I read Anita Diamant's The Red Tent years and years ago and the story is now a bit hazy in my mind, but what isn't, is the images of all the biblical wives gathering in the red tent each month during their "unclean" period (ha ha) of the month.
Since reading that book, not a month goes by when I don't think, I wish I had a red tent to escape to. And now that I have daughters, I can really really see the need for a place to go because really, there is a moment or two (or ten) each month when you're just not fit for company.
Oh, how well I know this.
My dearest friend/sister Celeste, a women's health/midwife/professor of women's studies, told me that during our cycles, right before we cycle, we try to get our hearts and minds and body aligned. Many months we don't even notice this because we are already in sync. Some months we might feel a bit cranky or out of sorts, but it quickly resolves once we cycle. And then sometimes we're all sorts of out of wack and it's painful. Sometimes we've hidden things, hurts, anger, fears, worries and they will always, she told me, always come out during this time. Even if you think you're doing just fine, the truth comes out.
Watching my daughters go through this ebb and flow, I totally believe this. When they are happy and at peace, they cycle almost without me knowing it. When they are tired and a bit worn, they more easily get irritated and bothered. When they are super stressed and worried or concerned, their cycles are like a cyclone ripping up everything in it's way. No one is safe and it's rather terrifying.
This is when I really wish we had a Red Tent I could send them to. Go, I'd say, and cry and sob and yell into the pillows and then sleep for 15 hours and don't go to school and just be until you can get everything back together again. Because we are nigh on to sending you to Siberia!
But I don't have one, though as I'm about to enter the Red Tent time myself, I can't help and think there MUST be some substitute.
My mother would give us four days a year where we just didn't have to go to school if we didn't want to. A free pass without any questions asked. I rarely ever used them, but some days, when life really did get too much and the Red Tent called, I remember calling my mother and asking her to come pick me up from school.
I was a Junior and every period of every class we were told over and over again that this or that test grade or paper would make or break our college career. Blah. So I wasn't keen usually on leaving ever. Plus I was in intense training for track and we always seemed to have some "big" meet going on that I had to do this or that training for. We were publicly shamed if we didn't show up for track at the next practice we went to the next practice. I pretty much never skipped anything. But this day, the Red Tent loomed and we were supposed to have this killer Mr. Lou speed workout (where you pretty much died 18 times) and you couldn't walk for three days. I remember after lunch that day, the sun was shinning through the windows and I thought, I. Can't. Take. Do. This. Any of this. I simply can't do . . . anything.
So I called my mom. She was totally surprised but let me come home. I don't even know how I got home because I didn't have a car, but somehow I did. The house was totally quiet, my mom herself was sleeping (she napped every day from 12:30-3--nap being a lose term for taking a break from life. Personally, I think she usually just read, but you could not open the door to her room unless their was blood or limb in jeopardy. And that my friends is how you survive 8 children and homeschooling for 10 years).
I can still smell our house as I walked in. My father and mother were obsessed with open doors and windows and airing out the house--so even in the winter, it smelled like the outdoors. But it was spring and it was a warm day and the doors and windows had been opened and so it smelled like growing things and fresh baked bread. I remember just walking through the door and my whole body sagging in relief. I didn't even know I was holding anything in, but as I took that deep breath and let it out, I let go of everything--my worry about grades and friends and track--and I felt my body turn into liquid. I climbed up the steep stairs to my room and curled up on my bed and with another sigh, I fell asleep.
When I woke up hours later, I felt like a completely new person. I ate dinner and then went happily off to Grease (the musical) practice (yes, I was in every conceivable way an overachiever--I did everything quite badly I might add, but I did it with enthusiasm). I wasn't worried. I wasn't anything but peaceful. I was renewed.
For years I've gone back to that afternoon, how did I go from completely depleted to renewed? It was only a few hours and a nap. What was the secret of that afternoon, because I've come home since or tried to nap and have very rarely felt that great when I wake up.
Today, while I was in the shower and feeling that weight of weariness and heaviness, I thought about wishing I had a Red Tent. I imagine myself lifting the flap and going into the dark and quiet and laying on the pillows and just be quiet and still and maybe having some peaceful sleep. It's like the best thing I can possibly imagine. The quiet. The stillness. The total lack of demands.
Which made me think of my afternoon of my youth when I did just that. I didn't have a tent, but I had a completely quiet place where no one was expecting anything from me, where there was nothing to distract me, and I could just put every care and worry and doubt aside for a few hours and just be.
