So, it’s Monday again.  A whole week zipped by!  Well, maybe ‘zip’ isn’t exactly the word I would use, if I was being precise.  Rather, the week lurched and slogged and bogged and wept and pulled and pushed and shoved itself along.  It was, by and large, a deep indigo kind of week, for me.  So, I went for silence.  But in the silence, this old brain is always on the spin cycle.  Not that I’m saying that that is a good thing.  But there it is.  Spinning; always turning.

Which means that for me to begin a whole NEW week, I need to clear it out. Hence, housecleaning! Hence, a post! Yay!  Booboo went back.  Jon returned to campus.  He was ready.  We never really are.  But I know it was time.  Hopefully he is safe and sound, as it was so late last night that he didn’t text me upon his arrival….I’ll feel better after I hear from him.  But his departure has me gelling some of the swirling random thoughts and actions of this new year, so, here we go:

We moms, or me/mom, have a tendency, I think, to hang on so tight.  You all know I do.  {Maybe this is just an American thing; my french sis-in-law doesn’t have this angst.  Maybe because we are, by and large, such a pampered nation, and we have the utter luxury of raising pampered kids.  So we hang on to them, not tighter in love than other moms around the world, but rather, tighter in attempted control in many ways.  But, I digress.}  Yet, I’m working hard on not so much now; on relaxing my grip a bit.  The loosening is working hard on me.  You wiser, older moms (ARE there any of you out there, older, I mean???? Wiser, surely! But, older? Hmmmmm) already know this.  But, we have to let them grow, up and out and beyond.  And it’s harder than it seems.

When these cute little kiddles are tiny  babies, we are SO in the moment, right where we should be.  We are so fixated, so sleep deprived, so intensively needed that we can’t really be anywhere else.  And, that’s a good thing.  But, soon enough, the baby does sleep through the night, or at least a FEW hours and then we are on to wondering when they will sit, crawl, stand…walk! And, that’s it.

We cheer and whoop it up and marvel at it all.  And we urge them on.  Until, oh about Kindergarden.  Then, they are stepping out, not only out of our lap in our living room, but out the door and into the big world of school.  And we cry.  We moms, we shed the tears and our heart breaks just a bit. Oh, we cheer them too, but with a pang.  And so it continues for the milestones: losing teeth, first grade, middle school, first teams, then high school, teen stuff, jobs, makeup, big humungous mens’ size shoes, driving (extra oh!), dating (extra oh!),  and the biggie: graduation and off to college and beyond.  Whew.

Now, it’s easy, and right and proper, to say, “Of course we cheer them on and guide them through the milestones! Heck, we work our fannies off to get them there and through; physically, emotionally, logistically and financially!”  And we do.  We all do.  But, and now I’ll speak for myself here, I’m just saying that there is maybe, sometimes, a tiny tendency to hold them back.  It can be subtle.  But, all I’m saying is that it’s all too easy to kind of think, “They’re not ready for_______ (fill in the blank)“.   And, really, I’m talking about the small mundane things.  You all KNOW when your kid is or isn’t ready for a sleepover or a camp or a phone or whatever.  But the small day to day things: the chores, the expectations, the bedtimes sometimes, the capabilities….it’s easy to hold them back.

I guess I’m saying that sometimes I might short shrift my kids.  I underestimate their growing up.  Or, I want to close my eyes to it.  But, eventually, the teens need to shave, a small boy reeks and MUST wear deodorant, every day, they really can take a bike ride through the neighborhood without me, or walk the dog alone.  The older son(s) really can take trips on their own steam and dime (yay for that one) and be safe and have the time of their lives.  They really have the judgement to make their own decisions about the big stuff.  The high schoolers do too, on more than it seems.  Or they will fast if I remove the the unwanted safety net of checking on grades and work and whatnot.  Frankly, no matter what I want in some of these realms, those decisions and actions are out of my control anyhow.  They are theirs.  Not mine.

I do them no favors by holding them back or trying.  I must, and want to, let them grow up. Now, I believe in sheltering them when small from  some of the hardness in this world. But my scope there is more limited than I wish and better they learn it from us, with guidance, before they learn it wrong, potentially, from someone else.  With some of my kids, in a multiracial family, some  of those lessons must come sooner than I wish as well.  I have to let them, help them, grow up with wisdom and courage and strength. But to over-manage them, especially after their capabilities are ready for the challenge, does them a disservice.  As a control freak, that is a trap that I can easily step into to, and scowl at the misery that ensues.

