Category: Family

On Sabbatical – Week 27: Beyond Thankful

December 9, 2022 / kevincarlow / 0 Comments

GIVING THANKS IN A BIGGER-THAN-USUAL WAY

It’s Thanksgiving week! While the traditional American Thanksgiving spread has been a long-standing favorite meal of mine, the holiday had some extra significance this year, for a few reasons. For starters, I volunteered to prepare four of the side dishes for our extended family of ten. I offered this up because… it felt right. My mother in law was still rehabilitating her broken leg from a car accident a few weeks prior. I’m currently unemployed. I enjoy cooking. I love the combination of mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and cranberries (and whatever else is on the table). So, I scooted out to the store on Monday to gather supplies and beat the last-minute rush on green beans and the like.

Prepping mashed potatoes, dressing, green bean casserole, and cornbread casserole the day before Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year also felt significant because I wrote a sort of prayer to be shared before the feast. I had never done this before, and I was nervous about actually saying the words out loud. The idea came to me, as many of my ideas do, on a hiking trail. I have never identified as a religious person nor as a spiritual person, but lately I have been uncovering a more spiritual side to myself, a side that is open to and invites in the notions of prayer, of contemplative practice, of the possibility of energies unseen, of the possibilities of ancestral spirits being accessible to us, if we allow them in. And so, while I was hiking around and considering what my ideal November would look like, I thought about Thanksgiving, and this family gathering felt important to me. This is also around the time of year that my partner’s father died when she was a child, so Thanksgiving has always had an extra significance, an extra weight to it, ever since I joined the Moravetz tribe. In Thanksgiving’s past, we would typically share in a brief, uncomfortable (for me), semi-automatic Grace, the same Grace (I learned) that my partner and her family would say around the dinner table as a kid. It always felt a bit awkward to me, since this was the only meal of the year where Grace would be said, and it was rather abruptly hopped into and hopped out of, and then we carried on. As the years have gone on and our family has grown with the addition of little ones, getting everyone together, at the table, waiting to eat, and attentive for a moment of unity had drifted away from the routine.

After reading Thubten Chodron’s The Compassionate Kitchen, in which she describes in great detail the rituals around food practiced at her Buddhist abbey in Newport, WA (where the only food that’s consumed is the food that is donated), I had been contemplating my own consumption practices. How mindful am I when I cook? When I eat? Am I happy with my relationship to my food? My big takeaway from this book was a newfound interest in the following notion: taking a moment before eating the food on my plate to stop and to think about and appreciate the food, its source, how it made its way to me, and how it will nourish me. For me, for now, it doesn’t have to be an elaborate series of prescribed verses or have any level of formality to it; I just want to have a more consistent state of mindfulness in the moments before and while I nourish myself.

Applying this concept to a Thanksgiving prayer, I spoke the following words into my Voice Memos while hiking, and I later transcribed them so I could read them for my family at the table:

PRAYER OF THANKS
Let us give thanks for togetherness, for the privilege and the great fortune of being able to gather as a family. As a healthy, mostly functional family. This gift of life that we all enjoy is amplified especially when we share in that life, together.

We express our gratitude to have so much. To have the resources to enjoy such a magnificent feast. We give thanks to everyone and everything involved in bringing this nourishing food to our table: To the farmers who grew the crops, to the workers who transported, organized, and distributed the food to us, to the bird and the pig which gave their lives to sustain ours. to all of you, we give thanks.

Let us celebrate this Thanksgiving holiday as did our ancestors. Not our colonial American predecessors, but our far reaching ancestors, who would celebrate the fall harvest and its bounty with an expression of togetherness, of sharing, of generosity, and of gratitude. Let us hold their spirit in our hearts, and let us carry forward their spirits for future generations.

May we also hold space in our hearts for those who are not here with us tonight. May this family continue to grow in its ability and skill of creating space for sadness and grief. To find comfort in the discomfort of loss, or the discomfort of anything really. the presence of those not here in body is still felt in mind and heart, and so long as we tell their stories, remember their stories, they are not gone. Even though their bodies may have returned to the earth, their spirit lives on through us.

I’d like to give a special thanks for (my mother in law), who, when she was our age, when she was growing up and raising her family, worked her ass off, saved and invested prudently, and positioned her family and descendants to have more easeful lives than she had. That type of forward thinking, a down the line sacrifice that has no immediate pay off… it’s something special. And so to you, we give thanks.

May our lives be filled with joy and compassion for ourselves and for others, today, and every day.

Cheers to family!

—

When the moment came, when we were all sitting down and it felt as good a time as any to announce that I had some words to say, I could feel a nervous anxiety spike within me. It was like that moment in karaoke when your name is called, it’s your turn to sing, and you have to make your way to the microphone and wait until the music kicks in. There were these pivotal few seconds where I sat at the table, with my hand holding my phone under the table, having a frantic mental debate with myself. “Am I really going to do this? What if it’s too long? What if the kids interrupt me? Am I doing this for me to show off my writing, or do I actually believe it will bring the family closer together and model the behavior I wish for our family? People have already started eating; did I miss my moment?” And with one deep belly breath, I shut off the mental chatter and announced that I had written a little something that I wanted to share.

It was much harder to get the words out than I had anticipated. I’d already spoken these words once into my Voice Memos with no problem; why was it so hard to get them out now? I found myself getting choked up in the throat and hot in the face, even at the “easy” parts of the prayer. Nerves. I’ve gotten this way before, and I realize now that it happens most often when I actually deeply care about what it is I’m saying. I could read some sort of written verse to an audience of 1,000 people, but when it comes to heartfelt, meaningful words that I’ve written, and it was to an audience of the people I care about most… woof! Much harder. I did manage to get through it, though, and afterward I felt proud and relieved. I think my family was relieved too, relieved they could stop letting their food get cold.

I want to continue doing things I believe in, no matter how hard they are to do.

I DON’T ENJOY THE OUTDOORS; I NEED IT

On Tuesday of this week, I was really having an existential start to my day. “Existential crisis” is too big of a phrase, but the internal struggles I was having felt existential for sure. It’s like my mind is a big soup pot. I’ve been throwing all of these inputs into the pot – Tony Riddle‘s inspiring barefoot runs and natural lifestyle, the Minimalists on the Ten Percent Happier podcast talking about getting rid of the stuff that doesn’t bring you joy or have a purpose, working on decluttering our own house and the umpteen steps it’s going to take to move to Costa Rica, meditating and watching my own thoughts, talking with a financial advisor about how we’re investing, managing, and donating our money, countless conversations with my partner about her learnings and about our shared trajectory – and I’m having a hard time seeing clearly through the mind soup and envisioning my actual ideal existence for right now, today.

I contemplate about this often, and there are times where it continues to elude me. It’s typically the abundance of choice that gets to me. There are so many “could’s” with how I could spend my time. Where to start? What to do now? I’m often seeking for the “right” answer to this question. I’ve learned that when I get lost or stuck or overwhelmed, it’s time to change things up and move my body.

Piggybacking on what I’d been reminded of by listening to The Minimalists, I picked one room in our house to look for stuff to get rid of and ended up grabbing 15 junk items to dispose of. Immediately I felt a little bit better, one half-inch farther down the path of decluttering our lives. After this, I went out for a walk in the snow and sun in 35 degree temps. It’s becoming more and more evident to me that I don’t just like hiking and walking around outside; I need it.

I get so many mental downloads from the practice of walking around in nature and focusing on: mindfulness, mindful breathing, mindful steps, mindful listening. Amós Rodriguez, one of the participants on the show Alone, taught me that “my sphere of disturbance should be smaller than me sphere of awareness.” I think about this often as I make my way through the woods. The nature, the movement, and the absence of distraction clear my head, and so often do I get zapped with an “aha moment” from my own inner voice: new thoughts for what I now am almost certain is going to become a podcast, answers to my various relationship anxieties, realizations about questions I’m pondering, they all just… appear. On this particular walk, I enjoyed the cycle of walking, actively clearing the mind, getting inevitably zapped by an insight, stopping to squat and write it down or voice memo it, and then getting up and starting the cycle over again. Moving meditation is a highly effective technique for me.

Resting the body and mind on a snowy trailside hill.

On Wednesday, after making mashed potatoes with my kid (one of the four side dishes we were preparing for Thanksgiving) I once again went for a walk, alone, this time to the nearby lake instead of the woodland trails I so often favor for hiking. This spot is where this week’s featured image comes from. There are some steps that not many use which lead down to the waterfront on the western banks of the lake, and I found a perfectly situated downed tree with a comfortable, level seat right about 12-18 inches off the ground, directly facing the sun. At around 3pm in the Minnesota winter, the view was sublime, unencumbered by bush or branches, with a clear view of the wide open, frosted lake. It’s about a 15 minute walk from my front door. I am grateful to live somewhere with access to choice spots in nature like this. I am grateful to myself for seeking and appreciating this simple, costless pleasure.

On Saturday I again headed outside. I sought out the lakeside sit spot again, and this time I did a formal meditation by the lake, by which I mean I focused on my breath and did nothing else. Even though the temperature barely crested 50 degrees Fahrenheit, I had the sun beaming directly at me and some wind protection from the trees to my one side. The jacket came off. The cool breeze was invigorating and the wind gusts, rather than swaying me off my perch, actually anchored me deeper into my sit spot. When my body reacted to the wind by sinking deeper into the earth, that’s when I knew I was “in the zone.” The lake was mostly frozen, but on this warm day, the area at the lake’s edge had thawed. The soil and sand were wet. The smell of wet earth and decomposing leaves filled my nostrils with each inbreath. It was pleasant, like Earth’s rich odor was nourishing me somehow.

