In yoga, we try to cultivate what is known as “beginner’s mind,” which means that we want to approach our practices with openness and a sense of curiosity, letting go of expectations of what we “should” be doing, and focusing on what we are doing. In this way we can experience growth and mindfulness, without preconceived notions, judgement, or ego getting in the way. For example, just because I could do this in 2012 doesn’t mean I should be able to do it now:
My yoga practice looks much different these days, but it is still nourishing and joyful.
My friend Tara (HI TARA) sent me this Facebook memory from 2009:
No context needed, really, given that on that date I had two preschoolers and a puppy in the house, the days are long but the years are short, etcetera. This little gem explains a lot of what was going on in my house at the time, and it also made me think how incredible children’s minds are, and how their view of the world is so full of wonder and curiosity. My friend Pearl (HI PEARL) wrote about how, instead of “living every day as if it’s your last,” we should live every day as if it’s your FIRST. It reminded me of how I spent hours, literally hours every week just walking around the neighbourhood with the boys and standing there staring at different cars or trees, because they were fascinated with them. The whole world is fresh and new from a child’s point of view. There was a mechanic who lived at the end of our block; he had many cars in his yard that were in various states of disrepair, and the boys would spend HOURS peeking through the fence to look at the cars. HOURS. Occasionally there would be construction or demolition in our neighbourhood, and we could eat up an entire afternoon just watching it. There were always rocks to pick up and house decorations to notice, there were puddles to splash in and sticks to brandish, making me concerned that someone was going to lose an eye. We spent so much time doing what would appear to be nothing from the outside observer.
This was a time of my life where I was very in the moment, even if my mind occasionally wandered while the kids splashed in snowmelt. I was very present, in large part because smartphones weren’t around then, and there was nothing to do but watch the kids at play. I would like to remember it as a time of great mindfulness and presence, and I do, but truthfully I remember it as being often very lonely.
Every time my life has changed and I’ve entered a new era, I’ve been a bit nervous, worried about making new friends. The years before my children were in elementary school were lonely ones, particularly when they were babies. I did have friends, but scheduling playdates with everyone’s naptimes and preschool and the inevitable viruses that all the children had in perpetuity was difficult, and even when we did get together, conversation was constantly interrupted by said children. I went to a weekly playgroup but friendships never got past the surface level. Some of it, I think, was the inability to converse uninterrupted, but some of it was weird parenting time that we were in. Gen X women, it seemed, reacted to their own free range childhoods by becoming total weirdos when it came to parenting, especially in those early years. One had only to bring cupcakes with pink frosting to a soccer game to garner judgement and disdain. A certain kind of conversation about breast or bottle feeding could drive a wedge between two women, and bad feelings could fester forever.
Friends truly do come into your life for a reason, season, or lifetime. I have been so lucky to have found a circle of women here who are the epitome of encouraging, of lifting up other women. This weekend, they gave me a party, and I am still so warm and fuzzy from it. I mean, would you look at this cake?
Can you even? Can you even believe this? It was beautiful.
In my Ask Me Anything, Anna asked how I met my wonderful new friend group, and the truth is that I was very, very fortunate (HI ANNA). I had been friends with Sam, hostess with the mostess (HI SAMMI) since 2014, and when I moved here, she threw a girls’ night to introduce me to some of her friends. Then some of those friends introduced me to their friends, and now we have a circle. We are all in a similar stage of life and we are all open to meeting and getting together and doing fun things. It’s a real gift; I was very worried that I would be lonely here, but it’s been the opposite, as you can see. (HI SQUAD).
Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) asked what is an absolute deal breaker in a friendship and I’ve been thinking about that since she asked it, months ago. I would be much more likely to reseat the theatre than to dramatically end a friendship, to be honest. I mean, if someone was a toxic mean bigot, that would be a deal-breaker, but I probably wouldn’t be friends with such a person in the first place. I have had friendships fade away, and I have been ghosted, but if someone has time for me, generally speaking I’m going to have time for them.
