Living the Questions

There was a moment in my mid-20s when I realized that I might not have my own opinions about anything.

A lifelong people-pleaser, I’d become adept at absorbing the ideas and mores of the people around me. On a superficial note, this was manifested when I went to a summer enrichment program in high school with many students from Southern Virginia and returned home one month later with a pronounced Southern accent. On a more serious level, I had lived two decades without really being sure of what I believed.

Looking back, I have compassion on my younger self. Having lived nearly twice as long now, I would never expect a 25-year-old to have completed the final draft of their life’s vision statement (and if they claimed they had, I’d give them a sympathetic pat on the head.) 

But back then, I assumed that a marker of maturity was having the answers to life’s questions figured out. If I was doing life correctly, I’d continue collecting fixed opinions until I arrived at some future point where there would be no more uncertainty, just clarity. To be an adult was to be sure.

That looks ludicrous when I put it in writing. But don’t most of us believe this, at some level? How does our culture deal with uncertainty? 

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Things We Don’t Talk About: The Sadness

I first noticed The Sadness over the past couple of years. 

It feels like various things at various times: a lump in the throat, a bitter feeling on my tongue, tears springing to my eyes, the sense that if you peered into my chest you’d see a visible crack running down the center of my heart. 

It’s not constant, but it washes over me almost daily. And it’s not just sad or difficult events that bring it on. The Sadness can be most pronounced in the midst of a joyful situation: snuggling up and reading a book to a child, celebrating a happy life milestone, walking the dogs down our driveway at sunset, or laughing with my family or friends. Beauty is almost certain to bring it on: art, music, literature or drama that contain deep kernels of truth. Often, I feel The Sadness most strongly when I’m in a crowd of people.

You might think that a certain degree of sadness would be appropriate given our current cultural moment — and you’d be right. A two-year pandemic that amplified anxiety and isolation is likely to increase sadness. The news is almost always bad and divisive; that’s sad. And my daughter just told me that she heard many people are especially sad this summer because of the weather: Here in the Northeast United States, at least, frequent rain and haze from the Canadian wildfires have resulted in fewer sunny days, which may be causing a sort of off-season Seasonal Affective Disorder. (I can’t confirm her source for this.)

But I don’t think The Sadness I’m feeling can be explained entirely by external circumstances. The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t affected my daily life for almost a year. After discovering my tendency to doom-scroll during the pandemic, I’ve blocked daily access to most news outlets on my devices. And while this summer’s weather has been a bummer, The Sadness predates Summer 2023. 

Let me also assure you that I am not clinically depressed. I have a generally positive outlook on life. I get out of bed and function at a productive level day-to-day: I parent multiple children (and pets), keep a house in decent order, work part-time, and maintain close relationships. The Sadness happens regardless of my mood at any given moment. 

We don’t talk about sadness much in our culture; it makes us uncomfortable. I live in a country founded on the ideals of progress, the ability to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps, and “the pursuit of happiness.” In a capitalistic society, acquiring money and possessions is supposed to correlate with greater happiness. The booming health and wellness industry promises a plethora of treatments for all our pain and discomfort – physical and mental. Sadness threatens these scripts. If we measure success by how happy we are, and progress by our ability to continually get happier, then sadness has no purpose. It’s something to be avoided at all costs. 

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Why You Should Watch “Barbie”

“This movie is going to change my life,” my 15-year-old daughter stated confidently.

I looked over to where she sat in the passenger seat, swathed in an oversized pink sweatshirt. I was taking her to meet a friend, with whom she would watch the new “Barbie” film. The film that would, apparently, change her life.

I’m getting used to hyperbolic statements from my teenagers, but I still tend to pause and assess the underlying intent before I respond. Is she being serious? Sarcastic? Humorous? Dramatic? If you see me looking confused for the next decade or so, this is why. 

“Well, that sounds really…exciting,” I responded slowly. “Although in my experience, life change is a slightly…longer process.”

“Well, this movie’s going to change my life,” she asserted. “When you pick me up, I’ll be a different person.”

When I picked her, she still looked the same. 

“So?” I asked, “How was it? Did it change your life?”

