April, 2023
When my children were very little, I used to take the long way home from dinners out with friends, postponing the inevitable return to whatever awaited me. I wasn’t an unhappy mom - far from it - but children are sometimes possessed by a particular neediness in those early years and I sought out a sense of personal separation: I was someone before these babies arrived and I’d find her again.
As it all does, this part of my life passed. This passing is a lesson that doesn’t lend itself well to mere explanation, and therefore nearly impossible to impart to other parents without their going through it. Phases don’t feel like phases when you’ve never experienced them before.
I’ve documented these feelings plentifully in my writing; more than enough, you might argue (or insist!) My point in bringing them up here is to compare these feelings with the current feelings I’m experiencing, which I was telling a friend about recently: where I know the goal is to give our children the tools to be independent operators in this big world…to take wings and depart. But what if my children stayed here, walking to and from the local school every day and we watched movies in bed every night? What if we embrace this goal, instead?
Even as I type these words, I know I don’t really mean them. Of course I want my children to grow up and succeed and I actually want to watch “Succession” with J tonight, and not a family-appropriate movie. And yet, I feel like I have to give these feelings words, just like I gave all those other feelings their space in early parenthood.
Our days now are marked by the signs of individuals fully participating in the world without our assistance. Of note (accidental pun, I’m leaving it) is Gabe’s obsession with the piano. He’s been taking lessons for a couple years, and the musical process — practice, achieve, perfect — has filled a gaping hole in his life, one he used to attack with a persistent “What can I do?” uttered to J and I upon waking (and he wakes up early!) over, and over, and over, our answers never satisfactory, never up to his standards. He wanted to do something like construct a full-sized village in the backyard out of sticks and found recyclables, complete with codes of governance, nine participating and equally committed friends, a glue gun and a lathe. Could we buy a lathe?
We wanted him to draw. Or maybe watch a show.
The piano, however, has been a godsend. He took to it quickly, and unlike Nora (sorry Nora, but it’s true) practiced daily because he wanted to; I never once had to ask, which, those of you who have instrument-playing children will understand, is a real gift. In fact, I sometimes have to ask him to stop playing, as he likes to play loud and early in the morning, working the same song over and over, and then, once he’s mastered it, playing it really fast. Fast, loud, piano-playing is not ideal when I’m calling up the stairs to ask Aidy if she’s ready for school yet, or on the weekend when we are trying to ease into the morning.
You might say to me: “Cara, why don’t you and J simply not allow him to play in the early morning?” And I get that, but I cannot express to you how much of an improvement the piano is over the era of “What can I do?” which could, in its most persistent forms, ruin our days. And you might say to me: “OMG, why did you allow him to ruin days with that annoying question? Why not ignore him?” And what I am here to tell you is: that is not how Gabe works.
So, we let him play. When it is not too loud, or fast, or I am not trying to speak over it to get another family member’s attention about something like where a Chromebook charger is, I love it.
In recent months, Gabe has been picking out music on his own with a particular interest in ragtime. We bought him a Scott Joplin book, he’s working on multiple pieces and his piano teacher has been an enthusiastic supporter. Gabe also likes to play Scott Joplin in the car while we are driving to and from various activities. He insists that he be allowed to do so, pointing out that Nora has played Taylor Swift on nearly every car ride, everywhere, forever, and it is his turn.
If you want to know what my life feels like these days, get in the car, put on “Pine Apple Rag” and head somewhere that is ten minutes away, but you need to be there in two.
My life is now like that. Marked by car rides that require my getting somewhere on time because my children have places to be, interests that dictate our schedule. Set to music that I didn’t introduce to them, but vice versa.
I don’t take the long way home anymore. I am sometimes the needy one now. “You are so good at this,” I tell my once-restless middle child, trying to ruffle his hair while he sits at the piano bench; he wriggles away, but I don’t think he hates it.
There are these sparrows that are nesting behind the shutters outside our bedroom window. They alight loudly, alarmingly, on the screen throughout the day, chirping demands to their spouse. The angle of the nest is such that we can’t see the babies, but we can hear them, and they, too, are loud and fast and aren’t remotely concerned about staying quiet in the early morning.
It’s too easy, this comparison. So unbearably on the nose. Still, I can’t help but think about that bird family and how well they exemplify the business of parenting. The goal - quite literally - for the children to take flight. I, of course, have no idea what the adults are saying to one another all day. It is, undoubtedly, pragmatic. But I like to imagine there is wistfulness, too. They speak, after all, in a song.