It’s interesting that the word “friend” is such a wide umbrella term for me. In the same way that I use “love” to describe both my feelings for my children and for Aperol spritzes, I use “friend” very liberally. Former schoolmates who I haven’t seen for decades but keep up with on Facebook, a random woman I met at a blog conference in 2013, the people I talk to briefly every morning on the walking path, all of these people I consider my friends. But on the other end of the spectrum are the lifelong friends who have seen me through every iteration, and loved me all the same, even during my Jim Morrison poetry phase. There are also the local friends, my squad, who I see regularly and miss desperately when I don’t talk to them for three days. And then there are the long distance friends who make an effort to keep in touch and who I might not see for years at a time, but when we do it’s like no time at all has passed.
Of course, there are all of you, my long-distance blog friends and readers, my pen pals. Without all of you, these words would just be floating off into the abyss, and so I’m grateful for all of you.
Weekly Reading
Just one book this week but it was a big one, clocking in at almost 500 pages.
Homeseeking. This is an epic story that follows two people over a six-decade span, from their childhood home in Shanghai to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the US. This is the kind of book that you want to read with references – I learned so much about Chinese history, the Chinese diaspora, relations with Taiwan, and multiple languages. The author makes a very interesting stylistic choice, telling the story from both points of view but in different timelines. She also changes the names subtly to reflect the different languages being spoken (Shanghainese, Taiwainese, Mandarin, Cantonese, English). It’s a love story but it’s also a story of devastating choices and occurrences. I’m not going to spoil anything, but I did wonder what would have happened to the male character had he stayed in Shanghai; I think he would have been killed in the Cultural Revolution. I learned a lot reading this, and I’m really glad I read it.
Happy March, everyone! One of my dear new friends just turned 50 yesterday, and I’m so excited for her to enter this new decade. Thirty years ago I kind of thought 50 was the end of the line, so to speak, and even fifteen years ago I thought it would be a wrenching time of Landslide feelings. Now I realize it is a decade for reinvention and revival, and the empty – or semi-empty – nest has allowed me space to really cultivate and bring richness to my relationships, with friends and with my marriage, and also with my adult children. Spring is springing here in the Okanagan Valley, and I am feeling the renewal. I plan to spend this month, and hopefully all to come, with the goal of viewing the world with a beginner’s mind, with curiosity and awareness. The buds on the trees are swelling, the perennials are greening, the grey and clouds of winter have lifted, and I spent time yesterday weeding. It’s happening! I hope you all have a beautiful, lamb-like first week of March. xo
Like you, I remember the loneliness of being home with small kids and also the sweetness of the slow pace and mindfulness of new humans. You described it so well.
I am continually impressed with how you rebuilt your social circle after moving. I honestly don’t think I could. But… was it disturbing to eat cake with your face on it?
It’s so funny you asked that, Steph, because YES. I felt a little strange cutting into it. But we ate the book part at the party and then the hostess sent me home with the remainder of the cake. The boys ended up eating the part with my face on it, but one of them mashed the icing up before he ate it!
First of all- THAT CAKE! It is incredible!!!
Yes to everything you said about life with small children. When my son was a toddler I was REALLY lonely. I had recently moved to Florida so didn’t know many people, and the women I did know were in a different phase of life (their kids were older). By the time my daughter was born I had a group of mom friends, but those first few years were bleak. BUT, like you said, it’s incredible to see the world through a child’s eyes. Looking back, it was all worth it. My son still remembers all the time the two of us spent together, and will say “Mom and I have a special relationship.” Gah!!! I can’t wait to have grandkids!
The first few years ARE kind of bleak, I think. Everything just feels so difficult when the kids are little. Remember trying to have conversations? It was nearly impossible.
GRANDKIDS OMG!!! It could happen so soon for you Jenny! I am so excited for you!
Hi Nicole! Thank you for answering my question! Your squad sounds incredible, and also that cake! I’m nearing that new decade later in the year, and I am looking forward to the renewal, while at the same time doing a lot of resting and reflecting. 🙂
Ooooh Anna, you are going to ROCK your fifties! It truly is a time of renewal!