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Things We Don’t Talk About: Parenting Teenagers

I had a dream the other night.

In my dream, I was hiking a trail high up in the Green Mountains. I was with a group of other parents who have children at my children’s middle school — other parents of teenagers. We weren’t walking the way one normally does with a group on a trail, with everyone spaced out comfortably; instead, we shuffled along in one huddled mass. There was no conversation, only murmurs of concern. I recognized this path: I’d walked it before, and I knew it wound its way in hairpin turns along a steep ridge, so that one misstep could send you right off the mountain. But this time I was walking along the trail from the opposite direction, and in the dark. All I could do was put out one tentative foot at a time and feel my way along. “It would be really helpful if we had a flashlight,” I thought to myself.

Upon awakening, I realized that I’d dreamed about what it’s like to be the parent of teenagers. 

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

My Daughter, the Lifeguard

I’m writing this at Lake Dunmore, where our family is spending a hot, humid July afternoon on the water. (Although I’m sitting in the stuffy minivan while our three-year-old, who fell asleep on the drive, naps in the backseat.) 

As we were preparing to leave the house – sorting through swimsuits, gathering our children, loading the minivan trunk with beach toys, and filling up water bottles (which we forgot to bring), I felt…safer, more confident about releasing five children in water. You see, a member of our family is now a Red Cross-certified lifeguard. 

That’s right: My 15-year-old daughter just completed lifeguard training and will soon be looking down upon the splashing masses at our town pool from atop the official lifeguard chair. 

I can hardly believe it. This daughter took swim lessons and spent one summer on the town swim team, but in the nine years since then she’s shown no interest in swimming other than as a social activity. She is slight of build and not particularly athletic: Her passions run more to writing, music, and – if we’re being honest – shopping, grooming, and giggling with friends.

It’s precisely because she likes to shop and go out with friends that it’s important for her to have a job. During the school year, she spent one hour a week shelving books at our town library, but summer afforded the opportunity to expand her work horizons. The trouble was that her summer would be subdivided by two family trips, a week at camp, and a 10-day stint at the Governor’s Institute of Vermont for Global Issues and Youth Action. This ruled out many teenage-appropriate summer jobs that require a regular commitment, like retail, waitressing, or camp counseling. 

My husband and I cornered her in late spring to review her job prospects. She sat across from us and, with calm determination, announced, “I want to be a lifeguard.”

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Things We Don’t Talk About: Work, Family, and Mortality

I recently finished reading Kristin Lavransdatter, an 1,100-page, three-volume novel written in 1920 by Norwegian author Sigrid Undset. It won the Nobel Prize in Literature for its epic depiction of the life – the whole life — of a woman in 14th-century Norway. 

What surprised me was how contemporary much of the book felt. The title character may be managing her ancestral estate in medieval Norway, but for most of the book she’s frustrated with her husband for not pulling his weight, worried about her children, second-guessing her life choices, and feeling judged by her neighbors.

When I get together with other middle-aged mothers, we often end up discussing those exact things. 

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Things We Don’t Talk About: Being the Anti-Hero

I have an uneasy relationship in my head with singer/songwriter/cultural icon Taylor Swift. On the one hand, I appreciate her catchy tunes and sharply intelligent lyrics. After watching the 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana with my children, I was deeply impressed with Swift’s creative process, and grateful for the thoughtful messages she conveyed about the dark side of fame and her struggles with body image. 

On the other hand, I can’t help but feel a little resentful that so much of Swift’s oeuvre has become the soundtrack of my life – a soundtrack that I didn’t choose, but that’s been thrust upon me by my children. Taylor Swift’s voice accompanies us everywhere: driving in the car, doing dishes, doing homework. I’m also less-than-thrilled that she seduced our whole family – including our pre-teen children – with her early, wholesome, country-to-pop crossover albums, and then released a trio of albums over the past three years in which 1/3 of the songs are marked “E” for “explicit lyrics.” It’s made for plenty of exciting, dive-for-the-mute-button family car rides. 

Still, on Taylor Swift’s latest album, Midnights, there’s a song that’s become a sort of anthem for me. When I first listened to “Anti-Hero,” I recognized the chorus for how it beat in time with my own subconscious: “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.” 