On Sunday, I closed out the week with a run. It was 38 degrees. I ran for about two miles, pushed through the first hump of temptation to stop and turn around (which often happens when I run without a specific length or destination in mind), and then found a patch of roadside grass that had been mowed. You know, how sometimes cities will mow a 3-4 foot swath of grass if there’s some grassland-y type land next to the road or trail? Anyway, this patch of grass called to me. There was no snow on it. The grass was almost green still. If there was ever a time and place for me to give barefoot running a try, the place was here, and the time was now. I kicked off my shoes and socks and I ran barefoot in late November in Minnesota for about a mile. First I was carrying the shoes, then I changed tactics and tossed them into the deeper grass for later retrieval. The ground was cold and squishy, but it didn’t bother me. It felt nice. Running without shoes, I immediately noticed that I paid way more attention to the ground. I took shorter strides. I used my whole foot. And I smiled. It was not painful. It was invigorating. I felt like I could have gone forever like that, were it not for the concrete separating me from my home.

NEIGHBORS ARE WHERE COMMUNITY BUILDING STARTS

My neighbors are redoing their kitchen and main floor. Big project. They needed to move a bunch of stuff around their house to get ready for the workers. I offered to help out. To my pleasure, they accepted the offer.

I bring this up only to say this; I wish I was more neighborly with my neighbors. Like, old school neighborly. As Kristyn often ponders–why do we have seven houses in our cul de sac, and we also have seven snowblowers and seven lawn mowers? Is all this individual stuff-acquiring really necessary? How much cheaper and easier would life be if we worked together as neighbors more often? Took turns watching each others kids, took turns making meals, had a snowblowing committee and a gardening committee. Why do we all grow tomatoes in our own gardens? No one can ever eat them all!

I know it sounds kind of perverse, but I was sincerely delighted that my neighbors let me carry their furniture up and down their stairs for an hour or two. That is what neighbors are freaking for!

AVATAR IS NON-FICTION

One evening this week, Kristyn and I watched Avatar. I’d been wanting to rewatch this movie ever since I read its mention in the book Active Hope. Once I looked up how to stream Avatar, and was reminded it’s a James Cameron creation (the incredible Canadian filmmaker also responsible for Titanic, The Terminator, and Aliens), it leapt up to the top of my must-watch queue (which currently consists of zero other shows).

There is so much about Avatar that I love. Other than a slight issue with a sort of “saviorism,” where the outsider protagonist is able to come into this new culture and save them from oppression, the rest of the film really works for me. The metaphors to real life are correct, even if they are portrayed with a fictional species on a fictional planet in a futuristic setting; humans are extracting precious resources with reckless abandon, disregarding who might be harmed, all for the sake of economic growth. Colonialism, capitalism, white privilege… it’s all there. These are the lessons we should be paying attention to. I hope the future Avatar movies continue on these themes and adapt them for our current times.

I also loved how the Na’vi people were portrayed (the indigenous people of the moon Pandora). They were super connected to their land; the “training” sequence showed it all. When Neytiri is teaching Jake their ways, she shows him what fruit to eat, how to fall from the top of the forest canopy and use the trees and plants to break one’s fall (a lesson which later saves Jake’s life), and they are so connected to the land that they even literally connect their minds to horse-like and dragon-like creatures through a cord in their long hair braid. There’s also a powerful scene when the Na’vi people band together to attempt to channel the power of Ewya (their sort of “source”, Mother-Nature-type energy) in a ritual to heal the human Grace, who has suffered a bullet wound. In that scene, the tribe of a few hundred Na’vi are all squatting low to the ground in a restful low squat, hands on each other’s shoulders, swaying back and forth in front of the tree of souls. Watching this was like watching the definition of connection to land for me.

I mostly am mentioning our watching of Avatar because of a comment Kristyn made as we debriefed after watching. As we were discussing how the metaphors and symbolism in the movie are so spot on, she remarked, “Movies like The Matrix and Avatar should be considered non-fiction.” After a chuckle, I realized I think she’s onto something. I’m not an uber-fan of science fiction, but I’ve enjoyed the genre my whole life, and I think the thing that separates the great science fiction and fantasy stories from the lesser ones is that they are basically non-fiction – they are so relatable and the themes are so resonant to our actual lives. I wonder if that’s how scriptwriters and novelists think; I’m going to create a fantasy world with some interesting characters as the “container,” and then inject a bunch of actual scenarios, emotions, and problems from everyday life. There’s probably a little more to it than that. Or is there?

NATURALLY BETTER RESEARCH – A SURPRISING FIND

As I embark on this Naturally Better journey (I am still defining what that even means), I felt compelled to poll my friends and followers (all four of them). I created a survey and sent it out to my network. I’ve done this on occasion in my life, creating a survey and badgering people to fill it out. I enjoy learning how other people think, and, sometimes, I like doing it in a measurable, quantifiable way (as opposed to having a bunch of anecdotal conversations).

One of the reasons I enjoy surveying people is that I like to get data to compare myself and my own thoughts to a larger group. I like to learn if I am an outlier or if I’m closer to average. When I sold advertising for a living, countless times I would run into objections that sounded like this: “Does anyone even watch the TV news? I don’t,” and, “The only time I watch the news is at 10pm, so that’s when I want my commercials to run,” and, “Has anyone ever clicked on those Google ads? I always skip right past those.” Everybody thinks they are average. Every person thinks they are in the middle of every bell curve. Nobody thinks they are special. Nobody thinks they are different. We all consider ourselves “the average consumer,” “the average homeowner,” or “just another parent.” The truth is – we can’t all be average at everything! This is why I like gathering more data points. A data point of one (i.e. my life, my experience), while it may be a very important data point to me (because it’s me!), is still only one data point. I am not statistically significant of the market or of all people. When it comes to getting good sleep, maybe I’m pretty average, but when it comes to weekly exercise, maybe I’m more disciplined than most people, even though to me my routine feels “normal.”

With my first survey that would help inform my future work with Naturally Better, I wanted to keep it short. I asked three multiple choice questions, all with the same multiple choice answers. I wanted to learn what fundamental aspect of our everyday lives people want to get better at most. Then, I wanted to learn how that changes if they change the focus from themselves getting better to the future of humanity getting better.

The results of the survey are below. If you’d like to take the survey yourself before reading further, you can do so at this link – Kevin’s Simple Survey. If enough people add to the responses, I’ll republish this article in the future with the updated findings.

Question 1

Here are the results to the first question – If you could instantly be better at one of these, which one would you pick?

When people were asked about their own self improvement, their top choices were Exercise more regularly and Experience fulfilling relationships more often and more deeply. So people want to get better at Exercise and Relationships above things like Sleep, Meditation, Eating, and Living in Harmony With Resources.

Question 2

I then asked – If you could pick a second one, which one would you pick?

Here we see much more of a mixed bag. Sleep got the most votes, but it’s pretty spread out. My takeaway here is that once you get down past our first burning desire for improvement, we are individuals that have different growth edges.

Then came the kicker – Above all else, which of these does our world need us all to do the most for the long term benefit of humanity and life as we know it?

Question 3

Here we see a huge shift in the responses, with the overwhelming winner being: Live in greater harmony with my resources.

I have two takeaways from this.

First, it’s worth noting that when we focus on self, our responses are more varied, but when we focus on all people, our response was much more uniform. As we widen our perspective, as we zoom out beyond self and community and country and politics and get all the way out humanity, regardless of our backgrounds and identities, we tend to agree. This notion gives me hope.

Second, I find it very interesting that when we look at our own lives and we examine what we want to get better about ourselves, most say the top priorities are Exercise and Relationships, but when we think about what’s most important for the long term collective, we say it’s Resources.

This begs the question–why? Why aren’t our personal aspirations more in line with what we know is needed for a viable future for our grandchildren? I could theorize, but instead I plan to have some conversations about this with people smarter than I to see what can be discovered here.

One thing I do now “know” from this utterly unscientific survey of a mere 31 of my friends: no one gives a rip about meditation and journaling.

On Sabbatical – Week 24: Improving Communication With My Partner and With Myself

November 28, 2022 / kevincarlow / 0 Comments

HALLOWEEN & REMEMBERING THE DEAD

Monday of this week was Halloween. Due to my bushy, unkempt sabbatical beard, I slapped together a last-minute costume and attended our neighborhood Halloween driveway get together as the cross-country-running version of Forrest Gump. I still hadn’t done anything with the beard in the days after Halloween, which you can see proof of in this week’s featured image.

Ever since enrolling our children in Spanish immersion childcare, pre-school, and public school, and being more exposed to aspects of Latin culture, we have grown an admiration of the traditions around Día de Muertos. We have made it a tradition to create our own ofrenda (home altar) in the entryway of our house around this time of year, to remember loved ones who are not with us any more, particularly Kristyn’s dad. She wrote a great piece about this on KristynWithAWhy.com, which I encourage you to check out.

The Carlow Moravetz Ofrenda, 2022

(I realize I’m a white American man that’s now talking about a tradition that is not exactly of my own lineage, and of the trickiness that brings, but at the end of the day, I know how I feel, I know my intentions, and I know that the way we acknowledge the spirit of it in our house feels right to us and is done in an honorable way, so for me, that’s what counts.)

It was also quite adorable this year to observe how my children, while Trick-or-Treating around the neighborhood, cared much more about petting the animals of the homes we visited than about snatching up their candy. They would’ve stayed and pet the 9-week-old kitten all night if we’d let them.