I love that cake! What a wonderful way to celebrate the milestone of publishing a book!! March is the month that I WILL read your book! I have a few library holds to get through and then I plan to bring it on my work trip to Atlanta later this month. I can’t wait to dig and get a whole novel of your writing!
I’m definitely in the more “lonely” stage of parenting. We have friends but it’s hard to see them since our schedules are quite busy with work and kid activities. I am trying to make time to see friends each month but it’s hard and I feel guilt about taking more time away from my family in addition to work travel. I would say Phil is extra lonely because his friend group can’t plan to save their lives. I wish I could plan his social life for him but that would be weird. I am relieved he has a guys’ night this Friday. We are a good 13-14 years away from being empty nesters but I want to make sure I’m putting time into friendships now so we are still close when the empty nest stage hits!
Oh Lisa, I am sure you are in the lonely phase – how can it be anything else, your life is SO full and busy! But you put the effort in to your friendships and so that will pay off for sure. xo
That yoga pose is something else! I must have stared at it for a full five minutes, wondering if you are a contortionist or something. It looks amazing!
Strength, mobility, and wizardry, all rolled into one. Having said that, I like your “beginner’s mind” attitude. We don’t need to chase some past version of ourselves!
Your memories as a young mum are hilarious! And this season with your friends just feels like such a reward for the lonely parts. The squad, the party, that amazing vegan cake, all of it. After those early lonely years, this feels very “your turn now,” and I love that for you.
Hahaha Catrina, well, I haven’t done that pose in 7 years or so! It would look very different now, and feel different I’m sure! I’m glad I have the photos to remember that phase of practice!
I think this decade is really a “my turn” time, and I love it!
That cake is amazing! And thank you for the shoutout. Your words on friendship being for a ‘reason, season, lifetime’ really resonated with me. I often muse (in my head and on my blog occasionally) about friendships and how we use the word ‘friend’. It’s often difficult to get beneath the surface layer, but once you do, there is so much to love and cherish. I have a few lifelong friendships, and others that are more ‘for the moment’ or for the activities we share. I also believe that one must take the time to make the time for friendships and not leave it to ‘when I have the time’. It’s these kinds of friendships that matter.
Pearl, yes – and I have been thinking about your words every single day since I read them. You are right, there are different friends for different things, but all of them take time and effort. The time and effort we take really correlates to the depth of the friendship, I think.
THAT CAKE!!!! And I just adore the photo of you with the cake and the stack of books. YOU ARE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR NICOLE!!!!! You made the dream come true!!!! I am quite choked up looking at that photo and contemplating what you have accomplished.
Okay — I really enjoyed this reflection on friendship. What stands out to me, or I guess the part that is resonating with me a bit today, is that loneliness is such a universal feeling. I think it’s possible to feel lonely in a crowd and even with the people you love the most, and I find it so poignant that we seek out people not only for safety and shared burdens and all the other evolutionarily important things community brings, but for *friendship* and all the many ways it can reduce or quiet that loneliness.
Anyway, I am very glad you have found such a wonderful group of friends in your (still) new home, and I am very glad to count you among my own wonderful friends. xxoo
I count you as a very close dear friend, Suzanne! Also I miss you and we must talk soon.
You’re right – it is possible to be lonely even when surrounded by others. I remember that feeling very much when the boys were little!
Face cake!!! Amazing. I am LOVING my afternoons spent on Minnie time. Little kids are THE BEST for making you live in the present moment.
They really are, Sarah! I love that you got such a bonus with sweet Minnie!
I remember those endless days raising children, and yet, it feels like a blink. Yesterday, I had a memory of Anna in the park, just her and me. She was 18 months old, and she had these little pink shoes with squeaks in them—like a dog squeaky toy—and I remember her walking around by this big tree, squeaking. This memory popped out of nowhere, but I was so grateful for it.
Your friends are beautiful humans because you’re a beautiful human. You attract what you are. I’m grateful for you too 😘💜
I am grateful for you too Kari!
What a great memory – and I know exactly the shoes you mean. My kids didn’t have them but I remember them well!
