Crowded tables, mountain summit views, and the icy silence of angry teens

Why I need community now and always

On a perfect August night in a beautiful garden surrounded by the people we loved most in our lives, D and I promised to love each other without conditions or limitations, remain honest and faithful, be a comfort and safe haven, listen deeply, never take each other for granted, always be gentle and loving toward each other, among many other things. One of the focal points of our wedding was the importance and strength of our community. Drawing on Quaker and Jewish traditions, we created a contract of commitment—a set of vows we wrote together, pledging our love and dedication. These words were transcribed in beautiful calligraphy by one of my mom’s dearest friends and signed by our friends and family after the ceremony. For years, it hung in our living room as a reminder of our covenant to each other and all the people in our lives who witnessed and promised to support us in this endeavor.

A few weeks ago, I got a text from an old friend, T. He and his husband were in town and wanted to get together. We met for breakfast the next morning and time was just not plentiful enough for all we had to catch up on. We first met 30 years ago, and the four of us became dear friends. So dear that when D and I got married several years later, we asked T to be the officiant at our wedding. While T would preside over the ceremony, S was in charge of almost everything else. He came with me to florists, created the wedding I hadn’t dreamed was possible, and managed the logistics of getting everyone where they needed to be when they needed to be there. He was the wedding coordinator I didn’t even know I needed. They hosted Thanksgiving for years, including us with S’s lovely Italian parents. S and T were older than us, established in life with a dog, a mortgage, beautiful gardens, and routines in a way that we were not. They were the foundation of the community, the life we would build in Boston.

In 2004, gay marriage passed in Massachusetts, and D and I were thrilled to be part of T and S’s wedding. I was a few months pregnant with Z, but still able to fit into a silk, red dress that T had helped me pick out for the occasion. I was overjoyed to witness their marriage, something that should have happened years before ours, but had only months before become legal. Within a few months, they had packed up and moved to Florida and our friendship became long distance.

First two photos by George Martell, third photo by Dana Giuliana

As we sat and ate our pancakes a few weeks ago, I was overwhelmed by my gratitude for these two dear friends and all they have meant in our lives. For the way in which connections that strong and deep can persist across thousands of miles, through three decades. That we can pick up and feel that connection, that love as soon as we see each other.

We have had some predictable struggles with L of late. After a good stretch of relatively conflict-free months, he has been pushing a little harder, ignoring a few more rules, and choosing omission when he should be choosing at least the appearance of transparency. Discussing this with him has not always been the calm, measured conversation we would ideally have. Frustrations have grown, voices raised, and disappointments shown. His response to this is a stony silence, making even the monotone responses rare. When I share these incidents with other moms, we can laugh about it. They can assure me that these are normal teenage behaviors, that the iciness will eventually thaw for the immediate reason that he still needs us for so much and the deeper meaning that we have built a strong relationship over his almost 17(!) years. But my heart aches more than a little for the easy conversation, the way in which he has always let me in, even if more recently, it is just around the edges of his experience. Although I started thinking about how I would parent a teen when I was a teen myself, I didn’t think to anticipate that the other party in the relationship might not respond as I imagined.

I am someone who figures out the hard stuff through conversation, through talking and sharing my thoughts and feelings, worries and struggles, blind spots and areas of clarity. I headed out on a walk and called another mom of three boys, though these boys are only a few years younger than me with children of their own. My aunt J has been there throughout most of my life. She and my uncle were some of my parents’ closest friends and thus, around for all the important and small moments of my growing up. She was there when my first baby came into the world. The chicken soup she made to feed me and D when baby Z was only hours old is one that I have made to carry on the tradition and bring comfort to so many loved ones when life starts, ends, or is particularly challenging.

She is someone I call when I need advice as a mom, a partner, a daughter, a friend. As I talked through the most recent experiences and stumbles with L, she reminded me of so many important things about mothering. She reminded me that it continues to be his job to push, just as it is my job to hold the boundary firm. It is his job to create a life that is his own, separate from us. And this is going to be challenging. It’s going to hurt sometimes. For him, and for me and D. He is going to make mistakes. Poor choices. Hopefully, he will learn from them and make different, better choices later. And he is not far from the child he has always been. The struggles we are having now were things we could have predicted when he was 5 or 10 or 13. He is a risk-taker, someone who wants to experience life to its fullest. He is social and loves to be a leader. He is eager to sing his heart out on stage, at a concert, or around a campfire with friends. And he is sensitive and kind and hates to have people upset with him.

His tolerance for disappointment and disagreement with us is growing, however.

Which is also part of growing up.

And damn is it confusing and hard and sad and challenging. For him. For me and D.