STRIKING A BALANCE WITH MY PARTNER

On Tuesday I had a lengthy conversation with my partner about food. In many aspects of our relationship, we find a balance that works for us. With any given task, though, a “balance that works” does not always mean we split the task 50/50. We each have our own strengths and our own chores that annoy us less than other chores. She doesn’t hate folding clothes, I don’t hate cleaning out the fridge. Over the last ten years or so, we’ve been tweaking and refining how we tackle all of the responsibilities of home ownership, adulthood, and life so that, on the whole, things feel balanced to both of us.

Food is one of those unavoidable aspects of life. We need it to survive. But when it comes to food, there’s more to it than just cooking the food. Someone has to plan what food is going to be acquired. Someone has to get the food. Someone has to organize how the food is stored. Someone has to prepare and cook the food. Someone has to clean the dishes used to prepare and to eat the food. And, if you care about food waste (we do), someone has to monitor the aging of all the ingredients and factor in how and when the leftovers will be eaten and/or incorporated into future meal plans. It’s a job with a bunch of sub-jobs underneath it.

On the whole, I get less stressed about food than Kristyn does. I like cooking, and I like being intentional with the ingredients used to nourish the bodies of myself and my family. I don’t want to speak too much on Kristyn’s behalf, but the short version is – years ago one of my roommates had said that he wished he could just take a pill and it would satisfy his hunger and his nutritional needs so that he didn’t need to think about food at all, and upon hearing this, my reaction was, “Oh that sounds so bland and boring, and think about all the flavors and connection to your fuel you’d miss out on,” while Kristyn’s reaction was, “YES absolutely me too.” So, the balance that works for us is that I am the primary food person in our house.

Before I go on and get myself into a heap of trouble, I want to be clear – she does make food and does get groceries and does do many dishes. It’s just that we’ve come to an understanding that I am the primary food person. And, like with any big job that has one person shouldering a larger share of the job, it can get to be a lot. There are times where I feel “kitchened out.” In those times, a break from the kitchen would feel great. The problem is, I feel resistance to ask for help. I’m terrible at asking for help in general. When I worry that the favor I need or the assistance that would really make my day is in direct contrast to my partner’s wiring and preferences? Forget it! I know that meal planning and prep can be more stressful for her, so I tell myself this story that I’m putting an “extra burden” on her by asking her to take over making dinner for a night.

What I learned through the course of this conversation, though, is that by not asking for help and trudging through another slog in the kitchen, I’m not actually helping the situation. I’m not resourcing myself. I’m operating from an imbalanced place. This has downstream effects, and those effects aren’t positive.

What is especially great about not only this specific conversation but also the general state of our relationship is that we are having these conversations, we aren’t leaving things unsaid, and we are having them in a calm, constructive way which leaves both people feeling better than when we start. I’m really grateful to have Kristyn in my life to teach me and to practice with me communication and attunement to others.

IMPROMPTU SONG-MAKING WITH MY CHILD

From 2:30pm-5pm Monday-Friday, we have our eldest child at home with us (before the younger gets picked up from Spanish pre-school). We try to mix up how this time is spent, with some togetherness as well as some independent work and play.

On Wednesday of this week, she and I headed down to our ramshackle “music studio” in the basement to mess around with the funny sounds we can make on the microphone. She immediately requested the “robot voice” (a sound setting in Garageband). As soon as she started talking in that voice, we got the idea to make a song about a robot. Over the next fifteen minutes we created a super simple track with two verses and a bridge. We didn’t write the verses, though; she improvised them on the spot as a basic musical accompaniment played in the background! It was such a cool experience to watch as my kid’s brain came up with clever things a robot would say and sing them on key and to a beat.

“I Am A Robot” is not quite ready for release yet, but when it does make its way to the web… you’ll know.

WHAT IS MY DREAM? ANSWER: THAT’S TOO BIG OF A QUESTION TO ANSWER

On Thursday, I once again fed myself a prompt in my journal. The day’s prompt: What is my dream? When I give myself journal prompts like this, I try to write with a brainstorm mentality, to free the mind and the pen to write without filter or direction. Anything goes. Any thought counts. If the though enters my brain, write it down, no matter how ridiculous or (seemingly) off-topic it might be. This particular day, even with the brainstorm mindset, I was stuck. Like, majorly stuck. I couldn’t quite picture anything concrete. Then I started judging myself for not having a solid dream. “How ridiculous is that?! I don’t know what I want? What I yearn for? Even kids know what they dream of. Why are you having such a hard time with this? You don’t even have a job right now. This is all you’ve been thinking about for months and you can’t even write down one stinking dream?”

It was time for a hike (see featured image). Not only did I have exhilarating encounters with two different sets of deer partners (buck and doe) mere feet off my trail, but I unlocked an insight while thinking on the prompt “What is my dream?” and talking out loud into my Voice Memo app as I walked. This insight came after 20-30 minutes of fruitless pondering. My mind was easily distracted. It was looking for any excuse, any thought to pull me away from the discomfort of sitting answerless to this question. Every time I noticed my mind following another train of thought, I re-centered on the prompt “What is my dream?”.

Eventually, when I finally was able to just linger in that question, really embody it, I realized that, for me, in this moment, the question was too big. It needed a time constraint. What if I broke the question into small time increments? What if I changed the prompt to “What is my dream for today?” and then expanded from there? This approach was game-changing.

In breaking this big question down into tiny chunks, I was able to figure out the following (these are the notes as I wrote them on that day):

My dream for today is to simply be doing what I was already doing – hiking outside. Eating delicious food for supper with my family. Spending quality time with my family where we are making each other laugh and enjoying each other’s company. Have an easeful time putting my kids to bed where I am in lock step with their desires of what they need to have an easeful bedtime. And then connect with my partner, have some mutually incredible sex, and close the day with an effortless meditation. That is what would make today a “dream day,” and I’m already on the path of living it.
So, then, how is my dream for any other longer stretch of time any different than stringing a bunch of those exact days together in a row? Wouldn’t I just repeat this day again tomorrow? And the next? In a way, yes! But also, life has certain requirements; not all minutes of all days can be play, unless you happen to have access to unlimited resources. Ok, so let’s zoom out a little.
I then inquired “What is my dream for the month of November?” … My mind immediately gravitated toward Thanksgiving, a holiday landmark in the month of November. I dreamt of preparing delicious, crowd-pleasing dishes and of delighting in the joy they bring to my family. And I then felt compelled to think of a prayer to offer before the meal. I went on a twenty-minute tangent writing out a Thanksgiving prayer that flowed effortlessly out of me.
And finally when I returned again to my question about my dream for November, and I finally stopped the many distracting thoughts my mind was taking me in, in the split second that I finally cleared my mind and just left space for that question, the feeling rushed in that I want to be making more progress toward our move to Costa Rica next summer. It is starting to feel like time to be tackling that project more enthusiastically and prioritizing it at the tippy top of the list. This is broken into three parts: learning Spanish, completing the project of building out our property, and getting rid of our unneeded possessions.
I quit the exercise here. This seemed like far enough for now. Let’s make November my dream November. And that starts right now.

If I can live out my dream day, and my dream week, and my dream month, all I have to do is start stringing those together and I will be living my dream life.

On Sabbatical – Week 23: The Fox and the Owl

November 23, 2022 / kevincarlow / 0 Comments

When the kids and I camped at Itasca State Park a few weeks back, we had met and made friends with a family named The Coldwater’s. This is the family I mentioned on the Week 16 post, who built their own homestead and live off the grid. I knew they lived up around Minnesota’s North Shore somewhere, so when the plan came together for my friends and I to head that way for a camping trip (Week 22), I reached out and asked if they would be willing for my traveling party to make a brief visit on our way back to the Twin Cities, so we (I, really) could see their place and perhaps even offer some assistance as they prepare for winter. To my great pleasure, they said, “Yes!”

To my chagrin, however, when the time came on Sunday, my traveling companions were not interested in the detour. I could hardly blame them. They had lives and families to get back to. We had hiked about 12 miles the day before; energy stores were not full. They didn’t know these people. So, we sped by the turnoff to their homestead and made our way back to the city.

But as this Week 23 began, I couldn’t shake the feeling like I had just missed out on a golden opportunity. Ever since I discovered the television show Alone, I have had a growing fascination with people who are able to live off the land. Of course, that television show is a contest and doesn’t reflect actual reality, but many of the participants on that show do, in their everyday lives, live on self-made homesteads in which they’ve built and constructed various parts of their shelter and living situation (garages, sheds, workshops, gardens, wells…). I’ve watched many of their homemade videos on YouTube teaching various skills and giving tours of their lifestyles (Woniya Thibeault’s channel Buckskin Revolution is one of my favorites). I don’t envision myself living completely off the grid in my future, but I do have a great admiration for the connection homesteaders have with nature, with food, and with the resources in their immediate vicinities.

And so, when I had finally met some people who live this way, and I was going to be very near their home, and they had agreed to allow me to visit and see firsthand what it’s really like to live without power or running water year-round, it did feel like a golden opportunity for me to learn, to have a much richer learning experience than watching a screen or reading a book. I sensed that a first-hand experience like this would help shape my future thinking and planning, to help bring into focus what my ideal lifestyle design really is. How much comfort do I really want to live with? How much am I willing to trade convenience for connection to nature? Do I really want to work my butt off every day so that I can live off grid and subsist off the land as much as possible? I can theorize about this stuff all day long, but getting out there and actually visiting some homesteads and community-oriented neighborhoods will help bring that thinking into focus.

When I arrived home from the camping trip with the boys, and I found myself wishing I had more fervently insisted we take the detour, I asked myself, “What can I control in this situation?” After sitting with this question for a few days, on Wednesday I checked the weather forecast, and the forecast for the upcoming weekend, the Saturday and Sunday of this Week 23, still looked amazingly nice. I all of a sudden got a jolt of excitement, and I lobbed out a prayer and asked the Coldwater’s if they would be open to my entire family coming their way in the upcoming weekend (leaving the duration of the visit completely up to them).