The days of raising kids seem like yesterday, but not really! I guess it depends on the day of the week. You seem to transition from one era to another without a blink! I love that! I am a person that actually likes change. I don’t like to stay stagnant for too long. That’s why I enjoy your blogs..you’re always doing something new!
Judy, I was terrified to move here with all the changes, and one of my friends said “I love change, it’s so exciting.” That changed my perspective! New adventures! It’s easy for me to get stuck in a rut, so I like to add adventure to my life. Or I try!
What a beautiful cake and obviously you have beautiful friends! So thoughtful and caring to celebrate and support you.
I wanted to let you know that I put in a “request a title” at my library of your book Inhale Exhale and it has been ordered!! I received a notification last Friday. Again, I encourage others to do the same.
Jacquie THANK YOU!!! I am thrilled to hear this – please, everyone, request it at the library! It doesn’t cost anything and it will be a huge help to me! Thanks so much Jacquie xoxo
What an amazing cake and friends that you have! Love it! I’d love to have just one day with my kids as children again so that I could enjoy every second of it. There seemed like so many stressors back then that it was hard to be in the moment.
I’ve always said people parent in reaction to how they were parented. Those who didn’t have a lot of freedom become total free-range parents and those who were left to their own devices monitor their child’s every movement. I like to think I was in between and normal, but you’d have to ask my kids about that!
Yes Bijoux, I think that’s why (and you would know from experience, I’m just guessing) that grandparenting is so much more fun and chill than parenting. Grandparents don’t have the same stressors! So they can just enjoy – or so it seems to me. And I think that’s right for the most part, that parenting styles react to how they were parented – not always, but often. I knew some people who were pretty free-range that turned into super helicopter parents, and vice versa. It’s a journey!
I was really lucky, being in a circle where we were all friends and then all got pregnant at the same time (and if we weren’t going to be lifelong friends before then, that definitely locked it in). And it was still lonely sometimes – I was an anxious mother (shocker) and I probably could have hauled my kids around a lot more readily than I did. I did love seeing everything for the first time again through my kids’ eyes. I love hanging out with my adult kids so much, but I so miss the goofy little bundles of chaos they used to be. It’s so unfair that we have to experience it all in such a linear way.
Is your circle the same one? Your current circle, I mean. If so, that is even more wonderful than I thought it was!
Goofy little bundles of chaos is perfect wording.
It is the very same! It’s kind of crazy thinking about it. I’ve known these people a little longer than I’ve known my kids, and at this point I know them almost as well.
How lovely that your group of friends threw an author party for you – and with a beautiful cake! It looks like so much fun! You are a delightful person, and it doesn’t surprise me at all that you have found a great bunch of friends.
I also love thinking about that time before cell phones when we could just look at things and be present with what was happening in front of us.
It’s so great that you can celebrate that you were once able to do that incredible backbend, and that you wouldn’t expect your body to do that now. You inspire me to celebrate every stage and every age.
One thing about Peloton – I wish they had a few older instructors. I often break down laughing at some of the poses these youngsters think I’m going to do! At this point, I’m just happy that I can get up from the floor much more easily than I used to!
Michelle – I agree! Jen Sherman is the only one around our age and while I do like her music, I find her classes to be not great for me (so many super high cadences!). The truth is when I put on a stretch video, I just use it as a timer and do my own stretches!
I think that we need to be happy at where we’ve been and also where we are going – especially when it comes to moving our bodies. I haven’t tried a backbend like that in 7 years, and I don’t plan to!
I try to pretend I don’t have a phone when I’m in line at the grocery store, so I can just look around and notice things. Also, I’m nosy and I love peeking into grocery carts!
Gawd, I remember how when we were young people in their 40s were SO OLD. Looking back, I don’t think I felt that way because I was young, I think that was really how it was back then. Now at 50 I feel free and very happy. I’m excited for your friend to join Club 50.
Moral of the story: be like Sam. Be awesome, have awesome friends, introduce your friends to more awesome people. Also be like Sandi and throw parties for your friends with pink cakes.