This year, I started seeing a counselor. While my Puritan ancestors would never sign up for therapy — let alone admit to it — I teach my children that therapy is smart, not shameful. Indeed, over half of our family has seen counselors at any given time over the past couple of years. I have an amazing spouse, dear friends, and a church community, but there’s nothing quite like meeting regularly with someone whose job is to reflect your thought and behavior patterns back to you in all their dysfunctional glory.  

I started therapy because I was starting to be haunted by this dysfunctional thought: Everybody would be better off if I weren’t around. All I do is ruin things and create more stress for people. 

It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.

This thought pattern came to light when my counselor asked, “What are you most afraid of?” 

How would you answer that question?

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

A Mother’s Day Reflection on “The Giving Tree”

“You know that book, The Giving Tree?” my daughter asked the other day. We were on our way home from her two-day class camping trip  – a 9th grade tradition at her school. 

“Yes….” I replied, warily. I do know The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein’s bestselling 1964 picture book about a boy and the tree who loves him. We’d been given the book early on in our life as a young family, but I’d gradually become so disturbed at the type of relationship The Giving Tree modeled for my children that I’d expelled it from our bookshelves. 

“Lil read it to us on the trip,” my daughter continued, “and I was crying so hard. It’s so sad; it’s like a metaphor for everything.” 

“What touched you most about the book?” I asked.

“Well, at the end, the boy and the tree both have nothing left to give, but they’re just together….”

“That’s true,” I acknowledged. “What do you think that’s a metaphor for?”

“A lot of things. Parenthood.”

“Parenthood?!?” I yelped. “Do you plan to strip me of everything and then sit on my dead body?” 

“Well you wrote once about how you should die slowly for the people you love!” she countered. 

Not for the first time, I had mixed feelings about intelligent children who read my columns.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Parenting Teens in Middle Age: Here Be Dragons

My fourth child turns ten in June, which means that I have been writing this column for over a decade; this is my 299th column.

Back when I first pitched this column to John McCright, my patient and kind editor, I envisioned writing from the perspective of a mother with young children who had recently moved to Vermont and was experiencing all the quirky joys of this unique state for the first time. That’s what I was back in 2012. That’s not what I am anymore.

My husband and I are no longer particularly young; we’re middle-aged, closer to 50 than to 40. Our five children still live at home, and since our son was born in 2019 we do have one child who qualifies as young — but we also have two teenagers and a tween. And while there are definitely still new Vermont experiences to be had, we tend to stick to the same familiar, comfortable, large-family-friendly activities. 

I’ve noticed lately that it’s more challenging to decide what to write about. The seasons come and go. The garden is planted, grows, and dies. Chicks and ducklings arrive, and sometimes they die. We go to the lake, to the apple orchard, to the Christmas tree farm, to the ski slopes. We drive the kids to school and activities; we cheer at their games and performances. Every so often the cycle is disrupted by a tornado, a pandemic, a seriously ill child. Then the machine creaks back into motion. I’ve written about all these things.

It’s not that there aren’t soaring joys and crushing tragedies. Life hasn’t become dull and predictable. Rather, at this stage of life, I’m discovering that there are more and more things that we don’t talk about. That we can’t talk about. That we won’t talk about. 

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

On Dyeing Eggs…Again

Having now parented five children over the course of 15 years (and counting), I can attest that parenting is seldom repetitive. Each child is different, every stage and season brings new challenges (or, as parenting blogs often frame them, “exciting new opportunities for growth!”) Even predictable developmental milestones seem novel, because I honestly can’t remember when my older children hit those same milestones. (This is embarrassingly clear when our fifth child has pediatric appointments and the doctors ask, “When did his big sisters start walking/talking/eating solids?” I hem and haw over vague time ranges, all the while thinking, Do I LOOK like I have time to keep track of all that?!?)

But there is one area in which repetition is apparently required: holiday celebrations.

When I was a younger, more energetic mother, I had an idealistic vision of creating our own particular family traditions around holidays. We would do special things year after year that would define our family culture! These things would channel our creativity! They would bring us closer as a family! They would be the very things our children would remember nostalgically when they were grown!

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.