The next 36 hours was a total roller coaster of sporadic text conversations back and forth: when would we arrive, what would we need to pack, how does your family approach food, it’s a busy season for them to prepare for winter so perhaps it won’t work, but actually having some kids around for their kid to play with might be nice, and so on. There weren’t any firm commitments made one way or the other.

It was Thursday evening, the night before we’d theoretically be leaving for a 4-hour drive north to visit a place we’d never seen, and we still didn’t know for sure if we’d be going or not. We definitely hadn’t packed a thing. It was a little nerve-wracking, the not knowing our plans for the next day, but I was thankful that both Kristyn and I were just taking it moment by moment, confident that the chips would fall just as they should.

(Ironically, we were actually watching Alone: Frozen Episode 7 as this conversation was transpiring. SPOILER ALERT – in that episode, Woniya successfully traps a fox, which was really cool to witness. She was always one our favorite participants, and to see her succeed in that way, by trapping one of the more cunning animals in the wild, was my personal highlight of that entire season.)

The fox Woniya caught on “Alone: Frozen”
Photo Credit: History Channel

Just as we finished watching, we finally reached a decision about the weekend – we would not be making the trip the next day. Their child was not feeling so well, and we agreed it wouldn’t be best to mix questionable germs. So, while it was a little disappointing to go through this flurry of excitement at the prospect of having a fun, spontaneous family adventure into the wilderness, all to be squashed within a matter of 36 hours or so, it was nice to go to bed that night with a definitive knowing of what our plans would be for the weekend.

Here’s the kicker. The next morning, Friday, I drove the kids to school, like usual. On the drive home, I entered our cul de sac around 7:50am, and as I rounded the turn bringing our house into view, walking across the street directly in front of me was a red fox. It trotted across the street and straight into my front yard, and then it carried on into the woods beyond. I was stunned into stillness. I had already put my car in park and turned it off right there in the middle of the road. Then I just sat. What a moment! Not 12 hours earlier I had watched my favorite Alone participant trap a fox, and now one was traipsing through my yard at the precise moment I happened to be outside in the right location to witness it. Plus, at any point in the last few years, if you had asked me what my spirit animal is, I would have replied, “the red fox.” It’s the animal I think I would be if a wizard turned me into my animal form.

This was most definitely a sign. But, a sign of what? Instantly it came to me; this was a sign that I have plenty of awesome stuff right here, right where I am. I don’t need to go anywhere. Everything I need is right here. It’s a truth I know to be true, but I often need reminders of things I already “know.”

Immediately after this, I got a strong intuitive hit that I needed to go for a hike (hence the featured imagine on this week’s post). It felt right to spend more time outside, right now. No AirPods, no Apple Watch, no Strava mile-tracking. Just go be outside and walk.

Within two minutes of starting out on that unplanned hike, I encountered a huge barred owl. I love wildlife encounters, and this one felt extra special. Owls aren’t something I see every day, and they’ve always seemed to be one of the more interesting birds. And there it was, staring me down as I gazed up at it from the hiking trail. This experience was another huge affirmation that I was in the right place, exactly where I was supposed to be, with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but to be right here, right now.

I hope I carry this moment forward and remember it the next time I’m feeling like I want to be somewhere other than here.

Barred owl having a staring contest with me

On Sabbatical – Week 19: Finding Gratitude in the Face of Stress

November 14, 2022 / kevincarlow / 0 Comments

This was the week I realized that this sabbatical is not just about me. It’s not just about examining my life, asking myself hard questions, transforming into a “better” me. While it did take some courage to overcome my fears and doubts to quit my job, it was also easier for me to do so than many because I am extremely privileged and lucky. This week it became evident that the gift of time I have been granted is not just for my benefit. I can give some of that time and energy to others. And it was a true blessing to have that spaciousness this week, because those around us were in need of support.

To start things off, my mother in law was struck by a car while walking her dog on a Sunday afternoon. She thankfully and miraculously survived the incident with a broken leg as the most severe injury. Just two hours prior, I had picked up our kids from her house – they had slept over the night before.

We very quickly went into “emergency mode” and packed up Kristyn so she could go be with her mom for a few days, or however long was needed. The kids and I stayed home, and an immediate reshuffling of the week’s priorities was underway. Namely, we removed/cancelled any appointments and hunkered down. I like to call this way of being our “do the least” mode. No around the house projects are getting done. No making music. No writing. No volleyball. Survival. Fundamentals. I made food. We went outside for walks (far away from the road). I napped. And I did what I needed to do to make sure my energy and compassion tanks were full to be present with the kids.

Despite the sadness and stress of the events, I found myself thinking about how much worse things could have been. For one, my mother in law could be in worse shape than a broken leg. For another, what might have happened had our kids been helping to walk the dog? What would this week look like if we were both working 9-5 jobs? How much more poorly would we be coping with this situation if we hadn’t already been taking a more active role in our own mental and emotional healing? Yes, it was a tough stretch for a few days, and yes, others in the family had it worse than I did, and yes, it was a jolt of stress, unease, discomfort, and worry that I hadn’t felt for some time, and yet… in the midst of all that, I felt a sense of gratitude surface, gratitude for life and the life of my loved ones, that we are all still here, greeting a new day.

Then, more bad news. Kristyn and I were having one of our many late evening chats and realized we had both been thinking about the same friend of ours, that we had this person on our mind and wanted to set up a time where we could all get together. Right then, we decided spontaneously to call up this friend and see if we could find an available time to hang on each other’s calendars. So we call our friend, excitedly explain our great ideas for a get together, and after we’re done… our friend replies that while that all sounds great, they are in the middle of a major personal medical issue that is so dire they will have to travel out of state to see a specialist for a not-so-simple surgery. Whammo. Did not see that coming. Immediately my heart went out to my friend and their family, and, after that phone call, Kristyn and I started brainstorming how we could help their family out. It was then that it really hit me that part of our time “off” must be so that we can more easily support, help, and be there for loved ones that need us, that need someone, that could use a little help. To give and to be able to give is a gift.

On a lighter note, part of my “do the least” mode this week involved watching television on my nights alone after the children were in bed. I ~~started watching~~ binge-watched Life Below Zero: First Alaskans on National Geographic. I cannot recommend this program highly enough. The show documents real Native, indigenous people living subsistence lifestyles in some of the harshest conditions in North America. Watching how these people live with the land and use thousands-years-old practices to survive is inspiring. It inspires me to evaluate the way I live my own life; for example, the way I complain when the fall temps start dipping to around freezing. The children in one of the families in the show are ice fishing in -60 degrees Fahrenheit, and they’re enjoying it! Meanwhile, I start feeling anxious that we’re running out of food to eat when one of the shelves in my fridge is almost empty (while the other shelves, my entire pantry, and both freezers are still full). These families need to catch a reindeer, walrus, or grouse today or go hungry until tomorrow. I admire and crave their deeper connection to the land and to their ancestors, and I believe the world would be a better place if we all took some lessons from the people featured in this docu-series. And it starts with me. How can I deepen my connection to the land I occupy? How can I incorporate practices that honor my ancestors? What can I do today? What can I build toward? These inquiries will guide me in the weeks ahead.

Despite the draining start to the week, we wrapped it up on a surprisingly high note. On Sunday, Kristyn had an online workshop to attend, one she had been looking forward to and was excited about. So while she was in her element at home, I took one of my kids to a friend’s house for her first official play date – a time where I dropped her off and left her to play with a friend from school. Of course, her day was amazing. So while she was in her element with her friend, I took my other kid to an apple orchard, just on the outskirts of the Twin Cities – Nelson’s Apple Farm in Webster, MN. The weather was unseasonably warm that day, and we both thoroughly enjoyed pulling our wagon through the rows of apple trees, picking and sampling as we went. As I look back at all the photos I took of my child climbing the lower limbs of the Honeycrisp and Haralson trees, I’m hit with layers of joy. On one level, it brings me such joy to witness my child having such fun and experiencing glee from something so simple and natural and elemental as climbing around in a fruit tree. No toys, no screens, no electricity required; sometimes a tree is all you need. The feeling of joy deepens as I see myself in my child, and I can sense my father in me. It was one of those moments where I had a deep knowing that we were exactly where we were supposed to be.

Thank you to everyone at Nelson’s Apple Farm for your labor of caretaking that land so we could enjoy the fruits of it!

On Sabbatical – Week 17: A New Season Begins

November 10, 2022 / kevincarlow / 0 Comments

Fall is here, and it feels like a big deal for a few reasons, all of which revolve around the school year. Having my children back at school has never felt like a more important landmark for me. After quitting my job, I decided early in summer that summer was going to be the season of play, of being a kid, of abandoning as many responsibilities as possible and doing my best to see life through my children’s eyes. Now, though, that time is over. There is a concrete change to the structure of our week – from 8am-2pm every day, the kids are away. As fun as this summer was, I am ready for this change. I am looking forward to having this block of six hours every day to move into this next season of sabbatical. I’m feeling very clear and comfortable with this change; I’m not sitting here wishing we had just a few more weeks of summer (like I have in many other years). We did a lot. We lived a full season. If summer was the season of “being a 4 and 6 year old kid,” then my intention for fall is that it will be the season of, say, high school. That age where you start to get a sense of what in the world is interesting to you and what things bore you. The time where you pick a sport or an instrument and you practice it, lots, mostly because you just really enjoy it. That’s the energy I want to tap into this season. I want to allow myself to pick a few activities or hobbies that I enjoy, regardless of their practicality and regardless of my skill level, dedicate myself to the practice of them, and see where it leads. That is the energy I hope to carry through the fall.

