It’s been 5 months since our kids came home from school and haven’t left. At the time, we thought it would be 2 weeks until routines returned to normal. Or maybe until the summer. Now many of us are collectively confronting that there’s no date for going back to the usual places our children go to. It feels like the longest snow day on record – at first a welcome break, an introspective pause, then the trappings of the “weather outside” taking on new gravity.
A familiar feeling has surfaced, one that I recall from infant days and toddler years. A morning mantra that was something like, Okay, I can do it. Don’t fight it. Up and down, just remember it will just be a lot of ups and down. Just keep going.
This time it’s a bit different. My kids are now school-aged, no longer with the physical needs of a baby or the constant micro battles of a toddler, and not yet the teenage trials. They are my conversation companions, witty and fun.
These days the waking mantra applies more broadly.
The change of September and the emptying of the house will not come this year. We must sink in even more to this new form of parenting, while still tending to our work. This is our lot, no clear end in sight.
Late Summer + Back to School (the COVID version)
It’s early September. So here at Mend, of course we’re talking about the “dog days of summer,” echoing back the most common complaint of feeling “dog tired.” Deferring to the Chinese calendar, we expect to see a sluggish decline as this month bridges the gap between Summer and Fall. Our agrarian ancestors would be nearing the end of a long growing season and a year of push, culminating in a particular kind of tiredness.
That is, at the end of any stretch of giving to a project, work, school, movement, or child, a certain kind of fatigue can start to appear. On some days, we notice all that was accomplished, and feel proud, abundant and satisfied. On other days, we may feel like no one understands all that we did, and the effort was both too much, as well as not enough.
Let this be an example of how living in each season is a two-sided coin. In one moment, we may feel “nourished” and experience ease and flow in our days. In another moment, we feel “malnourished” and off-kilter with seasonal symptoms rising in body, mind and spirit. If you go deeper into the Chinese calendar, this 5th Earth-related season not only occurs in the Late Summer, but between every seasonal transition, as well. And as everyone knows – transitions are hard.
But why label one intermediary transition period and not the others? Because transitioning from ending one big effort (a year’s worth of crops, a big work project, a final semester) only to start another big effort again, is hard. It’s important to carve out a wind down period as a time to rest, recharge, and recover.
However, parents that are used to the ordinary routines, schedules, people, places and procedures of a school year, may be noticing something else. Now that the ordinary has become the extraordinary, a new facet to our seasonal understanding has emerged. Expressed in a formula, it would look something like this:
(Late Summer + Back to School) x parentingCOVID = extraordinarily tiring
If you’re a parent feeling like your cup is empty or the harvest has over-ripened, go easy on yourself. Remember you may be extraordinarily tired because these are extraordinary times.
Transition is the struggle of parenting. And it’s the same test of endurance that shows up whenever we’ve been tirelessly giving to something other, and perhaps bigger, than ourselves.
The truth is, in the moments between too much and not enough, I can see that I have everything I need, not more, not less. When I am rested and have gotten some time to myself or after a good call with one of my sibs, I can embrace my harvest. I can appreciate the heat of the day, the endless tomatoes. What at once felt like chaos in the house now simply appears as toys under my feet that need picking up. And my sweaty-headed kid sits there next to me after a walk back from the pool and smells like summer and that’s so sweet. It’s almost too much, I am swallowed in a new way. It’s true what we say, it is the Little Things: find comfort in the little things, not moving mountains. Kids will do that for us.
This seasonal imbalance, whether it’s truly the season we are in or a time in your life that requires a sustained effort of “earthing” (mothering or nurturing something that needs you), just know that things may feel a bit amplified in the dog days of COVID. After 5 months of parenting without the usual people, places and distractions as support…it certainly has been much more to hold than usual.
Go easy.
TIPS
Be careful of what you consume. Your ability to digest may be a bit lesser than now. Social media may be overwhelming. Choose your reading and listening material with clear intent. How does this feed me?
In fact, feel the freedom to censor your input. Whether it’s whining kids or the TV blaring reality TV or the news, a diatribe on Facebook about any given topic, you don’t need to be there for all of it. There are parts of each week when I am “present” if anyone needs me, but move about the house with earbuds and an audiobook.
Find small freedoms (that’s otherwise under all the weight and responsibility of the gig): take the long drive home or a slow walk to the mailbox, enjoy the neighborly banter.
Keep food simple. Cooking may not bring the joy it usually does, that’s ok. Consider 3-5 ingredient meals that are simple to prepare and digest (think about baked potatoes, a rotisserie chicken, rice and beans, and eggs for dinner).
Redefine “productivity.” Rather than churning over the work that never feels done (laundry, little beads on the floor, diaper changes, one meal, then another), shift your focus to “what would be fulfilling or is simply needed today?” Pick 2: steps on the Fitbit? folded laundry put away and out of site? A freshly swept floor? Paint touch ups on the front door before it’s too cold?
It’s enough. The simple food. The one or two chores. The simple work of co-tending work projects. Late Summer teaches us it’s enough and it’s always been enough. Chop wood. Carry water. You just have to look around and you will see the plenty.
