A Volcanic Existence

Guest Contributor: Dede (Manley) Wood

This beautiful, reflective post about parenthood is brought to you by a friend of mine named Dede (Manley) Wood. She and I have not spoken in person in decades, but by design, this website was created to connect humans. Her family is taking a gap year and traveling around the world together. She has the uncanny ability to put into words the feelings so many of us have experienced in parenthood, but also just in life.  Thank you, Dede, for sharing one of your many gifts with us. Safe travels. 

Here we are on Lombok, sitting on an active volcano, the second largest in Indonesia.  I didn’t realise this until we arrived.  Then we passed one, two, three, and then a dozen tsunami evacuation signs on the road from the airport to our villa AirB&B.  These stick-figure humans running uphill from a giant wave gave me a little pause.  One, because I was confronted by how little I know of this country.  (I’d planned to just learn on the fly.)  And two, because I sensed a kinship with those little stick-people, and I wasn’t exactly sure why.

I knew that this chain of islands spanning 1/8 of the equator was volcanic and that there was a crater hike here on Lombok, but I didn’t realize Mount Rinjani was defined as “active.”  I didn’t actually know what “active” meant in the volcanic sense until I recently looked it up.  An “active volcano,” according to Google’s AI synthesis, is one that “has erupted recently or is currently erupting or has the potential to erupt again.”  I read this definition again: “has erupted recently… is currently erupting… has potential to erupt again.”  I read it again.  And then again, with a growing gravity.  I felt the wry smile of the Universe staring back from my phone as I did.  I wasn’t having fearful visions of catastrophe.  The familiar ripple of significance was running down my spine.  

“You can look away from the mirror but not the truth of it.”

I realized with sad amusement that this volcanic description is undeniably familiar, a reflection in an unflattering mirror.  You can look away from the mirror but not the truth of it.  The fact is, these foreboding words intimately outline the curvature of my days, my present life as a mother.  Although I don’t like it at all, this definition precisely captures the atmosphere of my family at this stage in our story, part of this gap year instigation.  I realized in reading this triple-barreled, past-present-future definition that I needed to physically arrive on the shores of a volcano to confront the fact that I’ve been living a volcanic existence for a while.  A little wink-wink from the Universe.  Cute.

Reading this definition, the resemblance to our family was clear.  Overseeing various “active” diagnoses, we always have someone who “has recently erupted… is currently erupting or… has the potential to erupt again.”  I know many families are struggling with a similar pattern.  Even in the quiet moment, we know the next explosion is imminent.  There is a lot of breath-holding, a lot of hand-holding, and a lot of calls to “hold fire!” My partner and I have exchanged a million flabbergasted expressions over the years and commonly comment on the unlikeliness of having such a volatile chemistry among our kids.  It’s an ominous, tedious atmosphere we live in, certainly not what I imagined when we had an infant, a toddler, and a pre-schooler tumbling around all giggles and squirmy chub.  No, we’ve grown into something else.  And I keep checking my watch to see when we will grow out of it.

People who know us well have sensed the vibe.  “Volcanic” is probably quite right.  We get a tremor, a whiff of sulphur, and then suddenly there’s shaking, and it’s all melting down.  I am often either bracing for the aftershocks or looking out for the next vibrational warning. I know other families who are living a similar existence, living outburst to outburst, rushing recovery in the calms in between.  To remain grounded on earth that is quaking is taxing in ways I usually choose to ignore.  For survival purposes and for the sake of preserving energy for a dignified motherhood, some avoidance of reality is probably wise.  I’ve had my long-game face on for a while.  It’s self-preservation.  Parenting is for life.  Having kids is an unspoken, involuntary vow of “for better or worse” when none of us has any clue what’s to come or to whom we have made our vow.

Any belief that we have control in parenthood is an illusion, like living in the shadow of a volcano.  Go ahead and pretend you are master of your existence, but it’ll erupt if it’s going to no matter what you do.  Your kids are the ones in control.  Some families have the good fortune to experience only gentle rumbles of this volcanic truth, a sprinkling of ash, a puff of steam while others toil under threat of this eruptive reality throughout all of their days without intermission.  When your children are well-behaved, it’s nice to think it’s all due to your fine work.  When your children are crumbling, you see things a bit differently.  Despite putting in ten times the work, you look like a negligent failure when you are caretaker of an active volcano.  And it takes a very long time to realise you are not.  After a big, long fight with judgement (both imagined and real) and a good stent of daily punch-ups with self-ridicule, you realise that your children are not a reflection of your parenting, that none of this is within your control.  When you put in enough hours to grasp that truth, you level up.  You learn to love your kids and tell the rest of this clueless world to f*ck off.  Things get better after that.  You learn compassion.  You learn grace.  For yourself.  Then your kids.  And then for all other humans who are fighting fights you know nothing about.  These are the gifts of a volcanic existence, what this island is helping me to remember.   

I can see now upon writing what I am to learn from this likeness to our current volcanic home.  To confront, to articulate, to own, and to air the truth of our family challenges is a new step in the path of this shaky terrain.  It’s one I have not taken so openly before.  So many battles are fought without witness, without perspective, without support.  When no one sees, and no one talks about a struggle, it is somehow marginalised and minimised by our own privacy, our own silence, and our need to just get through the day and make dinner.  Perhaps just verbalising the oppressive nature of our struggle will somehow trigger some new shifting. Who knows?  One can hope.  It feels right to air it, anyway, like this volcano is urging me to set free the pressured steam and toxic gases of silence.  

We will carry on through the contractions of our struggle, keeping the lava clearing.  (As if we have a choice.)  Maybe we will find new versions of ourselves in the ashes of all this purifying heat one day soon.  Maybe we have much more molten emotion to toss around first.  But, surely, all “active” volcanoes eventually become “inactive,” right?  I’ll just keep checking my watch.   