FIRSTS ARE POTENT

After I dropped my kids off for the first day of school, I came home, changed my clothes, and immediately went for a run. The night prior, when I wrote down a list of things I wanted to do with my week, “going for a run” was the very first thing I wrote down. I have found in life that firsts are extremely important and telling. Whenever a question is asked, whether I’m asking myself the question, someone is asking me a question, or I am asking a question of someone else, the very first thing that is said is almost always the most potent, the most important takeaway, regardless of whatever comes after that first thought.

For example, I might ask my foodie friend for a recommendation of a new restaurant I could try out. They might reply, “I really love Bar La Grassa, and also Martina. Ooh, and Spoon and Stable is quite nice.” There’s a reason they said Bar La Grassa first. I don’t care exactly what the reason is (although it’s probably because of their Charred Red Onion with Goat Cheese Bruschetta), I just know there is a reason that one was top of mind, and that’s good enough for me to know that recommendation is the most potent, most juicy, and everything else after that was just filler. Of course, there are exceptions to this principle, when deeper thought on a question does reveal a keener insight that may not have been uncovered at first glance, but for the most part, when I notice myself or others mentioning a list of things, I always pay special attention to the first thing on the list.

GIVE AND RECEIVE

One day this week I helped my neighbor with a project. He is building a treehouse at the back of his property where the yard meets the woods, which is quite clearly a job more easily done by two than by one. I was happy to help him out as a friendly neighborly gesture without any expectation of a return favor. As we started getting set up for the work, he mentioned to me that he had read my latest blog post. Not only had he read it, but there was something specific in it that he could relate to in his own experience as a parent. (It was in this post where I contemplated about what my child is really trying to say at certain moments, but they don’t always have the mastery of the language or the emotional skills to voice what they really mean.) His mentioning this to me cost him nothing, but I received it as a huge gift. Not only did it feel good that some other human actually was interested in enough in the hodgepodge of words I’d put together to take time out of their day to read what I’d written, but also that something I wrote actually resonated with someone else. Dare I say made even the slightest positive difference in his life? What a great feeling that was!

It made me consider two things:

1) How much does this feeling get amplified for professional authors, teachers, podcasters, or talk givers, when their messages and insights improve the lives of thousands or even millions of people?!

2) Noticing how good this made me feel, I want to carry forward the practice of voicing my admiration, my noticing, my appreciation of others’ thoughts, words, and actions. It costs me very little and the reward for the other is great!

THE HUMBLEST OF BEGINNINGS

When I was younger, I was really into playing music. First piano, then saxophone. I was pretty good. Jazz improvisation came naturally to me. I chose to spend hours in the practice room with a friend, a guitar player, and we would accompany each other (me on tenor sax and him on guitar) playing through jazz standards, fake books, whatever was around the music room in high school. We’d have jam sessions in our other friend’s basement; he was the drummer, of course. After high school, I chose to pursue a practical degree in business, but even still as a Marketing and Entrepreneurship double major, I played in the jazz band at the University of Minnesota my Freshman year. After that, though, I quit. I quit playing music. I was wrapped up in navigating the puzzle of college, of how I could cruise through four years of university with two business degrees as efficiently as possible. Jazz band was a lot of time and only earned me one credit. So I put it aside in pursuit of business. (And parties.)

As my life continued, the distance from the time I’d last played music widened. I still enjoyed listening to music (this was the age when P2P servers like Napster and LimeWire were in their prime!), and I loved going to see live shows (one of my college roommates was the drummer in the band Quietdrive). But I never played. I watched with admiration as my friend, the drummer who hosted our high school jam sessions, continued his pursuit of music, moved to L.A., formed bands, created his own music studio, engineered incredible tracks, and crafted a sustainable life in the music industry. (Shoutout to Sam Brawner, Raquel Rodriguez, and Blue Dream Studios. Watch and listen to them perform one of my favorite songs live in their studio: Mile High.) I sometimes wondered, fantasized what my life would have been like had I, at the crossroads of deciding what to pursue in college, chosen music over business. But as happens with so many of us that practice some art when we’re young, the ideas of practicality, of finances, of the “real world” creep in and overtake the artistic side.

It has been a long-standing idea of mine to record my own music. Not to become the next Jon Batiste, not to go on world tours, just to have a setup at my house where I could mess around with music. A musical playground, if you will. I never made the time to make this happen while I was in the working world.

This week, the time finally came. I transformed idea into reality; I set up the ability to record audio in my house. The configuration is beyond basic, but I at least now have the ability to record a microphone, a keyboard, and a guitar into a computer and start playing around with music and sound. As I fired up GarageBand and started tinkering with my first sounds, I felt so giddy I was cackling to myself, having uncontrollable belly laughs, by myself, in my basement. The “music” I was making was complete unskilled trash, but that didn’t matter. The product didn’t matter. I had built a playground for myself, and it felt so damn good to play.

The most basic music studio in the history of music studios

INSPIRATION ON A DRIVEWAY

On the weekend, my family went over to my friend’s house for his daughter’s fifth birthday. While the kids were busy zooming around their backyard and basement, I took a moment to step into their front yard, free from kids, with another friend of mine. While we know each other pretty well, we are both better friends with the host of the party. In other words, we are friends through the host. He and I got to chatting about the state of the world and of our lives, and I quickly realized he and I share a lot of the same values and views. We got to talking about hiking and camping, and boom! I was hit with a wave of inspiration to see if we could squeak in a camping trip before the temperatures got too cold. But rather than let this idea slip by, like so many ideas of fun activities can do (because they take a certain amount of planning, organization, and effort), I did not leave that birthday party until we had picked a tentative date that appeared to work on each of our calendars. I don’t know if this plan will hold, but I’m excited at the prospect, and I’m sure glad I took a minute to sneak away from the bounce-house to have an actual adult conversation at this otherwise sugar-induced crazy-fest!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

As I woke up my youngest on the first day of school, a full two hours earlier than her body had grown accustomed to waking up in the summer on its own clock, she started to rise and sleepily, and somewhat grouchily, told me, “Daddy, I didn’t want to have any mornings this year.”

Oh! And my kids made their own bruschetta with basil and tomatoes from our garden, as well as strawberries, balsamic vinegar, mozzarella cheese, and sourdough bread, hence the featured image on this week’s post. I absolutely love giving them very small portions of chopped up ingredients and then just sitting back and watching as they create their own meals.

On Sabbatical — Week 16: One Dad, Two Kids, and the Great Outdoors

November 8, 2022 / kevincarlow / 0 Comments

Months ago, I planned and booked a camping trip for our family to Itasca State Park. I had done a three-night solo camping trip there in September 2021, and at that time I had assessed that it would be an excellent state park to bring the entire family. So as soon as it became available to reserve, I booked us a campsite (with a camper cabin, a one-room log cabin to add a touch of convenience) for the end of August 2022. As the day of departure approached, Kristyn began to develop a cold, and I suggested that perhaps I could take the kids camping and she could stay home to rest and enjoy some alone time. This offer did not take much convincing. And so, the kids and I loaded up in the minivan and embarked upon a four-night camping trip, just the three of us.

Even though my kids are only six and four years old, and even though we were going to be three and a half hours from home, and even though I was not going to have any help in taking care of my children nor myself, I was feeling confident about the adventure. Excited. A touch of nervousness, perhaps, but having completed a successful two-night camping trip with my eldest earlier in the summer, and having spent so much time with both kids all summer long and observed their current maturity levels, I felt like we were just on the right edge of being “old enough” to make this a viable endeavor with me as the only parent. Thanks to the awesomeness of my children, I couldn’t have been more right.

Here’s an excerpt from my journal on the night of arrival to our campsite (and let’s just reflect on the fact that I had even one moment to consider writing in a journal!):

The girls have chosen to use the markers and paper we brought to color while sitting on the floor. “Amar Pelos Dois” is cooing over the portable speaker in our nicer-than-expected camper cabin. Four nights in a cabin with my two kids – it feels a bit like ‘The Ultimate Survival Challenge,’ but it also feels like it’ll be a cinch. It’s the second hour of being here, and the girls are showing me they can occupy themselves and each other, even with rain bringing us inside. … This time in the woods with my kids is the last hurrah before summer is over and the final school year in the USA starts. What is my intention with this time? To demonstrate to my kids that fun and joy can be had without much. To experience hiking in a positive way (my youngest is not a huge fan, yet). To let them lead so we all can learn from their choices and behaviors.

We had a lovely spaghetti dinner. I cleaned up while they played Concentration with each other. We began a tradition of enjoying tea and apples after dishes were done. And for the next three days, we enjoyed exploring, hiking, playing, finding bear tracks, picking M&M’s out of trail mix, swimming, and simply being in the outdoors.

MY CHILDREN ARE MORE GROWN THAN I KNOW

When taken into the outdoors, without many modern conveniences and left to their own devices, they seemed to age two years in two minutes. All of a sudden, not only did my youngest child no longer need or want any help in a public bathroom (the family bathroom kind where it’s just one small room), they specifically requested I leave them be and wait outside. Both kids, all of a sudden, seemed to just know how to wash and dry dishes, when given the opportunity. When we arrived at the headwaters of the Mississippi River, the main attraction of Itasca State park, the kids did not hesitate. You see, at these headwaters of America’s largest and most powerful river, the river is very small, almost streamlike. There are rocks that act as stepping stones where one can actually hop across the Mighty Mississippi. It’s not the most challenging physical act, to balance on these rocks and make it across, but it’s also more challenging than taking a stroll on a sidewalk. And when my kids saw this, saw a few adults carefully making their way across the stones, my kids did not hesitate. As I wrote in my journal later, “Before I knew it, their shoes were off. Fording the Mississippi with two children… it was mildly stressful, but I was simultaneously proud and in awe of their bravery and ability/balance, while enjoying the experience for myself.” It blew me away how ready and equipped they already are to act more mature, and all it took was removing distractions, removing convenience, giving them an opportunity to shine, and then getting out of their way.

