Swash-buckling pirates along the River Medway

I am prone to crazy and impulsive notions. Bob is inclined to indulge them. When Saoirse was 18 months old, we packed her up and moved to Europe for three months. I know a lot of people raised their eyebrows that a young couple, new to the throes of parenting, would willingly complicate their lives with travel at that time. But the next year, we found ourselves doing it again, traveling to Argentina for five weeks to research a book. In 2008, while working on Radical Homemakers, we found ourselves stuffing clothing in bags and boarding a train to spend five weeks traveling the United States by rail. This time we did it with a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old.

A true home-body at heart, I often find myself in the final weeks before any of these trips regretting the impulsive notions that led me to book them in the first place. I’m tortured with that last-minute panic. I grow miserable about surrendering the comforts and familiarity of my home; edgy about all the logistical details required to move a family of four safely around the world; sad to separate from my parents and friends; and frazzled trying to tie up enough loose ends in my writing and work schedule to be able to walk away for several weeks.

But here we are once more, finishing up the first leg in a 7 week travel adventure. This is probably the first trip we have taken as a family that our daughters will remember, and I find myself coaching them through it. Ula, who is youngest and naturally unabashed, requires mere simple guidance, such as reminders to use her knife and fork. But Saoirse, now 8, has always been risk averse, and has now grown into a stage of self-consciousness that requires more of our attention.

Like me, she is a bit of a homebody. She likes to stay where she is comfortable. That makes our life at home easy. But now that we are traveling, Bob and I see we need to try to help her work through some of it. And I find myself nudging her – to reach out, connect with people, to engage in activities that are alien. – Whether it is trying to make friends with a British boy her age who loves sword fighting, or, the big challenge that confronts us today: spending a day separated from her family so she can attend a foreign school. These are major trials for an 8 year old girl. I feel her struggle in my own heart.

We try to let her make her own choices, but Bob and I did nudge a fair bit last night as she wept with last minute jitters at the prospect of taking this new risk, which she originally said she wanted to do. “I want to see it,” she tells us, “but I don’t want to go!”

“Sometimes in life,” I tell her, “we have to willingly make ourselves uncomfortable for a while. If we can do that, the world can open up in extraordinary ways. You may be surprised at just how strong and confident you’ll feel afterward.”

After our conversation, I found her reading a book in bed she borrowed from her new friend Harry, about the boyhood years of Captain Jack Sparrow. “He wanted adventure,” she bubbled to me as I tucked her in, “because nothing ever happened around him.”

I smiled. “Do you know what adventure is?” I asked. At that moment, for Saoirse, it was about swash-buckling pirates and death-defying escapes. “It’s about being willing to make yourself uncomfortable for a little while, to see what stories unfold.”

“You mean, like spending a day at a school?”

“Exactly.”

She giggled at the suggestion, and hugged me before I left her room. I’ll have to remember this conversation the next time Bob and I pack our family up for an adventure, and then I endure the last minute jitters. Sometimes the lessons I seem most bent on teaching my kids are the ones I most need to recall for myself.

Comments
March 12, 2012 10:32 AM EDT
Good morning, Shannon. By now it is afternoon for you and perhaps Saoirse has returned from her adventures full of stories for you. I hope she enjoyed the experience. I really feel for her, and you. I can imagine her trepidation. I’ve been thinking about you all quite a bit while we are here in Sanibel looking at the birds, dolphins and manatees, walking the beaches, searching for shells most of the day with Eloise at my heels picking her own from the surf. Her favorite are Pen shells. She feels she needs to rescue them all!
Thanks for the updates. Give everyone our love, and tell the girls I’m thinking of them.
– Nancy
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