YES! Be like Sam, be like Sandi.
I think you’re right – 50 was older then! Just look at the Golden Girls! They were, like, our age.
What a beautiful celebration! I think you should have planted your real face right down onto your frosting face just for fun.
My own sons are very soon to be 41 and 38. I find this impossible even though it is undeniably true. They have their own houses, their own lives, and in the case of Jared (my eldest), his own wife and son and another one on the way. I still get the very same rush of warmth when I see them now that I did the very first time I looked at each of them. I always wonder how on Earth that is possible.
The early years of parenting are fraught with so much huge responsibility: we worry that every little thing we do will have lasting consequences, that it will set in motion a habit or behaviour that will last a lifetime. It’s nervewracking. Thank goodness for those moments like you described, the long walks of curiosity, the hours of watching them play, observing them express joy and wonder, even watching them sleep. Little by little, we watched them change and grow, almost instantaneously.
Funny how we are surprised when we observe changes in ourselves, isn’t it?
Hahahaha, imagine doing that with the frosting!
This comment was so filled with wisdom, I nodded along. I also feel that rush of warmth and I feel just in awe that these people are here, and that they are such great people. It’s amazing to me! And you’re right – the early years are so full of stress that we are doing it wrong. I for sure felt that if I, say, was late with a nap or let them watch TV that I was doing some kind of irreparable damage.
Going through life with The Beginners Mind is brilliant!
Also, seeing you do that back-bend thing kinda hurt me. Not mentally, but physically.
I love that your Tribe threw this lovely party for you; what an honor to have friends like that in your life. The cake is a work of art—really! Brava!
The cake was beautiful but also delicious! What a winner!
so beautifully said. It’s 450am and I was wondering what I want to do in the next 40 min before I go out for a run. I realized that everyday, every moment or many moments, are for us to choose how to spend it to nourish us. It feels luxury these days to have the freedom to choose, open space, even little, to do whatever our soul calls for. After this comment, I’m going to meditate for 20 min because that’s what I feel like now.
Friends, unlike you, I am very particular who I call friends. To me, friends are not people I know or work. Friends are someone that I can call on the spot and just chat through mundane things. Of course, I have friends from work that I can talk anything about work related things, and friends from life that I can talk the most intimate feelings. But others, people that I meet here and there, I’d even correct my kids that they are not friends, but people that I met or worked. I don’t know if I’m making it hard/complex for my girls by making the difference. I find them much more generous with the concept which is great in a sense.
I do hope to retire at a place with a group of friends with shared values and interests. that’s the best way to live once kids leave.
It is a luxury to have the freedom to choose what to do with our time – it’s wonderful! I hope you do get to retire in a place filled with friends and good people, Coco xo
What a wonderful book launch party, Nicole. SO much to celebrate including your wonderful book, new social circle, and general awesomeness!!
Thanks so much Maya!
Our local council organises Mothers’ Groups at our local maternal health centre. They gather up the mothers with recent newborns and host the groups over about ten weeks at the center. Our group worked well, so we continued to meet weekly after our official group finished. We stuck together meeting weekly until our second children went to school (only a few of us had three) and continued meeting occasionally after that. That group of mums certainly helped me through those years.
Oh how wonderful Melissa! What a good way to get out and meet other new moms.
I can’t get over that CAKE and that your friends threw you a book-signing party. I mean!! You truly hit the jackpot with them. What a beautiful thing to do for you!
I’m reading Homeseeking this month – can’t wait!
I KNOW!!! They are truly gems. I feel so lucky!
I love how you have settled in with a new group of friends in your town. I used to have good sets of friends, but most of them have moved away. I keep in touch with them via text and phone and so on, but it’s not the same, and it makes me sad. I love my long distance IRL friends, and my long distance blog friends, and I wonder how to go about making new friends locally? On the one hand, it would be really great. On the other hand, how does one find a group of people now? Sigh. Your post made me wistful, I guess.
Oh, that’s sad, J. Long distance friends are great, but sometimes you just want a real-life hug!