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Spring Week-ending
May 9, 2011
A weekend for saying goodbye to familiar places.
Our favorite Japanese restaurant, where Brienne has been eating since she was five days old - her first outing. Ok, she didn't eat the food there when she was five days old but she did nurse!
A little stop at the toy store. Where (the now eight year old) Brienne left her doll and now we need to schedule a trip back to the city to retrieve her (the doll, not Brienne).
A weekend for processing (with many tissues and tears) the plans, dreams, hopes, and fears of making this major change in our family life.
A weekend for saying goodbye to friends. When it seems like we've just said hello.
A weekend for flip flops and flowers. Flowers blooming everywhere! On the trees and in the gardens. The kids and I are reminded of this quote from our current read aloud, Miracles on Maple Hill:
If she stopped in the middle of all the thousands of things growing in every direction, she got what she called the 'push-feeling.' Everything was pushing up into the sun, trying to grow taller and bigger...
Ah Spring. I feel it pushing. Or maybe that's just the intensity of my life right now.
A weekend for Mother's Day. Cards, bouquets, meals, and a manicure. A day without a schedule. A day for me.
A weekend for magnolias. Gorgeous pink blossoms in the bright spring air. Breathtaking.
A weekend for holding hands with my loves. Trusting that this all-consuming work, this push, going on externally and internally will bear fruit.
Mothering, moving, remembering, accepting, pushing, growing, trusting, and loving.
A weekend for all of it.
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Tsh @ SimpleMom on May 9, 2011, 4:19 a.m.
Beautifully written, Renee, and I'm so glad you're processing this big change. One of the best pieces of advice I got before we started this whole nomadic lifestyle of ours was to give ourselves permission to be sad. That when the next thing you're headed to is a good thing, sometimes it's easy to push aside genuine sadness in hopes that focusing on the positives will cancel the negative. Don't let it. Fully embrace the mourning, so that you can come out alive and whole on the other side.
Someone described it to me like being on one side of a big suspension bridge, tethering a bungee cord around our waist, and trying to walk to the other side. Try as we might, no matter how close we get to the other side, we're still attached to the first side, and we'll fling back there when we get weak. Fully saying goodbye, sadness and mourning and all, will help us loosen that bungee cord and slide it off when it's time.
Praying for your family.
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renee on May 9, 2011, 12:06 p.m.
I gasp when I get to the part "nomadic lifestyle" because I'm afraid that we may be called to that very thing for this next stage our lives. For a homebody like me this is hard to swallow (I know you aren't suggesting it, it's something Damien and I have talked about and is probably reality for the next couple years at least) but I know you are a "home" person also and have made home wherever you are. This gives me hope.
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Tsh @ SimpleMom on May 9, 2011, 3:54 p.m.
I'm totally a "home" person (more of a nester than a homebody), so there's a continual inner conflict. It's why I'm glad Jesus is in the middle of building me a more permanent home right now. :)
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renee on May 9, 2011, 5:09 p.m.
Amen sister! I feel this way so much these days when people talk to me about moving "home". Or leaving "home". I have no sense of earthly home right now but I do have a place I belong forever and always and it ain't on this earth!
I think I mean nester also. I love "making" home.
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Francesca on May 9, 2011, 7:37 a.m.
I think there's probably a lot of excitement too mixed in the sadness of saying goodbyes.
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renee on May 9, 2011, 12:03 p.m.
Yes there is!
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Jennifer @ kidoing! on May 9, 2011, 10:26 a.m.
Renee, this is beautiful and will be so nice to look back to after you move. We lived in the Boston area for about seven years and when we left I felt similarly. My heart always belonged to New England, but we chose to move closer to our families in PA as we planned to start our own family.
When we lived in Boston we visited southern Maine frequently and I remember going to Fuji. We still talk about how excellent it was to this day. There was a music shop across the street that we had fun browsing in. No idea if it's still there, this was many years ago.
Although I would love to move to New England again, I don't know if it's in the cards for us. However, we still visit and keep in touch with all the friends we made while there...keep that in mind during the melancholy you feel packing up.
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renee on May 9, 2011, 12:03 p.m.
To be honest, my tears do not flow from saying goodbye. I love new beginnings. My tears come from a place of fear and worry (emotions that often accompany new beginnings). I haven't had leaving sadness yet but I probably will before the next 2 weeks are over.
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Kika on May 9, 2011, 5:03 p.m.
Lovely.
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Nicola @ Which Nicola? on May 9, 2011, 8:03 p.m.
I have been thinking about you and a couple other blogging for whom May means big big changes. Beautiful photos and sentiments.
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Hillary on May 10, 2011, 12:18 a.m.
Oh wow! I can feel is sister!
I'm the most nostalgic person in the world and the good-bye's are the most amazingly, beautiful moment because that's when you really stop to acknowledge that life is continually moving--ever changing.
Thinking of you!
(and Happy Mother's Day!)
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Kyce on May 11, 2011, 2:36 a.m.
This is beautiful. I'm so proud of you and your family for having such courage and faith. When I was 13 my parents left the rat race in DC and moved my 3yo brother and I out to New Mexico. I am so glad they did, for they brought me to the land I love so well, and also provided me with an incredible example of what it means to live fully. What you are doing is the fruits of a rich and well-lived life--saying good bye to the home you raised your babies into children in, moving forward into the next phase of your life. One of these days soon the grief will turn into relief and your faces will be turned toward what lies ahead.
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Laura on May 11, 2011, 2:03 p.m.
I am so grateful for your words and the heart you express. My family is moving across country too in 12 days. We are moving from Portland, Oregon to the Chicago area so that I can work in a cancer hospital there. Our dream is to take a few years of that incredible experience and then return to the west coast of Canada where my husband's family is and create a truly sustainable life. I resonate with your feelings of saying goodbye and opening to the new. It is a roller coaster ride of emotions for me, but underlying it all is a knowing that this is the right thing.
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Naomi Kilbreth on May 11, 2011, 11:01 p.m.
I'm so glad we had the going-away party this past weekend! And Daphney won't stop talking about her new bike. Thank you! And BTW the livingroom looks great. Your family has done a wonderful job.
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Growth Flex Plus on Oct. 13, 2011, 3:22 p.m.
Nice flowers.........
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Wendy on May 9, 2011, 4:13 a.m.
Blessings to all of you as you process this difficult, challenging, and exciting time! Love that last photo, and by the way, Miracles on Maple Hill is one of my all-time favorites--great book!