MEETING THE COLDWATER’S

One afternoon, we were hanging out at the park’s largest playground, the one near the swimming beach, and it was here that we had what felt to me like a fateful encounter. It was here that we met the Coldwater family, a family of three that live “off the grid,” as they put it, in northern Minnesota. The woman and her son were playing at the park, speaking French to each other (I learned the woman is from Belgium) and at this my children’s ears perked up, because they are learning Spanish and have an ear for foreign language. This curiosity about their language was enough to spark interaction with these people, and the more I learned about the Coldwater family’s life, the more I was drawn in. They built their own house using natural materials like straw, wood, and lime plaster. They are acquiring a sailboat and have plans to sail from the Caribbean, through the Saint Lawrence seaway, all the way to Lake Superior to return to their home in northern Minnesota. They also plan to take this boat on a Trans-Atlantic voyage to the Mediterranean for a couple of years. They have no running water and bring water from the natural spring that’s 1/4 mile away from their home, 2-3 times every day. They have intimate knowledge of how to harvest and prepare wild rice, a practice they learned from the Lakota people. I could go on. Oh, and they were just delightful human beings who seemed completely in tune with enjoying the present moment. I was and still am so enchanted with this family. I don’t necessarily aspire to live in a log cabin off the grid, but I do believe they are living in a way that is much more connected to the natural world, the world from which we all come, than I am, and for that, I admire them. I deeply hope to stay connected to them in some way, but if not, I’m happy to have met and to have been inspired by them. And I am grateful that I listened to my kids and let them lead the way when they said, “We want to go to the park,” or I would have never met the Coldwater family.

A FEW FINAL MEMORIES OF SOLO CAMPING WITH TWO KIDS

When you arrive to the state park and your campsite isn’t ready yet, head straight for the playground.
A quick backstory – when I was a kid, I remember eating apples after dinner, but before bed. We would do this often in my home (via my dad), and we would do it even more often whenever I was visiting my grandparents (my dad’s parents). While I still enjoy apples, eating them nightly is not a habit I carried forward into my own life. Fast forward to this camping trip, and as I packed for it, I brought precisely enough apples with us so that we could share an apple together every night. Not sure why, it just felt right. Every night, as I placed a bowl of sliced apples on the cabin table in front of my children, I could feel some historical, inter-generational frequency vibrating within me. Like, even though I haven’t actually been there before, it felt like I had been there before. Almost like I could feel my father and his father working through me. And I was aware of the feeling like I am actively passing on a tradition, a conscious programming of my children to share some of the same programming etched into my core. I did not plan for nor expect this feeling to arise, but it was really cool when it did.
At one point, the kids were using the toys that I had brought in ways I would never have imagined – they were outside, using the jump rope and ladder golf ladders, and other items from nature to construct a sort of… bridge structure. At one point, in between the gathering and placing of sticks, rocks, and pinecones on top of this structure, my kid looked to me and said, “We know that water is the glue of nature, so we’re going inside to get our water bottles.”

Building a bridge together

MORE FUN OUTSIDE AND FINDING INSPIRATION EVERYWHERE

Our camping trip was from Sunday-Thursday, so when we got home, we still had the weekend to enjoy, and although one might think we would have been depleted of energy from the time outdoors and the long car ride, it was quite the contrary – we all felt energized from living a more simple life and spending time together. So, we went out for some more activity!

The day after we returned from camping, the weather was gorgeous and Kristyn was still not feeling 100%, so I took the kids to a park in town. They simply could not get enough of being outside! I felt proud at how easily they made friends with other kids at the beach. As they played with newly-made friends, I went for a nearby stroll, and I happened to notice this dedication placard on one of the park benches. It reads: “Jerry Gale [In Honor Of]. High-energy dad, grandpa, & eternal optimist who went to bat for causes he believed in.” I don’t know who Jerry Gale is, but I know he must have been a great man. If, once I pass away, my family remembers me in this way, I will consider my life a success.

An inspiration

THAT’S A WRAP ON SUMMER – WHAT HAVE I LEARNED FROM ALL THIS TIME WITH MY KIDS?

The end of this week marks a wrap on summer. A sabbatical summer. I spent so much time with my kids, intentionally so. Earlier in the season, I consciously made the choice that this summer was going to be a time of me being a kid again, of letting go of what’s “supposed” to happen. So, what did I learn from my two little sources of wisdom?

We are social creatures. My kids love making friends with anyone. It’s a credit to their friendly personality and disposition, and it’s also their plain humanity shining through. Their “flow state” is enabled when playing with or talking to new humans.
- What does that look like in the adult world? How do I suppress my natural urges to connect with a new person? Why do I do that? What do I fear? What would it look like if I gave all strangers the same benefit of the doubt that my kids give other children on the playground?
Siblings are extremely valuable. My kids practice so many life skills together: communication, problem solving, teamwork, debate… They don’t really realize how lucky they are to have each other.
- This makes me more grateful for my own brother. Even though we don’t talk much these days, I’m very grateful we had each other in our formative years. I believe I’m a better person because I had him (and my parents) around to teach me the kind of things an older brother needs to be taught: humility, thinking of others, sharing, and so on.
Parenting is easier when I let go of personal wants. In spending heaping amounts of time with my children, moments of my impatience or frustration inevitably arose. When I examine the root cause of those moments, they almost all originate from having my own desire. I want to finish the chapter in my book. I want to go on a long hike. I want to start making progress on preparing dinner. I want, I want, I want. Whenever I have a want that doesn’t align with my kid’s want, friction occurs.
- If my goal is for parenting to be easier, and for my relationship with my child to grow positively, there is a simple answer – let go of my want. It fixes everything.
My kids simply want me to be with them. During the day. At night. They seem to not be able to get enough of me, of my attention, of my love, of my energy. They want me to be their witness. Their cheerleader. To be there in case something bad happens. To have someone to read to them. Someone to snuggle. Or climb on. Someone to play pretend with. To hold the heavy things. Someone to help. Sure, they’re getting old enough to be able to play on their own for a while and enjoy it, but it’s never their first choice. I am not this great to anyone else on the planet.
- For two people to have this much pure love of me, I owe them my energy and my time.

On Sabbatical – Weeks 12 and 13: Tapping Into the Wisdom of Family, Elders, and Familiar Land on a Road Trip to Canada

September 23, 2022 / kevincarlow / 1 Comment

We drove many miles.

We connected with family.

We enjoyed poutine.

There’s our 2,220 mile international road trip in a Canadian haiku nutshell, folks.

When the pandemic foiled our plans to visit Canada in 2021, it was a disappointment. Then again, the pandemic was the cause of many disappointments for many people. In the grand scheme, it wasn’t a huge loss. We just kicked the plans back a year. Which, like so many pandemic disappointments, had a big silver lining, because it meant that we got to make the trek while on sabbatical, which meant extra days of fun and not needing to thread the corporate needle of available PTO days!

Being a Canada native, I still have many ties to the country, mostly in Ontario. I moved to Wisconsin when I was five years old, and I lived there through the end of high school. Nearly every summer, though, my parents would take my brother and I on the twelve-hour drive from Neenah, WI to Magnetawan, Ontario, where my mother’s best friend owned a tiny lakeside plot of land in a private campground called Lost Forest Park, or as we affectionately call it – LFP. For a handful of years, we would stay as visitors in our friend’s trailer, but the lot next to our friend became available for sale, and my parents were motivated and able, so they purchased the adjacent lot, and from that moment on, this place has been our family lakeside getaway. Why would we stake a claim to land that was a 12-hour-drive from home? In part, because of all the joyful memories built up there over the years with our friends and other neighbors, and in part because just three hours south of LFP is the greater Toronto area, where many of our extended family still reside. We would often couple the drive to LFP with a tour into the city, to see my grandparents, or cousins, or other friends, or some combination therein. Or, once we had our own trailer in the campground, sometimes those relatives would leave the city for a vacation to come visit us in “cottage country.”

During my college years at the University of Minnesota, I still had the summers “off,” and I did make it back to Ontario a few times. After that, though, life started happening. I was an adult. I started a business. I was living in Minneapolis, which is a 17-hour haul from Magnetawan. As much as I missed that place, it was hard to make time to return. Still, once I met Kristyn, we did make it there once as a pre-child couple, and once again with our fresh, three-month-old firstborn in tow. That most recent visit was six years ago. It was time I made it back to where it all began for me.

And so, we drove. Many miles we drove. Eventually, after the DVD’s borrowed from the Hennepin County Library wore thin from use in the minivan DVD player, we arrived.

Keys to success for long car rides with kids:

Start early in the day. If you start before sunrise, they can be sold that it’s still nighttime and that we need to sleep for a while.
Fill a laundry hamper with a variety of books and toys that don’t make noise and get mileage with the kids’ attention. Hand puppets, fidget poppers, sketch pad or LCD writing tablet.
Save the big guns. Start out with the toy hamper. Once all options have been exhausted, proceed to playing verbal games like “I Spy” or “Find the colors of the rainbow.” Once the appetite for games has run dry, proceed to playing their favorite music. Once voices are tired, should you so choose, then and only then resort to a screen. If you start an 8-hour drive with a screen, you are likely doomed for the tail end of the journey.
Plan for more time than Google Maps says.
Before the road trip, train kids how to do an efficient and germ-free “bush wee.” (Thanks Bluey for the lingo.)
Bring extra hand sanitizer.
Pack tons of snacks. Then pack a reserve bag of extra snacks. Pack your snacks somewhere you can actually reach them without stopping the vehicle.
Don’t forget an in-vehicle garbage bag and wipes/napkins.
If any issues on the road arise, when in doubt, throw some fruit snacks at it. This usually solves the issue.

