The Greening of Boulder

Rain has been more plentiful than usual this May in Boulder and I’m reveling in the sight of unusually lush green foothills and trails.

We walk from South Boulder up to Chautauqua, down to Pearl Street for a writing session at Bookend Cafe, then home in the pouring rain, and we’re happy. Our walk is in a parallel universe with the massive 10K Bolder Boulder footrace also occurring in town today but we walk alongside many of those who've completed the race as we make our way home in the downpour.

It was also May when we first arrived in Boulder in 1977, with every belonging we had packed in a tan square back VW (two guitars, a tent and cook stove, our clothes, and a remarkable number of books). For the first few nights we pitched out tent along the creek at the Wagon Wheel Campground in Four Mile Canyon outside town.

That year the weather was mild and very dry. Colorado’s arid climate and the muted sage green and gray of the Flatirons were a radical change from the emerald green forests of maple, sycamore and oak in southern Indiana. We were luckier than we knew, since May in Boulder can be quite rainy; some years, late season snowstorms cruelly weigh down and break the flowering fruit tree branches. It is only after many years here, some during severe drought, that we fully appreciate the precious rain when it comes. So it’s been raining all Memorial Day weekend in Boulder and I’ve been falling into grateful sleep each night to the steady, gentle patter on our roof.

Up in Chautauqua the sage was abundant--we each picked and crushed a leaf; the delicious scent filled me with peace and joy. When it’s been raining this long it seems as though all the green plants come out of hibernation and suddenly it looks a lot like Ireland without quite so many pubs.

Also in Chautauqua Park is a small circular flower garden with four pebbly paths leading up to an oblong sign that proclaims, in multiple languages: May Peace Prevail on Earth. As I’m reading the sign and saying my own little prayer, a woman drives by, leans out the window with a smile and calls out “Peace for all the world!” I do feel peace in my souI right here, right now in Boulder.

Mother's Day 2009

I was well and truly pampered on Mother's Day with homemade quiche, biscuits with "Bonne Maman" French strawberry preserves, coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Not to mention two homemade Mother's Day cards and a pedicure after brunch. So tonight I write about what it's meant to me to have the privilege to be a mom.

From the minute they're born, children are a revelation, opening your eyes to the real magnitude of what your own parents did for you, as well as what you yourself are capable of accomplishing. Parenting is exhausting, exhilarating, glorious, frustrating, terrifying and joyous. It demands constant judgment calls large and small, with no way to fully prepare for it ahead of time--it's the ultimate in on-the-job training. Here are the top 10 things I've learned as a mom, and I'm still learning:

10. If you really want children--if the bio clock is ticking and you're in a reasonably good place--try and find a way to have them. So many times I've been so very glad I did.
9. Expect the unexpected. No matter how many books you read, this universal experience ends up being highly unique, and is full of surprises.
8. Read to your young children every day, and make sure you find time to simply be with them and play.
7. Especially when they're teens, keep the lines of communication open. Don't sweat the small stuff--save your energy for the big battles that truly affect their health and well being.
6. Listen carefully--have real, two-way conversations with your kids. You'll learn a lot.
5. Set limits and stand by those limits; it is a terrible lie to lead your children to believe that the world will give them everything they demand.
4. Give them much more time and love than things and money.
3. Showing them how to live works better than telling them how to live. They can see a phony a mile away.
2. Believe in them, so that they can believe in themselves and fly on their own.
1. And the number one thing I've learned: Let go. From the moment they are born, you're loving them fiercely and yet letting them go a little at a time--leaving them with the babysitter who is hardly beyond childhood herself, sending them to kindergarten, handing them the car keys, moving them into the college dorm and crying on the way home. Let them go; let them live their own lives and make their own mistakes. As young adults they don't need your unsolicited advice--mind your own business and one day you might find they consider you their friends.

There is no more important decision or life's work than to bring children into the world--and no decision in my life I've been more positive was right. I'm grateful every single day for my kids. Happy Mother's Day.