JWOW

By Chana Mayer

In a few weeks, it will be the first anniversary of my becoming an official empty nester. Over the years, I’ve had a taste of this metaphoric abode. Kids went to camp. Yeshiva. Seminary. But they came home. Now, the last one has moved out and moved on. While this milestone has wrought many changes, one of the most dramatic is the return of the quiet. Not always. The kids come. The grandkids come – bringing mess and mayhem along with them. But for a large part of the days (and certainly the nights), the house is filled with quiet. And with quiet comes the gift of reflection. The quiet of the mind.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a time and place for “noisy minds” in our life, too. These are the times when we’re so busy doing that there’s little time for thinking. Our brain space is dedicated to list making, errand running, task completing. And we are accomplishing! In fact, many of us just recently surfaced from a month of yom tovim when this was the day-to-day reality. Aptly summarized by my friend in the thick of it: “I honestly don’t know what day of the week it is. I just know that either Shabbos or yom tov is coming, and whatever day it is today, I’m cooking chicken soup. And then making potato kugel.” Check. And check.

But now, as the esrog is sitting decorously in the fruit bowl in my (relatively) newly quiet home, there’s time and space for thinking.

So, in the spirit of sharing, here is a sampling of the some of the thoughts sprouting this week in the fertile ground of quiet (in ascending order of gravitas). (Note: Quiet time and reflective thoughts are not the sole property of “people of a certain age.” Having passed the “playdate- PTA-and-pediatrician” period, we generally DO have more time to ponder and pontificate… but quiet time can appear – albeit sporadically – to those at any age and stage.)

The scene: a Monday morning in the now “relatively-Lego- free” den. Coffee has been poured. Family magazine has been located (not an easy task!) and positioned on the couch. Dazzling sunshine is streaming through the window, birds are chirping contently. Time for a relaxing “Calgon-take-me-away” read. I flip the pages, find an article of interest, quickly become engrossed and then BAM! A roadblock! Text in the middle of the text. It’s a sidebar. You know, those shaded boxes that pop up in the middle of an article? Those boxes brandishing a different typeface loudly proclaiming: “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” And a question occurs to me for the very first time: When are you supposed to read these seemingly innocuous interruptions? Are you supposed to redirect the flow of your reading and read them as soon you see them basking in shade or shouting at you in a foreign font? Are you supposed to come back to them after you finish the article? Is there important stuff in there that you need to know? Or, can you skip them (guilt-free) altogether? I’ve never really thought much about these ubiquitous editorial constructs before, but now here, in the quiet of my den and in the quiet of my life, I do.

The scene: (A follow-up text from a young friend, a virtual dynamo in her mid-thirties.) After hosting company nonstop for nearly a month –and with celebrating the bar mitzvah of her bechor in the thick of it – she invited a young woman who had been recruited by a kiruv organization to her Shabbos table for lunch last week. (I am in awe, but that’s a story for another time.)

She knew little about where this young lady was on her religious journey and the pre-meal text had us debating the merits of having “potentially-recognizable” food on the table (salmon, snap peas) in addition to the traditional fare (cholent, kugel). (Two votes for yes, by the way.) Her follow-up text midweek (the sweet-spot of quiet after last Shabbos has become a pleasant memory and before next Shabbos has become a to-do project) –belied some quiet time for reflection. “I was thinking about that Shabbos meal and the conversation at the table, and a startling question hit me full on. When exactly did I arrive to the point where my Shabbos company is closer in age to my KIDS than to ME?”

An interesting thought facilitated by the time to think.

The scene: A conversation with a father of many young children who may or may not be related to me.

Him: “After the house quieted down last night, I had a thought. My children are now up past 9 pm. And they sit at the kitchen table with me when I’ve come home after a long day at work and they eye my supper with hungry eyes and they want to taste (read: gobble) what’s on my plate after they have already had three nutritious suppers of their own…

Me: And?

Him: And? And?? On top of it all…… THEY WANT ME TO TALK TO THEM!

They want me to talk to them about things they want to talk about that are important to them and that are not so very important to me at that point in time and they go on and on and on and I try so hard to look interested and…. and…. Mom, I’m so very tired.

Me: Welcome to the forever changing vista of parenthood. You need to listen. You need to engage, and you need to talk. And then you need to thank Hashem for children who want to talk to you and spend time with you. (And also, my son, you’re working too hard and you need to carve out more quiet time for yourself.)

And that last reflection about kids growing up and wanting to talk. It’s not just a reflection facilitated by quiet time or, more accurately, the passage of time. It’s an epiphany.

And interestingly enough, if we take the time to listen, we’ll be fortunate enough to experience many of those in the quiet as well.

JWOW! is a community for midlife Jewish women which can be accessed at www.jewishwomanofwisdom.org for conversation, articles, Zoom events, and more.