That was why it was so renewing. Setting everything down--expectations, worries, fears--feels way way better than the best massage in history. At least I imagine it does. As grown-ups, I think we've forgotten how to put them down. I swear they're strapped to us by the most bestest Camel-paks ever made. They are not coming off without a bit of effort.
So . . .
That's why I think we need to create Red Tent times in our lives--and this goes for men as well as women--when things are just a bit too heavy or stressful or whatever, you need to find your quiet place, lift the flap and go in, and let the flap close behind you enclosing you in your own space.
We need to know that when we feel this way it's 1000% fine to just go somewhere and shut the door and forget about dinner, let the kids skip dance/soccer practice, don't shower, or shower but don't do your hair, go skiing, run 20 miles, do yoga twice, don't even get out of bed, eat cookies all day (it's wonderful), or whatever the heck it is that you LOVE and makes you feel whole and good and do that. Without guilt. Without worry. Without anything but total acceptance that this is YOUR day. And you need it to get your butt back in gear.
When Phoebe came home a few weeks ago and curled up against me sobbing uncontrollably and I felt the weight of her life, I thought, She's been sick for weeks now. She needs an escape from everything. She needs a Red Tent. How on earth can I get her one?
I seriously felt a little desperate. How do you create a space for your child? How do you bring them peace in their crazy life? I prayed. That's what I always do when I don't know what to do (which is sad to say VERY often). And then I hugged her close.
I didn't tell her to take medicine (though I did give it to her--quite a bit actually) and get her butt back to school and make sure she went to ballet.
Instead, I remembered my day as a teenager.
I let my own ideas of what she needed to do fade away. I just needed to be her mama and love her.
So I rubbed her back and told her, Just go to bed. Just sleep. Don't think about school or friends or ballet or anything at all. Just sleep.
Everything will be OK. I promise, Phoebe, everything will be OK. Just go down and sleep.
She did.
When I checked on her about 20 minutes later, she was out cold. And then two hours later, I heard her happily call out good-bye to John as she ran out the door and headed back to school.
She not only finished the day at school, she went to ballet and for the first time in two weeks, danced the whole time with energy and form. She came home and had a huge appetite and laughed with everyone and engaged in the conversations. She had color in her cheeks and she wasn't coughing anymore. She looked like a new girl.
A two hour nap and she was a whole new person.
So sometimes, even if we don't have a Red Tent, we can create one.
And my heck, they work miracles.
If you don't see me for the next few days, don't worry, I'm fine.
I'll be in my Red Tent.
Since reading that book, not a month goes by when I don't think, I wish I had a red tent to escape to. And now that I have daughters, I can really really see the need for a place to go because really, there is a moment or two (or ten) each month when you're just not fit for company.
Oh, how well I know this.
My dearest friend/sister Celeste, a women's health/midwife/professor of women's studies, told me that during our cycles, right before we cycle, we try to get our hearts and minds and body aligned. Many months we don't even notice this because we are already in sync. Some months we might feel a bit cranky or out of sorts, but it quickly resolves once we cycle. And then sometimes we're all sorts of out of wack and it's painful. Sometimes we've hidden things, hurts, anger, fears, worries and they will always, she told me, always come out during this time. Even if you think you're doing just fine, the truth comes out.
Watching my daughters go through this ebb and flow, I totally believe this. When they are happy and at peace, they cycle almost without me knowing it. When they are tired and a bit worn, they more easily get irritated and bothered. When they are super stressed and worried or concerned, their cycles are like a cyclone ripping up everything in it's way. No one is safe and it's rather terrifying.
This is when I really wish we had a Red Tent I could send them to. Go, I'd say, and cry and sob and yell into the pillows and then sleep for 15 hours and don't go to school and just be until you can get everything back together again. Because we are nigh on to sending you to Siberia!
But I don't have one, though as I'm about to enter the Red Tent time myself, I can't help and think there MUST be some substitute.
My mother would give us four days a year where we just didn't have to go to school if we didn't want to. A free pass without any questions asked. I rarely ever used them, but some days, when life really did get too much and the Red Tent called, I remember calling my mother and asking her to come pick me up from school.
I was a Junior and every period of every class we were told over and over again that this or that test grade or paper would make or break our college career. Blah. So I wasn't keen usually on leaving ever. Plus I was in intense training for track and we always seemed to have some "big" meet going on that I had to do this or that training for. We were publicly shamed if we didn't show up for track at the next practice we went to the next practice. I pretty much never skipped anything. But this day, the Red Tent loomed and we were supposed to have this killer Mr. Lou speed workout (where you pretty much died 18 times) and you couldn't walk for three days. I remember after lunch that day, the sun was shinning through the windows and I thought, I. Can't. Take. Do. This. Any of this. I simply can't do . . . anything.