Parenting teens, negotiating and holding the push and pull—not only of the thrill-seeking middle child, but also the loss and growth that comes with sending the oldest child back to college—accepting and bearing the moodiness of the youngest, all of it is hard on a marriage as well. When your relationship started when you were only 17 months older than L is now, you have to be good at change. Change in yourself, your partner, your families, your professional lives, your friends. You have to know that there are ebbs and flows, springs and winters, summers and autumns in relationships. And you have to learn when to focus in on the details and the here and now and when to take the long view, pull out the wide lens.

Talking to friends who knew you when your love was young and exciting and the falling was fast and furious, helps you to remember where you started, the first layers of your foundation. Laughing with T and S about a funny experience during their recent trip to Cuba and sharing grief over the loss of a mutual friend brings into focus the persistence, the depth of friendships built over thirty years. A reminder of how strong connections can bridge time and distance and provide closeness and a sense of belonging. Seeking guidance about parenting my teen from someone who knew me when the primary language I spoke with my parents was stone cold silence can offer perspective and a reminder to be gentle with myself, with my partner, with my child. These friendships, these bonds can provide a steadiness, a quiet anchor dropped in the storminess of our lives. They plunge down, deep into the depths of the ocean and hold fast against the pull of the tide, of the churning waters.

On that August night, 24 years ago, we knew we would need those anchors. We had lived enough life to know that storms would brew. Some we would weather on our own. Some we would work through with the friends in our daily lives. Friends who knew the ins and outs, the small struggles and the sparkling joys of the day to day. And some we would need to reach out to those who have anchored us throughout life. Those who could help us see the way back to each other when winds had pulled us apart. Those who offer us the long view, the panorama possible only from a distance, from a lifelong perspective.

The view is there.

Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine we will make it to this glorious place.

When the rocks are steep and slick, the climb exhausting and unrelenting, the trail hard to find and your heart is beating faster, your thighs are burning, your mouth is dry, you wonder how you can continue. When your teen is lying, not speaking to you, pretending to sleep when you come in to talk to him, you wonder what it will take to see his smile again, to know that he still craves your attention, your approval. When you feel as if your partner isn’t hearing you, isn’t supporting you, isn’t seeing you, you wonder what it will take to find a way back to each other.

And then, you climb up over the next ridge, thinking you can’t possibly make it another step, and there it is:

A view of this place, this life that takes your breath away.

And you think that all of it—the feeling that your muscles are tearing in a hundred small places as you step up and over one more granite rock just to climb up another, bigger boulder; the pounding in your head because you are dehydrated and don’t have any more water; the aching in your heart because this boy who holds at least one quarter of that heart in his hands seems to be throwing it carelessly aside; the loneliness when you have tried and tried and tried to explain how and why you feel what you feel to a partner who once seemed to know these things without a word—it all seems inconsequential here, at the summit. You know you will descend and all these pains will be felt again, new challenges will present themselves with a vengeance. But you will hold the glory, the exhilaration, the awe of that view and remember that all of this is worth it. That the hardness of life resolves and the spreading hues of gold and rose and fire illuminate the sky in a way that leaves you in a breathless kind of awe. That in those eyes now rolling at your every word is still an all-encompassing kind of love for you, his mama. That the way your world burst alive with color and joy and delight when you fell for this man is still the backdrop of your life. It just needs some touching up.

When you can’t recall what that view looks like, that reaching that place is possible again, you can call on those friends, those loved ones, who can see your place in this journey, who can recall the path you’ve forged before, share the wisdom from their own journeys up and down and through mountains and hills and valleys.

Friends who can sit around your kitchen table and remind you of the sparkling simple joy of laughter, shared memories, and the promise of more time together.

Photo by George Martell

I am so grateful for my community who keeps me climbing, reminds me how to put one foot in front of the other, offers a hand when the leap feels hard, quietly drops an anchor when the sea gets rough.

And reminds me of the view from the top.

I love you all.

You can hold my hand
When you need to let go
I can be your mountain
When you're feeling valley-low
I can be your streetlight
Showing you the way home
You can hold my hand
When you need to let go

I want a house with a crowded table
And a place by the fire for everyone
Let us take on the world while we're young and able
And bring us back together when the day is done

The door is always open
Your picture's on my wall
Everyone's a little broken
And everyone belongs
Yeah, everyone belongs

Brandi Carlile / Lori Mckenna / Natalie Nicole Hemby

All photos were taken by the exceptional Dana Giuliana, unless otherwise noted.

Thanks for spending some of your day reading this post. I hope it resonated. Periplum of motherhood and other wonderings is free. If you enjoy reading, please comment and share it with friends!