family traditions. That’s why I preserved so many photos of these times for my kids. That’s why I’m sad our family is so scattered this year. Because I hung onto my family (and Stephen’s family) of origin and their traditions, and I made new ones with friends and our kids. Because I am next in line for the succession and I am not sure anyone will follow me. That’s it.

Creating a new way of belonging when what you are doing doesn’t work is courageous. I think of my new Facebook friend (who I have met in real life, too) Diana who just landed what she describes as her perfect job. She is a supervisor with an organization that operates and manages apartment buildings for folks transitioning from homelessness. Diana oversees refurbishing the apartments, so they feel like home for the new occupants. She recently posted photos of her volunteer team working diligently painting, sanding, repairing, and readying several apartments. Diana’s joy is palpable as she does what she believes is her calling. Diana is creating a home for people who are rebuilding their lives, and in rebuilding each home, she is becoming embedded in this community herself. A new belonging for Diana, too.

With all the upheaval in the world, and in my personal life, too, I am still blessed beyond measure. I realize that even though I still have my parents, they are tired. They cannot regroup to accommodate this fast-changing world around holidays and traditions. But I can. I explained recently that I wasn’t going to be around for Christmas, and even though I would love to hop on a plane and go to Paris (we did that two years ago), my parents are wondering the same thing about all their efforts over the years. Seeing their disappointment, I regrouped and in my small way I will show them I remember the fussing they did. And they will sit at my table, without the huge extended family (they really can’t handle a big scene anymore anyway) and I will fuss and set a pretty table with flowers and make our favorite foods. They will nap after dinner, and Stephen and I will clean up. I’ll take pictures which we’ll send to the extended family. They will be sated emotionally. I will feel like I belong. It’s a win/win.

While it isn’t what I imagined for this stage of my life, it is my place of belonging now. I am grateful to have another year of revisiting the old days with them. When my children take their place in the line of succession, I will regale them with stories of our family traditions—or I will adjust accordingly and take my place in their version of new traditions and new ways to belong to each other. After all, home is where the heart is. Belonging. Heart. Joy. And always, Love.

With gratitude.