So I called my mom. She was totally surprised but let me come home. I don't even know how I got home because I didn't have a car, but somehow I did. The house was totally quiet, my mom herself was sleeping (she napped every day from 12:30-3--nap being a lose term for taking a break from life. Personally, I think she usually just read, but you could not open the door to her room unless their was blood or limb in jeopardy. And that my friends is how you survive 8 children and homeschooling for 10 years).
I can still smell our house as I walked in. My father and mother were obsessed with open doors and windows and airing out the house--so even in the winter, it smelled like the outdoors. But it was spring and it was a warm day and the doors and windows had been opened and so it smelled like growing things and fresh baked bread. I remember just walking through the door and my whole body sagging in relief. I didn't even know I was holding anything in, but as I took that deep breath and let it out, I let go of everything--my worry about grades and friends and track--and I felt my body turn into liquid. I climbed up the steep stairs to my room and curled up on my bed and with another sigh, I fell asleep.
When I woke up hours later, I felt like a completely new person. I ate dinner and then went happily off to Grease (the musical) practice (yes, I was in every conceivable way an overachiever--I did everything quite badly I might add, but I did it with enthusiasm). I wasn't worried. I wasn't anything but peaceful. I was renewed.
For years I've gone back to that afternoon, how did I go from completely depleted to renewed? It was only a few hours and a nap. What was the secret of that afternoon, because I've come home since or tried to nap and have very rarely felt that great when I wake up.
Today, while I was in the shower and feeling that weight of weariness and heaviness, I thought about wishing I had a Red Tent. I imagine myself lifting the flap and going into the dark and quiet and laying on the pillows and just be quiet and still and maybe having some peaceful sleep. It's like the best thing I can possibly imagine. The quiet. The stillness. The total lack of demands.
Which made me think of my afternoon of my youth when I did just that. I didn't have a tent, but I had a completely quiet place where no one was expecting anything from me, where there was nothing to distract me, and I could just put every care and worry and doubt aside for a few hours and just be.
That was why it was so renewing. Setting everything down--expectations, worries, fears--feels way way better than the best massage in history. At least I imagine it does. As grown-ups, I think we've forgotten how to put them down. I swear they're strapped to us by the most bestest Camel-paks ever made. They are not coming off without a bit of effort.
So . . .
That's why I think we need to create Red Tent times in our lives--and this goes for men as well as women--when things are just a bit too heavy or stressful or whatever, you need to find your quiet place, lift the flap and go in, and let the flap close behind you enclosing you in your own space.
We need to know that when we feel this way it's 1000% fine to just go somewhere and shut the door and forget about dinner, let the kids skip dance/soccer practice, don't shower, or shower but don't do your hair, go skiing, run 20 miles, do yoga twice, don't even get out of bed, eat cookies all day (it's wonderful), or whatever the heck it is that you LOVE and makes you feel whole and good and do that. Without guilt. Without worry. Without anything but total acceptance that this is YOUR day. And you need it to get your butt back in gear.
When Phoebe came home a few weeks ago and curled up against me sobbing uncontrollably and I felt the weight of her life, I thought, She's been sick for weeks now. She needs an escape from everything. She needs a Red Tent. How on earth can I get her one?
I seriously felt a little desperate. How do you create a space for your child? How do you bring them peace in their crazy life? I prayed. That's what I always do when I don't know what to do (which is sad to say VERY often). And then I hugged her close.
I didn't tell her to take medicine (though I did give it to her--quite a bit actually) and get her butt back to school and make sure she went to ballet.
Instead, I remembered my day as a teenager.
I let my own ideas of what she needed to do fade away. I just needed to be her mama and love her.
So I rubbed her back and told her, Just go to bed. Just sleep. Don't think about school or friends or ballet or anything at all. Just sleep.
Everything will be OK. I promise, Phoebe, everything will be OK. Just go down and sleep.
She did.
When I checked on her about 20 minutes later, she was out cold. And then two hours later, I heard her happily call out good-bye to John as she ran out the door and headed back to school.
She not only finished the day at school, she went to ballet and for the first time in two weeks, danced the whole time with energy and form. She came home and had a huge appetite and laughed with everyone and engaged in the conversations. She had color in her cheeks and she wasn't coughing anymore. She looked like a new girl.
A two hour nap and she was a whole new person.
So sometimes, even if we don't have a Red Tent, we can create one.
And my heck, they work miracles.
If you don't see me for the next few days, don't worry, I'm fine.
I'll be in my Red Tent.
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