THE FIRST EIGHT DAYS BY THE LAKE

We spent the first eight days in Canada at my parents’ recently upgraded trailer at LFP. It’s still new to them, and thus very new to me and my family. As we entered the park grounds and made our way down the winding gravel road, trees hugging the shoulderless edges on each side, I could feel a buzzing inside of me. A buzzing of excitement, but also of… familiarity. Comfort. I’ve been here before. I know this place. This place knows me.

Even though many of the structures and people in the park have changed, the land has not. The lake is still there. The beach still has sand. The chipmunks still startle you with their shrill chatter. The pine needles still stick to your foot when you opt to traipse around in bare feet.

We packed a ton of fun activities into these eight days:

tubing
wakesurfing
fire pies and s’mores
late night card games
kayaking
sunset glow-in-the-dark frisbee toss
jumping, crawling, and floating on the giant “lily pad”
trampolining
hammock laying
late night bonfiring
made many trips to the dusty old “log” (lodge) to play ping pong, air hockey, foosball, build block towers, and have dance parties
ate popsicles with our toes in the water
calmed down for the night by sitting on the end of the dock, watching the sun set with our toes dangling in the cool lake water

THE MAGIC OF RETURNING TO THE SAME PLACE OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME

Anyone who has ever traveled away from their home to see a new place they want to see knows – it’s fun and exciting to see new places. And there are those that live in the same place for years upon years of their lives, and those people know the value in staying put, owning your property, becoming familiar with the land, and having a place with years of memories built up.

There’s another kind of magic that gets unlocked when you leave and return to the same place many times over the span of 35 years. I felt this sensation again and again while at LFP, and it is hard to describe.

First, there was part of me that was expecting everything to be like the way it was when I was there as a teenager. I know I’m older now, that I have a family and a whole life in Minneapolis, but it was like I was expecting everyone else to have been frozen in time. What do you mean the neighbor kid that used to be five years old is now graduating high school? How can it be that some of my favorite neighbors no longer own a spot in the park, and haven’t been coming for years, or aren’t even alive anymore?

It’s more than that, though. It’s like a mixture of equal parts comfort and surreality. Comfort of knowing the place, knowing the sights and the smells, but the surreality that it’s no longer the time that is so deeply engrained in my memory. You know how the music you listened to as a teenager stays with your forever? It’s not because the music back then was so much better than it is now; it’s more about how that’s the music you were listening to as you were in the years of building and shaping your true identity. The music gets attached to that. I think a similar imprinting has happened with me at this place.

Part of what I enjoyed about training for a marathon and logging all of those miles on the trails near my house was that it gave me the opportunity to gradually observe the changing of the seasons, the passage of time. One of my favorite patches of trail was running from my house to Bryant Lake and back; the lake served as a sufficient “carrot” to motivate through a longer run, because the view of open water never ceases to revitalize my body and spirit. Depending on the time of year, the trail looks different: in spring I could see right through the bare trees and get a view of the lake 1/4 mile before reaching the beach, whereas in summer with full growth I’d have to make it all the way to the beach before seeing water, and in the fall I enjoyed the awesome reds, oranges, and yellows of the foliage along the way.

Returning to LFP over the years has a similar effect; it unlocks a different, larger way of viewing and processing the passage of time. It gives new meaning to what the concept of “five years” or “twenty years” means to me. It allows me to tap into younger versions of myself, to actually feel the feelings I had felt years ago. Memories, for me, are typically much more about what I did than what I felt. But when I return to this place, which I’ve been to so many times, I do remember the feelings. The feeling of freedom and adventure I would get, being allowed to walk the “roads” of the campground unsupervised (because it is a private and close-knit community). The feeling of anticipation as I’d look out at the lake to see if it was calm enough for an ideal waterski. And I’d especially feel the feels when looking at the sun setting over the western edge of the pine-topped horizon, a view that I’ve drunk in so many times in my 37 years, a view that never gets old. Watching the sun set over that lake now, and the sense of calm and closure of a day well lived that it brings, it’s like I not only get the sense of calm from today’s day, but a larger, deeper, aggregate satisfaction from all my previous sunset watchings combined. Like there’s some extra frequency I could tap into, a parallel timescape that I could touch by standing in the exact same place I’d stood years before, and years before that.

Never underestimate the power of returning to a place in nature from your childhood.

STOKING THE EMBERS OF RELATIONSHIPS

Much like the cool embers of a fire need stoking in order grow back into a warm fire, a relationship that has cooled off over time can also be rekindled. If too much time passes, those embers will be colder. The feelings fade over time, unless you make time for rekindling and reconnection.

This is a notion that came up as I reconnected with old friends and neighbors at LFP – people I hadn’t seen or talked to in six years. It didn’t take long to jump back in to comfortable, friendly chatter, but I realized that, had a few more years gone by, there would’ve been so much to get caught up, it would’ve taken longer to warm back up to each other.

It serves as a reminder that for any relationships I value, I need to make an effort to stoke those embers if I can feel them cooling off.

Reconnecting with longtime friends

GETTING PULLED BEHIND A BOAT AT THE SAME TIME AS YOUR KID

Of all the types of rides one could do, I have to say that getting pulled behind a boat is up there with the best of ’em. Whether you are in an inner tube, on some sort of ski or board, or using your bare old feet, getting pulled behind a boat at speed is as close as most of us get to walking on water. Nothing quite instills the same quality of joy in me as skimming across the top of a calm lake, feeling the smoothness of the water as I slice through it, the wind whipping my air, and soaking in the same lake-top view the loons get to enjoy every day.

So it stands to reason that when I got the chance to get pulled behind a boat, on a circular tube, with each of my kids taking turns to ride the same tube with me, I was an enthusiastic “yes!” The best part about that experience was my view of my kids’ faces. Holding on to the same tube, our faces were mere inches apart. Once they got comfortable going at a speedy clip, I demonstrated a few other ways to lie on the tube (as opposed to on the belly), such as bringing your knees in and crouching on all fours. After lying back down, my kid scooched up on all fours for the first time, and the view I got looking up to that ear-to-ear smile, with wind-strewn hair and nothing but sunny blue sky overhead, knowing that I once felt that same, first-time-tubing joy on this very lake, and getting to be there and share in it with a point blank view of it all… that is a hard moment to top.

HIKE INTO PARRY SOUND WITH KRISTYN

One day my parents treated Kristyn and I to the gift of time; they offered to watch our kids so we could get away for some hours of togetherness between the two of us. Lucky for me, I’m married to someone who, like me, enjoys the simple things in life, so we used our gift of time to seek out the nearest hiking trail for some quality time outdoors, which led us to the North Shore Rugged Hiking Trail in Parry Sound, an inlet of Georgian Bay, which itself is a part of Lake Huron.

We clocked a good number of miles ambling along this not-so-well-marked trail system. Hiking with Kristyn is one of my favorite activities. When you hike with someone else, because you are both moving, and you are both surrounded by nature, and you are not sitting face to face with each other but are moving alongside each other or in a line (i.e. not making direct eye contact), it opens up a new level of conversation and thinking. Movement sparks creativity and insights. The shared rhythm of moving together aligns that energy. It was such an enjoyable few hours of my life, and the only thing I needed was a trail, a water bottle, and my partner.

Kristyn hiking happily

We ended up finding a glorious sit spot with many flat rocks, warm to the touch from soaking in the day’s sunshine. Our shoes and socks came off. The spot was pretty secluded. We stayed. We meditated. It felt like one of those spots you find in nature that you want to make your home and never leave. Eventually, though, the time did come for us to make our way back.

Taking in the view of Parry Sound, ON

The sparsely detailed map we had seen at the trailhead showed the trail went north along the shoreline and eventually hit an end point where you simply turn around and come back south, with a few various pathways all heading the same direction. We had made it to the end of the trail, and as we started to make our way back to the parking lot, we took a few turns we hadn’t taken on the way out. We did this on purpose to explore one of the other pathways we hadn’t seen on our northbound jaunt. We got to the point, though, where the trail started forking in odd ways, higher up into the hillside, with residences becoming visible through the brush. We were still on a system of trails, but it was starting to feel wrong. Some might have said we were lost. Kristyn, unworried about the situation, pointed out, in one of the many conversational sparks of insight one gets while hiking, that, “Getting ‘lost’ is really just having too much attachment to a place that’s not where you are right now.”

From that moment on, any time I feel lost, whether it be a physical, locational lost or a mental feeling of being lost, I will remember this wisdom and fill myself with mindfulness that wherever I am right now is where I need to be.

CHANGE OF PLANS WITH A SILVER LINING

As we approached the end of our planned stay at LFP, an unpleasant surprise developed. We were supposed to go stay with my cousin for two days, and then my aunt and uncle for two days, but the latter group got COVID-19. Boo! They were vaccinated and had mild cases, but it still meant that we could not stay with them for two nights as originally planned. We opted to stay an extra night with my parents and tack on an additional night with my cousin in Stouffville. While it was a bummer to not see them, there was a definite silver lining in that we removed one transition from the itinerary. The first night with kids in any new sleeping arrangement tends to be a bit chaotic, at least for our family, so as things unfolded we were glad to have one fewer “first night in a new place.”

So after one final rainy day at the trailer, we packed up and headed three hours south into the city to stay with my cousin, her husband, and their two boys aged 3 and 1.

