Issue #51/Good and Beautiful Things
This month in my yearlong art class we experimented with grids. For one of my grids, I painted twenty-nine small boxes in my sketchbook and at the end of each day I added one image or phrase.
There was no way to complete it in less than twenty-nine days so it became a practice that required time and patience.
As the days went by I recorded an art date with a friend, a perfect day for bike riding, and the various things I’d watched or read. But most of the images or words connected back to our family and my current season of motherhood.
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This week I rewatched A River Runs Through It, a film adaptation of the short story by Norman Maclean. It’s the tale of the Maclean brothers, raised by the firm hand of their father who was also a presbyterian minister. Several of the scenes take place while they’re knee deep in the river, fly fishing with the glorious landscape of Montana behind them.
Originally I saw the movie when it was released in 1992 and I was fifteen. As with so many movies of my youth, I connected with the younger characters the first time I watched the film (ahem, specifically Brad Pitt who played the younger brother). Now, in my mid-forties, I saw everything through the lens of the parents. I stood in the shoes of the father and mother who so earnestly and confidently raised their kids but eventually reached the point where they had to let them go. I worried with the father (played by Tom Skerritt) as Norman and his brother tested their boundaries to find out who they were as men.
There’s a scene when the boys are probably in their early twenties and they’re out fly fishing with their father. From the earliest days their father taught them how to fish, using a metronome to show them the rhythm of the sport. In this scene the younger brother moves away from Norman and his father, to his own spot on the river. Norman watches his brother and narrates:
“I then saw something remarkable. For the first time Paul broke free of our father’s instruction into a rhythm all his own.”
-Norman, A River Runs Through It
It’s a beautiful and terrifying moment as a parent. It’s a trajectory that begins almost from the day they are born and yet we still aren’t prepared as parents for the experience of letting them go their own way.
For those of you who don’t know, our children are 23, 21, 18, and 15. This means we’ve been in the season of letting our children go, one by one, for five years now. And, of course, the boundary testing begins long before they leave.
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My ever-evolving role as a mother has shifted beneath me like desert sands this month. This is how I’ve experienced motherhood since the beginning. Just when you learn how to manage diapers and breastfeeding, it’s time for solid foods and then soon enough, potty training. These transitions continue, never allowing you to feel like the ground beneath your feet is firm for long. I suspect these shifts might continue…forever.
For the last few months we’ve been delighted to have our son home from college on the weekends and our older girls have also visited often. We know this time can’t stay frozen forever so we set aside anything else going on and commit fully to the moments they’re around.
Along with movie nights crowded onto a couch that once easily held their child-sized bodies, we’ve tried to come alongside each of them in the way they each needed at the moment.
Earlier this month we were a place of safety for one of our older daughters when the world looked too bleak and she needed to feel less alone in the dark.
We’ve counseled a child through midterms and wrestled privately with whether to be bad cop or good cop to this child’s struggle to manage their studies.
We’ve been available to have conversations with the oldest as she makes career decisions and again faces the daily reality that being an adult is hard.
We’ve placed boundaries for our youngest even as she itches to stretch her wings and fly on her own.
In this season of perpetually letting go we’re told by one child that she’s going to Africa when only a few years ago she would have asked if she could go to Africa. Probably the most stretching phase was when the same daughter lived in France for her sophomore year of college. The first time she called us crying from an abandoned train station in Brussels in the middle of the night was a tough one but by the end of the year it seemed (almost) normal that she was staying in a hotel in Paris by herself.
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It’s evident that I’ve been processing my role as a mother throughout the month of February. During a writing prompt for my art class, I wrote and then sketched about the shifting role of a parent. I imagined the youngest versions of my kids like newly planted seeds.
From my journal:
“As parents of the young we’re tending to the whole plant, it depends on us or it will die. Young adults are no longer tender shoots who require everything from us for their survival. We are more likely to oversaturate them or overfeed if the way we support them doesn’t change.”
After the writing portion of the prompt, I quickly sketched out my ideas, attempting to capture the stages of growth and our role as parents.
From the notes on my sketch (this is by no means a comprehensive look at parenting, simply the thoughts that came to mind first):
Early Years—
Their survival is in our hands. We provide their clothing, their food, their instructions for life.
Adolescent Years (I was thinking of 9-12 years old)—
We’re still needed most of the time, they’re continue to be dependent on us to provide food, shelter and safe boundaries.
Teen Years—
We’re providing stability, the way a stake tied to a plant keeps it from falling down or growing in the wrong direction.
Late Teen/College Years—
The budding adult says “I need to be on my own.” These years are tricky, a pendulum swinging between when to push and when to remain quiet. It’s true for this stage and the next.
Young Adulthood—
We’re nearby if needed, an older, more mature tree providing shade, a place of safety to return to.
These stages are messy and overlapping. They’re altered by the particular personality, the relationship we have with each of them, and unexpected events like a world-wide pandemic (which was in its prime when our daughter went through nursing school and began working in the Emergency Room).
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As I traverse these days, seeking wisdom from God and camaraderie from others in similar places, it’s helpful to remember that I’m not going at it alone. I too am a child with a concerned and loving father. I too am the young tree with the older and wiser tree shading me from the sun, providing my sustenance, remaining a safe place to return to.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5
“He is like a tree planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.”-Psalm 1:3
As I look again at my completed grid, I feel like it could be tidier. If only I’d used just one art medium, or just one color, it would feel more calm and cohesive. Then again, maybe the controlled chaos mirrors perfectly the month that just passed by.
Note: I did check with my children before I shared this post and they gave their approval of the details I’ve shared here.
Continue the Journey
I started this month with a thoughtful prayer video on Jan Richardson’s poem, Blessing the Seed. I highly recommend you take a few minutes to read it or listen to the video.
Some of my parenting thoughts were spurred on by a challenge from
Last week I wrote about the idea of trusting your own heart.
shared a podcast that was on point for the topic of how scripture can be used against us. In the episode, the host shares context to better understand Jeremiah 17:9. Thanks, Annelise!Blessings from the Guest Nest,
-Aimee
P.S.—Thanks so much for reading, sharing, and contributing to the conversation. You can support my art and writing by donating to my art supply fund and by sharing this newsletter with friends who might enjoy it.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and your art journal! I like how you paired them together here.
I’m in the early stages of parenthood as a new stepmom (to a sweet, autistic 7 year old). So much that’s uncharted, unknown, and not at all typical. But these days will fly by, and I want to cherish them even through the exhaustion and trying bits.
Also, I really respect that you received your kids’ approval before publishing.
These reflections are spot on, from the shade of the tree to setting aside all your plans to soak up a weekend visit. Aren’t these the best of times, interspersed with some of the worst?!
Years ago I laid in bed, all our kids under our roof, and thought, “All the most important people in my world are here. And one day they’ll each be under their own roof, with their most important people.” It’s bittersweet.