Tending to What We Love

I believe in the idea of tending to what we love. Tending to what we love results in putting good things into the world.

Spending time with the things we love isn’t just an act of self-care. It feeds our community.

Loving our people, getting involved in things in town, or in a broader field, that feel important to us,
following the little sprites that come into our peripheral vision as an idea of something fun or meaningful, spending time in joy - whatever that means to each of us, doing our work with care and presence; these are just some ways of tending to our worlds.

18 years ago I became completely focused on tending to my first baby. One of the earliest times that I left him was when he was six weeks old. I was about to meet up with my swimming group for the first time since his birth, and it was really hard to leave him. I knew he’d be in excellent care, but it was still hard to hand him over. It was the enormity of my love for him that I was feeling, and the strength of that was scary. And then I realized it would be best to go ahead and live all of my love for him largely, and to not hold any of that back in fear. One day he would move on from us and it would be crazy painful, but that was no reason to hide my love or try to protect myself. And so I love him, and the rest of my guys, largely.

Today he’s leaving for a gap year in Sweden. The time for his leaving has come. The whole family is sad. But he’s going off for a big adventure that he’s been wanting and planning for many years. He is strong, he is full of goodness and compassion and love, and it's time for him to learn what living in Sweden for a year (or more) will teach him. My husband and I have tended to something we love, and the world is a better place for him.

When Bjorn was a year old he and I made this plaque for his dad. It was one act of tending to my lovely boy, my man, and myself.