CONNECTING WITH COUSINS

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for my three cousins from Mississauga. For the first years of my life, they were my only first cousins, and my brother and I were their only first cousins. Among the five of us, I am the oldest. The next oldest is my cousin Allison, a year and a half younger than I. Because we were (and are) the two oldest, there was always something a little extra magical about our bond. Even though we never lived close to each other, grew up in different countries, and would only see each other on rare family get togethers, it still feels like she is the “sister I never had.” What a treat it was to get our newly formed families together and live under the same roof for a few days!

It was a treat, and it was also mild pandemonium. Anyone who’s been in a house with four kids under the age of 6 knows what I’m talking about.

But truthfully, it wasn’t really pandemonium at all. I was so impressed by these parents of two young boys. They are in the middle of making baba ganoush while also calmly attending to a needy one year old and also having an adult conversation with me. How? I don’t understand. I can’t even make mac and cheese without needing complete silence and eight feet of space around me on all sides.

While the daytime hours were fun, the good times really heated up after the kids got to bed. What I enjoyed most about these few late-night convos with my cousins was that we skipped over common small talk and got right into real talk. What are we striving for as parents? How does one get financially free? Just how different is a Canadian accent to a Minnesotan one? (Hint: if you need to find out the answer to the latter, just put a Canadian and a Minnesotan together and have them both pronounce the sentence, “I left my house to go to a boat conference.”)

I also immensely enjoyed their ritual of evening tea after the kids went down. Not the way I make tea, which is to microwave a mug of water and then toss in whatever tea bag was within closest reach out of the Lazy Susan. No, they made tea. With a kettle. And a teapot. A teapot we would all share. And we drank the tea out of a Turkish tea set (like this). And there were lemon wedges. This all probably took an extra four minutes to prepare compared to my bachelor-style method of tea-making, but the impact of the difference was immense. I could feel a greater sense of bonding, of community with the four us, simply by all sharing tea out of the same pot. We laughed, we cried, we laughed some more, all while sharing in our tea. When the pot emptied, we refilled it. (We did need something to wash down the salt of the ketchup chips.) This was a shared ingestion behavior that I was grateful to take part in and have modeled for me. I’m looking forward to integrating this ritual into my own home. I’m now in the market for a Turkish tea set.

UNLOCKING THE WISDOM OF GREAT GRANDPARENTS

With my cousin’s house as our home base, we ventured into the city of Toronto on two different days to visit each of my grandmothers. It had been years since I’d seen either of them, and I was excited and grateful for the opportunity to introduce my children to their great grandparents.

I also knew that this would be a rare chance for me to have quality face time with my aging grandmas, and on our hour-long drive into the city I considered what I might want to ask them, what knowledge or story did I most desire to selfishly extract and internalize. It dawned on me that the only reason I’m even here is because of the choices they made, because of their successful parenting of their own children. So I decided that no matter where the conversations went, and no matter how distracting our kids were, at some point in each visit, I was going to ask each of them, “When you think back to when you were raising your kids, or even as you look back with hindsight, what kind of parenting philosophies or strategies did you use? What do you think to be the most important things in raising children? What should I do with my kids?”

Their answers astonished me. Not because of what they said, but because both my paternal grandmother and my maternal grandmother said virtually the exact same thing.

The one answered my query with a more thorough response: “Let children be their individual selves, whatever that means. Resist the temptation to compare one child to the other. We are all different, with different strengths and skills, no matter how ‘equal’ or ‘fair’ the parents may try to raise them. One kid might need more affection, where another might need more movement and rough play. Give kids what they need even if it means one needs ‘more’ than the other. ‘Fair’ isn’t always fair.”

The other grandma, upon hearing my question, answered without hesitation: “Let them be. Just let them be.”

When my second grandma uttered those words, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It sounded so similar to the first response. And, my grandmas are right. By the time kids get to be 4-5 years old, they really don’t need much help anymore. They want to do things for themselves. They don’t want to be taught – they want to do. They don’t need to be corrected – they will end up figuring it out on their own. It’s my job to keep them safe and then get out of their way. I am deeply grateful to have received this insight and reminder from the elders in my family.

If there’s something you really want to know – ask your elders!

GOING WHERE THE ENERGY FLOWS

We capped off our road trip with a one-night stay at a family friend’s house. They are long-time family friends, they have a great house with a backyard pool, they have two older kids (and our younger kids love playing with older kids), and they live in an area that was on our way home, but none of those are the reasons we made a point to visit them.

We slated one of our road trip days for this visit because of how, over the course of many years, the adults in that family made Kristyn and I feel along the way. We felt cared about. We felt seen. Noticed. Loved. They are the type of people that make sure to send you a note on your birthday, that ask about you when they speak to one of your relatives, that just genuinely seem like they give a rip. So many people today are so busy with their own lives, they don’t make time to look up and stay connected to those close to them (or those that were once close). These folks do. I felt a deep sense of knowing that we needed to make an effort to see these people.

Turns out, I was right. We had a glorious day. The kids paired off nicely and entertained each other while the adults got to sip and chat (which is usually the goal, is it not?).

Two of my favorite quotes from this 24-hour visit:

Adult, while playing a late-night card game, a tad frustrated after losing several hands in a row, and then losing the next one because of having taken too many tricks, but it was actually her low cards that had won the tricks and the high cards had not – “F*@!, that’s not how I thought I would be angry!”

6 year old to 11 year old, who have never met each other, while standing next to the diving board – “Should we hold hands and jump off that?” They did. <3

IN CONCLUSION

We then drove home by way of Chicago. It was a fairly uneventful two-day drive, which is exactly how I prefer my two-day drives to be.

I am so glad I invested the time and energy into making this trip a reality. You know it’s the sign of a good time when you’re already thinking about when you’ll come back to a place before you leave it. Until next time, Canada!

On Sabbatical – Week 8: A Vacation That Was No Longer An Escape From Life, But An Invitation To Live

August 21, 2022 / kevincarlow / 0 Comments

You know how getting ready for a trip with kids can have its stressful elements? How, between you and (hopefully) a co-parent, you have to not only pack for yourself, but for your kids, and how kids need way more stuff than just clothes and a toothbrush? And how both co-parents probably have their own packing lists with some bits of overlap but neither list catches all the things? And how, while you’re trying to find, organize, and pack all of these additional toys, stuffies, nightlights, and various other “essential” items, the kids you are so strenuously working for are literally climbing on your back throughout the process? Well, for our annual Moravetz clan cabin week on Mille Lacs Lake this year, the vacation prep was anything but stressful.

In fact, we had the most relaxed, laid back vacation prep ever. No stress. No partner squabbles. Children that allowed us to insert items into a duffel bag one and only one time, never once removing said items to “play with one last time.” When one adult was feeling the urge to tackle a list, the other naturally gravitated toward giving the children attention. When one adult needed a break, the other danced in step to change positions. Everything just flowed.

Of course, having the relief of removing “normal jobs” from the equation helped in this matter, with some extra hours available during the days prior to departure. I also attribute the ease of our cabin week prep to a few things. For one, our kids getting older, which for us is equating to less overall gear needed (no diapers nor bottles, woop!). Also, we’ve made this trek a few years running now, so there was a little less mystery of what contingencies we may or may not need to plan for. But the big thing that stood out to me was the communication between Kristyn and I. We have been practicing focusing on advocating for our own needs and having better control of our breath, tone, and nonverbal cues. We avoided any potential stress spirals by simply doing what felt right and being calmly receptive to any inputs from the other. Easier said that done, to be sure. But with practice… possible.

Our children maturing also plays a big factor, not just with packing for a week at a cabin, but throughout our lives. It feels a lot like magic when your kids start gaining more independence. The feeling of “turning a corner” or a “paradigm shift” brings relief to me, that these young humans now know enough of the world that they can make their own way in many situations. For example, we don’t have to worry about what a kid will do if left unattended in our house for a few minutes. Sure, they might quickly grab a rogue mandarin off the counter and surreptitiously scarf it down, but they’re not going to choke to death – they have teeth now, and they know how to use ’em. It’s also highly likely in this hypothetical scenario that the child will also dispose of their orange peel evidence in the compost, concealing any damning shred of proof of citrus consumption while simultaneously assisting in the natural decomposition of said rind. #winning

My big takeaway from the actual week at the cabin is – I noticed a difference in me compared to family cabin weeks from previous years. In the years where this trip was a break from work, where I was using hard-earned PTO days to “buy the time,” and choosing to spend my PTO time in this way, I brought an energy with me of – I have to make the most of this week. Note the words “have to.” No good vacation includes the words “have to.” It creates an arbitrary attachment to some set of expectations. This leads to potential disappointment. So, in years past, I “had to” do all the activities. I “had to” make sure I kayaked, and played yard games, and made campfires, and on and on. I “had to” find a way to have an afternoon away with Kristyn, because making time for date nights with kids and jobs is hard, and this was one of our rare chances to have other trusted adults staying under the same roof as us. I “had to” drink all the beer. I learned that I don’t actually enjoy six consecutive days of day-and-night drinking. After two days, I could feel my body saying, “What in the blazes are you doing drinking all this beer?” But my mind had this remnant muscle memory from previous years. I have to get my fill now while the getting’s good. I have to seize this opportunity to escape my normal life and really live a little! What rubbish I now realize that line of thinking was. This time around, I had no attachment to any particular activity, no “must have” for the week, and I wasn’t escaping anything from my normal life. It was just another pleasant week, with the added bonus of being around my lovely family.

Looking ahead, my lesson from this is that I should aim to design my life in a way where I enjoy all of its components such that I don’t feel a desire to escape from any of it. Sabbatical may be coming to an end when I have confidence in a sustainable life design fitting that description.