The beauty of the ordinary, the common

The first visit home from college

Mindful

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

~Mary Oliver

Z came home late Monday night and tomorrow, he will be returning to school until just before Christmas. The time has been just what I hoped. Delightful and yet, so very ordinary. He slept late, spent time with friends, did homework, and played games on his computer. He was here. In this house. Sleeping in the room next to me, for six nights. All so spectacularly normal and unremarkable. Except that he has been away, doing all these things in a dorm room 35-40 minutes away for almost three months. Which makes what was once common, ordinary, and even drab feel joyful.

The first night he was home, I was upstairs reading before going to bed. And the house filled with a familiar smell of warm bread, tomato sauce, and cheese. I smiled, my heart felt full. My firstborn was home. He wore his track back into the floor with his constant pacing through the kitchen into the dining room then through the living room back to the kitchen. He answered questions while pacing, ensuring he would have to repeat himself as half the answer would occur in another room. We played Pit with our neighbors on Thanksgiving and then, Z requested Ticket to Ride, which we gently teased him about, given his childhood tactic of hoarding most of the cards to ensure no one else could move forward with track building. He read through all the rules and assured us he had never cheated. A smaller group of us agreed to play and it was so fun. After the hard time we all gave Z, M ended up winning. M shared with me that he felt bad winning, worried that someone else might be upset by his win. I assured him no one was upset, that he had earned his victory. Each of my boys is wired so differently.

Tonight, D, Z, and I played another game that we hadn’t pulled off the shelf for several years. It took some time to remember the rules, and even more time to get back into the swing of game play. I relished the simpleness of it all, the shared activity, time with my husband and the boy who first made us parents more than 18 years ago. Common, not exceptional, and yet, so extraordinary for my heart.

I have not always been good at this. In fact, my family can share many stories about times when my worry or desire for things to go just so have overtaken what should have been an enjoyable time. Many camping trips, my worry about all the work required for everything from preparing the tent to managing the food to cleaning up dishes made it hard for me to see the beauty of the moment. While the abstract of camping always sounded pleasant, for me, the practicalities of trying to move three small boys to living in a tent for a weekend outweighed the anticipated simplicity of that experience.

I did usually find moments, minutes, hours out in nature when I could appreciate the beauty of being away from the everyday, unplugged and outside all day and night. Swimming in a serene pond, hiking along a lush trail, taking in the beauty of New England’s stunning landscapes. Sitting around the campfire at night, telling a community story, where each person added a sentence to the story before it passed on to the next person. Of course, each child took a turn repeating over and over a sentence they found hilarious. It generally involved someone burning their butt or getting punched in the face or some other sentence full of young boy humor. I can hear each boy’s little laugh, see the sparkle in their eyes as they came up with something sure to thrill their brothers. Waking up to D outside of the tent trying to scare away the family of racoons who decided to feast on our s’more makings. I have many wonderful memories mixed in with the cringeworthy memories of my stress being too high for the situation.

I think some of this move toward mindfulness was COVID, and the stillness and quiet that those weeks and months brought to our far too busy lives. The absence of so many of the things we loved brought a deeper appreciation for those same activities, experiences, and connections. I’ve held on to some of the slowness and that ability to be more fully present. I recognize the value in a conversation with a friend in a way I might not have before. Some of it is my boys growing up and needing less and less from me. The growing away has taught me to savor what I do get, to pay attention not to the sand slipping through my fingers, but to the feel, the texture, the warm grittiness of it before I lose it. And some of it is a deliberate shift to focus more on the gratitude and connection and less on the disappointment and hurt. An effort that began with COVID to weed out what was insidious and parasitic and nurture and grow what was meaningful and mutual.

So tonight, as I think about driving Z back to his dorm tomorrow, I know what to expect. I know I will feel sad. I know I will cry. And I know he will be home again, in just a little more than three weeks. He will have more to share about his college life. He will make more pizza, circle the downstairs over and over with his pacing, enjoy his friends, wake me up late at night with his loud outbursts as he plays online with his friends, accompany me out to favorite breakfast places, play more board games with us, and most of all, just be. Here in this house, with all of us. And I will be, as the wise and wonderful Mary Oliver says, killed with delight.

Because this is what is all about. Has always been about. The connection, the sharing of space, the joy of watching him becoming.

I am so grateful to be his mom. To be his brothers’ mom. To have held them, temporarily, as they grew.

And to watch them as they take flight.

What a gift this life is.

Oh my beautiful mother
She told me

Son in life you're gonna go far
If you do it right
You'll love where you are
Just know that wherever you go
You can always come home

-Jason Mraz, 93 Million Miles

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