So, I guess this post is a reminder to me that my kids will be better and stronger if I let them grow up, into the people they were made to be, rather than clinging to the small youth that they were.  Because they are not, anymore. Even the baby, he is five now.  Sure, a little boy.  But, he too, is growing fast.  And while I am pretty sure that I will always, always, cry at any goodbye…..I hope to embrace and cheer the markers and milestones with less pangs.

To see the change as another layer to the remarkable person this child, that child, is growing into.  No loss.  All gain.  More and more.

>To “Savor.”
To “Savour” (for the fancy times).
To discern and taste and notice and appreciate the different tones and tastes and textures. 

It’s often applied to food, sweet and savory; baking sweet temptations and desserts versus savory dishes for meals or, as my sister-n-law would call them “amuse-bouche,” (because she is chic and Parisienne and actually does cook like this).  As savory it’s an actual herb of course, and thus it’s about cooking, not so much baking dessert.

I had a brief exchange with a friend on this yesterday.  On the savor, how, why. And it got me thinking. How she does it, instinctively, and I look to her to remind me.

I am a cook.  I am an occasional baker, but really I’m a better cook. I’m better at the “wing-it” mode of cooking rather than the precise measuring and weighing and timing of baking.  I like to throw ingredients into a dish to see if they work, or kind of eyeball the amount and hope for the best.  Sounds kind of haphazard…and it can be. But often it turns out pretty well, because I’ve done it for a long time and know what spices and tastes work together, meld, accentuate, and so on. 

But I think it’s not purely coincidence that I am a better, more interested, cook than baker.  I think there is a connection to my preferred mode of cooking and  my skill there, and my big ol’ family.  As with so  many other things in our lives, they are connected.  Maybe it’s only taken me well over twenty years of raising a family to figure it out…or at least to make this connection.

But, I’m digressing.  I was talking about how to savor.  Yes, in cooking. But more, much much more so, in life…we need to savor.  As a mom, I need to savor.  And “savor” is the right word because being a mom is not only about the sweet. Sure, ya get the desserts: the nose rubs and sunny naps and angelic late night tuck ins.  Those mash notes that make you blink and swallow from the sweetness.  They are, perhaps literally, the icing on the cake, the sweet plump chocolate covered berries in our days. 

But the savor is where you find the richness.  Those melded flavors and notes, the textures in a day…they are what make the “dish,” your family and the days take shape.  If we savor our days then I think we appreciate them more.  Of course we do.  It’s in the very common usage of the term.  To savor it to notice, to look, mark, feel, recognize, appreciate the layers. 

I don’t savor enough.

On the good days, I do.  Oh, how I do.  I can some days savor so that it makes me buzz with the neon backlit sharpness of this rich crazy hectic life.  I can try -and fail – to blink back the tears and swallow the catch in my throat as I open the holy card and note sent me from my college son.  I can catch a glimpse of my daughter and see her momentary portrait in the autumn sun, and know that I have to etch it, quick before the dappling shadows shift. 

On the tough days though, I don’t.  I forget.  Or I get overrun a bit.  Or I let me loud bossy sweet tooth start calling the shots again – craving only the icing and the sweet melting sugar of dessert on my tongue.  I don’t want to see the savory in the tough bedtimes, or the complicated homework sessions or the explanation of just why she is grounded.   I forget to hear the notes of rich in the loud clamor as I call many kids from all corners to dinner.  I forget to see the golden texture in the clothes flung on the floor and the rumpled beds with quilts pulled half off. 

It all goes with living in the moment.  My least able skill.  I stink at this.  I dwell on the past, I fret over the future; from far in the future to tomorrow. I do so the the detriment of living in the now, the today, the moment.  We are called to do this in our Faith.  The saints are those who did it well.  But if we do it, or keep trying, perhaps we will see past the harsh notes that stem from our misguided selfish wants.  Perhaps if we, ok I,  really try to live in the moment for what and where and how it is, then we, ok I, can really stop and savor it.  And see, AGAIN,  that I have been presented with a rich buffet of taste and texture in this big ol’ busy family.  Sweetness, oh my yes.  And Savory, oh my yes.  And they compliment each other so well of course. 

The cook in me knows this.  And also knows that the best cooks are always taste testing and tending.  Just like a mom….or a dad.  Just like a parent. Funny, that.

“Savour.”  “Savor.” Either way you spell it, fancy or simple, I really like that word.