Campfires.
Aren’t they great? I know I love them. Last night my middle son organized a backyard campfire get together with his friends. We provided the snacks and the rides home and he set the rest up on his own.
If you are a parent, you might be a person who worries about your offspring by way of school, lack of school, activities, lack of activities, social stuff, lack of social stuff, technology, broken tech or tech rules, too much worldliness, too much innocense, and on and on and on. I remember when my oldest son was four my husband and I felt wholly unmatched. We took advantage of a local program offering parenting and early childhood behavioral services and I remember telling the nice lady, “I just worry he might grow up to steal cars.”
That was my parenting. Extreme worry whilst making lunch and stuff. Fast forward to now and that four year old is seventeen and applying to college and he’s the furthest thing from a car thief as possible. He loves music and composition and following guidelines. While I was busy worrying, he was busy becoming a wonderful young man and there were so many moments I never celebrated along the way because I thought to be a parent meant to be on high alert.
Which is why the request for a weeknight campfire from my middle son seemed like an easy way to enjoy who he is and who he wants to be in a way that surrenders worry and risks the notion that he’ll be just fine. If he steals a car we will definitely make him return it and say sorry. Definitely.
Company. A few weeks ago Marci and I retreated for our Mastermind retreat and we spent a couple days thinking about what we would want to bring into our lives to make life feel more like living. Isn’t that a great question? Isn’t it too bad we don’t ask it more often? How would your life feel more like living?
My answer included flowers, candles, beauty, nature, water, music, things that remind me of Spain, and dinner parties. Oh the dinner party! I’ve longed for friends to come over for dinner for so long. Too bad this impulse hits at this point in time, but that’s OK. We’ve decided to have my friend Lloyd over for dinner and when he comes over for dinner, we will have flowers and candles and use the good china and tell stories and talk and Lloyd told me what he likes for dinner so I’m going to cook that. To anyone who will listen, I will talk too long about my idealized vision of “cafe culture” and how in the 20s and 30s groups of artists and intellectuals were just hanging out and talking. When I think of the artists life, I think that’s the part of the artists life I might crave the most. If the life of an artist isn’t like a work of art, then what are we doing? Why turn the artwork into a cold transaction or commodity when really, isn’t a piece of work an outpouring of those moments when life really feels like living? Living in elation, agony, despair, fear, joy, peace, love, confusion and everything else?
Finally, do you have a lot on your plate? Then you didn’t get it at a dinner party because a dinner party’s secondary goal is the food we ingest. The primary goal of the party is the living.
I have a long list of things on my plate (jobs). Perhaps you do too. You may have been trained, like I was, to go directly to overwhelm and stress when faced with lots of tasks. I am working on letting go of that response completely- like in all ways, and I’m here to tell you it’s totally possible. How is it totally possible?
By letting go of that red alert parenting identity and leaning in to the peaceful parent persona. By letting go of the hustling artist mindset and leaning in to the bohemian creator mindset.
You are welcome to disagree, but I’m coming around to the idea that my strongest most productive self is not stressed out and overwhelmed. My most productive self is the version of me in wonder and delight, in pleasure and playfulness. The person in the room having the most fun has the most power. I’m starting to see how that’s true. The person with the highest frequency isn’t blocking inspiration, isn’t worried about the reaction from others, isn’t handing over energy to the opposition. For me, that’s campfire, cafe culture energy with candles and flowers and flamenco playing in the background. Oh, it doesn’t look like work? THat’s a good thing. It means I can do this for days and never run out of steam. My coach has been calling this a “third way” for years and it finally landed.
How long’s it been since you exhaled? Since you lit a fire on a weeknight? Since you set out the good dishes for a friend and gave yourself the gift of connection? Since when did you look at your list of things to do and ask how you would get this stuff done from your strongest identity instead of fumes?
I have matches to lend you if you need them.