Category: (Actual) Empty Nest

Posted in (Actual) Empty Nest, New Mother

Women’s Work

Posted on by Kelly (and the Buck)

I never liked showers, never enjoyed dressing up and sitting among dozens of women, eating white cake with white-icing and crudite with ranch dressing, while the bride or the expectant mother unwrapped box after box of ribboned boxes.

I never understood why onesies and kitchen gadgets were the domain of women, and I resented the absence of men among the suffering.

When I think back I can’t recall my own bridal shower, but I do remember the engagement party that we hosted together because it was multi-aged and co-ed, and held outside at the park.

Oh wait, here’s a memory…

I see my dear friend and her mother at a table in a restaurant above the bay.

I had thought that was someone else’s shower, but there is also a box of two elegant champagne glasses on my lap with these simple words on the card:

You bring my son joy.

After her son and I relocated to Vermont, and became parents to our first born–for whom there were several showers–one back at the shore (just women), one at his work (co-ed), one at our neighbor’s (co-ed) and one among our Al-Anon friends after the birth (also co-ed)–I discovered another tradition among women that I had never experienced before, one which was much more practical and soulful.

A BLESSINGWAY.

When I was pregnant with my second child, I was desperate to have one myself–this circle of women gathering to prepare a mother for the journey that lie ahead– labor, delivery, nursing and nurturing.

I set mine a month ahead of my due date, not so that I would look better in the photos (like many do with baby showers) but because I was afraid that I might miss the opportunity if this baby came early. (Both sons did.)

I have a scrapbook of my first and only Blessingway. It is still a touchstone for courage and vulnerability, soul and manifestation. In it, are the words that women wrote to me about the journey, some I know by heart.

My boys are now men, the youngest about to graduate highschool (we hope), and it is the impact of his academic and personal struggles, like those of his older brother’s when he was a teen, which have offered opportunities for our marriage to grow (or sour), ie. putting us through the ringer, forcing us to revisit unfinished pasts, and to determine how we wanted to move forward, which bring to mind this morning the words on the card which I glued onto one of the very last pages of the Blessingway scrapbook long before I knew what they could mean:

Posted in (Actual) Empty Nest, Adult Offspring, College, Fragile Life, Holidays, Home again, Insight, Mid-Life Mama, Milestone Moments, What's Next? (18 & beyond)

Cutting Teeth

Posted on by Kelly (and the Buck)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Kelly Salasin, May 2018

I suppose every mother has her sweet spot.

There are those who get pregnant in an instant,

and those who feel better than ever when expecting,

and those who deliver with ease.

There are those for whom wearing a baby night and day is just right,

and those who delight in the ever-shifting expressions of a toddler,

and those who are made whole by the emerging consciousness of the preschooler.

There are those who can manage the ins and outs of homework and lessons and birthday parties and playdates,

and those who know whether to lean in or pull back as hormones shift and stakes heighten,

and those who can pivot from manager to consultant providing just enough space and just enough support for young adults to emerge.

There are even those who go on to develop healthy, reciprocal friendships with grown offspring.

~

From Thanksgiving to the New Year, this Empty Nest of mine has been awakened in new and mysterious ways leaving me unable to place my own sweet spot (though I was once particularly fond of the preschool mind.)

And then they all departed, again–my oldest and his partner (until the next holiday perhaps), and my youngest on the 1:00 train for a few days in the city ahead of returning to school full time.

I wandered the empty house, and then lay down on the couch, absorbing the silence, until I found myself, like a teething baby, drooling.

I often wonder if I made the “right” choice. Perhaps if I had remained in a demanding career or at least made more money (both of these fit together nicely), I would be riddled with less self-doubt or at least less space to consider it.

While they were home, I left them all, in an ice storm no less, to meet up with a young friend who since we last met became a mother, and I found her in a kitchen soothing an 8-month-old baby girl who was cutting her first teeth.

“Teething,” I said, “That was my hardest time.”

I watched as my friend juggled cooking and setting the table and conversation while tending to her child—diapers, feeding, play, comfort—revealing a depth of connection between these two beings, as if it was always so.

It’s the absence of control, matched with the emotional impact, coupled with the unpredictability and absurd variability, that slays me, particularly now, when I have such little reference for my role and so little clarity of how to do and not overdo.

Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?

As the sun sets on another day, on another month-long school vacation, and on the first half of my 50’s, I have forgotten who I am.

Sunrise, sunset, Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears.

One night, after everyone went up to bed, I took to the stairs, tucking my head under the railing while playing the soundtrack from Fiddler on the Roof to an empty room.

What words of wisdom can I give them?
How can I help to ease their way?

I looked out across the kitchen table to the French doors and recognized that new paths were emerging while the sweetness and burden of the path once shared necessarily fades…

Now they must learn from one another
Day by day.

Posted in (Actual) Empty Nest, Adult Offspring, Home again, Mother to Crone

Home again…

Posted on by Kelly (and the Buck)


Though it doesn’t make it hurt any less to look into their dark and vacant rooms, It turns out that they leave home at just the right time. You’re getting older. Noises bother you. Lights. Chaos. Commotion. You realize you’ve run a marathon and you’re not sure how you did it. You’re more and more attracted to simplicity, ease, slow. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. They’re home!