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everyday parenting as spiritual practice

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a (new) room with a view

9 Comments

Today is my first day working in my new office.

One of the features of our new house that delighted me was a bright, spacious room for an office on the main floor. I’ve been working from home for years, but tucked away in a corner of the basement guest room. Or squeezed onto a sofa amidst piles of laundry. So the idea of a Real Live Office – with the big writing desk and all my books gathered together and windows that gaze out on green trees and blue sky – is a dream come true.

Of course, the books are still in boxes on the floor, and the writing desk is currently piled with photo albums, and the view out the windows is shrinking daily due to spindly weeds winding their way skyward. But the hope of a room with a view – a room of my own, a room for my work – still quickens my heart.

In the years that I’ve been working from home, juggling parenting and paid work, I’ve learned the importance of claiming a space for myself. No matter how cramped it was, that corner of the guest room was mine. Aside from the occasional spin in the office chair, no kids were allowed. I needed space to read and write and think, separate from my world of mothering.

Looking back now, I understand why my own mother needed her den downstairs, her space apart. As a family grows and spreads to every corner of the house, it’s important for a parent whose days are spent primarily at home to carve out a sanctuary. Whether a corner for crafting, a nook for reading, a desk for the computer or a basement for the treadmill, spaces all our own are essential. I find that my breath slows, my shoulders sink and my whole body relaxes into a room free from toys and chores and to-do lists.

Many wise women have written about the need of a room of one’s own. But for me it has been one of those truths I had to learn by living – that inner life needs outer space to flourish. The deepest work of my heart desires a physical place to call home. It doesn’t need to be grand or glamorous; it simply needs to be set apart.

Ironically, the one feature my office currently lacks is a door. (I’m hoping my handy husband will remedy that by year’s end.) So whenever our sitter is here, I’m still tucked away working in the corner of a bedroom. But even on afternoons like this one, when I only got to steal a few minutes while the babies were napping, time and space away recenters my soul.

A bit of good work gets done here; nothing life-changing, nothing flashy. But bit by bit, I find myself through this work and these words. Mothering’s daily dervish – whirling, twirling, swirling – leaves me exhausted if I don’t pause to ponder. Spending time away from my wee ones, even when it’s under the same roof, is a spiritual practice of parenting I’ve come to cherish.

And this room with a view gives me a fresh perspective – a longer, wider, sometimes sunnier view – on life outside its walls.

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Comments

  1. Cozziscorner says

    13 June 2012 at 3:19 pm

    My only current space is my computer in the corner…(cozziscorner) lol….but a space with a view in a quiet room sounds wonderful! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • mothering spirit says

      15 June 2012 at 8:23 am

      Any corner we carve out can make a huge difference!

      Reply
  2. Fran Rossi Szpylczyn says

    13 June 2012 at 4:46 pm

    May every blessing fill your space, as your work blesses all that it will touch!

    Reply
    • mothering spirit says

      15 June 2012 at 8:23 am

      Thanks, Fran! Blessings on your work, too.

      Reply
  3. Ginny at Random Acts of Momness says

    13 June 2012 at 5:05 pm

    Yay for your new room! It’s wonderful that you have a little “retreat house” in your own home. I’m also a believer in a mom’s need to have a physical space that is hers and hers alone (in my case, a desk in my bedroom). Blessings on your new space and all that you think/discover/write in there!

    Reply
    • mothering spirit says

      15 June 2012 at 8:24 am

      What a lovely image of a retreat house inside a house! I remember seeing pictures of your desk on your blog – just beautiful. It’s important to bless the spaces that bless us (and others) in turn, isn’t it?

      Reply
  4. Nell says

    13 June 2012 at 8:56 pm

    Go mama! Blessings and great rumination.

    Reply
  5. Lauren says

    14 June 2012 at 11:21 am

    Yes! Yes! Yes! I don’t have wee ones running around underfoot, but I completely understand the need for space apart, for sacred space in one’s home. My home office (complete with stunning desk, inspiring books, and a cozy chair) had become a catch-all over the years I’ve lived in my apartment. I keep the door closed generally to keep the cat off the desk, and it got really easy to open the door to put bills on the desk, walk back out, and close the door again. And because it was a place where bills collected, discernment materials were left, and books were unorganized, it became a space I didn’t want to be in.

    Until a couple of weeks ago when I decided that my bills don’t belong in that room at all, discernment materials can be filed away, and books can be reorganized. Shelves were dusted. Furniture was moved. Floors were vacuumed. Books were reshelved. Pictures were hung. Knick-knacks were placed.

    It is now my favorite room in my apartment again…a sacred space that has room for the holy. I walk into it and feel calm. It is a place with potential. As I ponder the words I want to start putting to paper, I recognize the blessedness that the space holds. It delights me.

    May your office hold similar delights.

    Reply
    • mothering spirit says

      15 June 2012 at 8:26 am

      “A sacred space that has room for the holy…a place with potential.” YES. I love your story of decluttering. Our minds need that as much as the physical spaces around us, I think. And for me, when clutter piles up, I can’t think clearly around it either. (Which is why living among boxes is currently driving me wonky.) I hope you fill your renewed space with lots of good thoughts and words.

      Reply

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I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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If our daughters had lived, we never would have pl If our daughters had lived, we never would have planted this garden. 

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But the grieving know this strange, stubborn, saving truth: that goodness can grow in the gaping holes left by the ones we love.

I don’t know any simple ways to make sense of the hard times in which we’re living. As a porous soul, I feel it all and it breaks my heart, even as I cling to what I know is true.

But loving and losing my girls has taught me that life is both heart-breaking and resilient, that surviving is more complicated than we suspect, that most people are walking around shattered beneath the surface.

Sometimes I can catch a glimpse of it, searing as sunlight: the grief in someone’s eyes behind their anger, the burden sagging their shoulders, the past that’s poisoning their present. Few things have transformed my life more than learning to recognize pain in others.

Grief is a long letting go of a life you thought you’d have. Most of us are carrying more of it than we realize—or remember when we’re dealing with each other (especially when we’re tearing each other down).

Go gentle today. Practicing compassion and generosity of spirit will crack open more of the world and its confounding struggles. You might lose the satisfying clarity you clung to before life broke your heart in complicated ways, but you will find more of God in the messy, maddening middle.

I have learned this much from the garden I never planned to plant, from a version of life I never dreamed.
Nearly 20 years ago (!) these crazy kids graduated Nearly 20 years ago (!) these crazy kids graduated from Notre Dame. Now we’re thick in the midst of life-with-kids, celebrating middle school & preschool & everything in between. 
 
Since June is a month for graduations & celebrations, I’m delighted to help you celebrate with @grottonetwork .

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To enter the giveaway, follow @grottonetwork and @thismessygrace and leave a comment below about what you’re celebrating this month. Tag a friend for extra entries (up to 3).
 
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I want a whole book of answers to impossible questions, and none exists. So I send my thoughts to the mothers of faith whose short stories, mere snippets on pages, have sparked small lights to guide me along. To Sarah and Ruth, Hagar and Rachel, Mary and Elizabeth. Every unnamed anguish the holy ones carried, every treasure of love they held in their heart.

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he has filled the hungry with good things,
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