And I’ll keep considering the tsunami stickperson, too. I like him. I think he has something to teach me. Perhaps it’s simple, just a flash of my own reflection in time, an awareness of this fleeting version of me.  Maybe I’m just in a stick-figure-running-uphill-from-a-giant-wave phase of life.  Maybe he’s here to show me that running for your life and running from your life can be one and the same.  An escape can be a quest.  You can have a great force of nature hot on your heels but also be graceful in your pursuit of a grand calling.  Running is always a dual act: a running away and a running towards.  It just depends on how you approach it, the intention with which you place one foot in front of the next. It depends on the runner.  Depends on the day.  Then again, maybe I don’t have to be the stickperson running uphill, at all.  Maybe I could be the mountain.  Or maybe I should be the wave.

Tail of a Horse

This is one of my favorite pieces, written by one of my favorite humans:

Angie Archer

Life is a cluster sometimes. For me, in this season of our lives, it feels like organized chaos all the time. I have to take our schedule one day at a time or I will lose it. We are busy. We are not busy with bad things. They are all great things but it’s a lot. A lot of great things. So, when I got the call that 1) my dad was in the hospital (again), 2) the animals needed to be fed at his house that is 30 minutes away until he returned and 3) my horse was in dire shape of grooming, I was mad. I don’t have time for this, I thought. I mentally went through the million other things that need to be done. Not to mention that it was Monday and Monday is literally our ONLY day that we don’t have activities. I look forward to Monday evenings because we don’t have to do anything but just be in our home. Not this particular Monday. Nope. This Monday, we were going to have to pack up as a family with mowers, weed eaters, new horse brushes and LOTS of horse hair detangler. I was bitter and a little resentful to say the least.

As we pulled up to my dad’s house, I felt an array of emotions. I took a look at the property that he can no longer maintain the way he once had. And then I took a look at Magic. He is the horse my dad bought me at age 10 so that I could fulfill my dreams of being a star barrel racer in the rodeo. I named him after a horse I had read about in the book Magician. Magic once was a beautiful young horse whose mane and tail shined. Growing up, he was well taken care of. Well loved. There was time to spend brushing him and grooming him and hugging him. I can’t even remember the last time I had time for such a thing. Now looking at my once prized animal, my heart broke a little. His mane and tail were full of burrs. So many burrs you could hardly see that he had hair at all. He was dirty. He didn’t look like the horse I had grown up loving and adoring.

What happened? Well…life. Life happened. When I reached college, the snowball of life started rolling down that hill of amazing madness that makes up my world today. I met a boy. I got a job. My dad’s health deteriorated. We got married, had kids and as fast as a blink, here we are. There are sporting events, practice, work, friends, family, vacations, weddings, showers, obligations, things we love to do, things we hate to do. It all happens so fast I am not sure I even considered things I had left behind that I once loved deeply. Isn’t that what happens though? One day we have all the time in the world. The next day-BAM-we are adults. Our lives get tangled up in a mess of things, much like my horse’s tail. But who is there to untangle us from our lives? What else is there knotted up inside that we are not dealing with?

That day, as I stood there brushing, detangling, brushing, detangling, I stopped to look around. In the distance I saw my husband doing what he does best. Helping. He mowed as much of my dad’s yard and pasture as he could. And of course, he did it without complaining, even though he is busier than he likes to admit. I stopped to look at my kids and the joy on their faces as they enjoyed this bonus night of family time doing something that we would not normally do. We were outside. We were helping an animal and they were falling in love with the very things I spent my childhood loving. Something that I had earlier felt “burdened” by turned out to be a blessing. And as I pulled each burr out one by one, I felt the burrs of my earlier feelings drop off. I released more that day than my horse’s tail. I am thankful for the reminder that sometimes our lives get neglected and things can get tangled up. There is a time and a place to detangle. All of that from the tail of a horse….

How does your garden grow?

What makes you pause? What are those sweet surprises tucked into your day that make the corner of your lips curl up—if even just for a split second? Is it the small little bird outside your window who seems to peer in and offer a morning “hello”? Perhaps it is a delicious bite of homemade cobbler someone baked especially for you. Whether it’s a woolly worm traveling along the path of your morning walk or a wag of the tail from a furry friend, can you name what infuses joy into your days?  

As time goes on, I find it ever-so-important to become hyper-aware of these moments so I can be more intentional about slowing down and seeking them out. I allow myself to get distracted and amazed. On walks, the obscure leaf on the ground or the intricate work of a spider slows me down and makes me wonder. There are times I will do a quick Google search to learn more, but more often, I allow my mind to drift and create my own version of the truth. What happens amongst the trees once I am safely tucked in bed and the fireflies come out to dance? These moments of unknowing feel so good. Allowing myself not to know all of the answers feels even better. This openness creates a venue for an infinite number of scenarios, and I could not love that anymore.  

So, if your soul were a garden, what do you collect or seek out as nourishment? And, if today you aren’t quite sure, it seems like as good a time as any to take pause and notice. ❤ 

The Beat of our Souls

Here’s a beautiful piece from a guest contributor, Natianna Ohmart.

I hate cars. They’re loud, expensive, and bad for us in more ways than one. Like Lizzie Bennett, I like to walk. I believe the world was meant to be experienced on our own two feet. We should be immersed in our own setting, grounded by the soles of our feet. Our steps should echo those of our ancestors - reaching, striving, hungry for the path ahead, aware of where they had been, rooted in where they were by the slap of skin or leather or rubber against the ground. 

Walking is rhythm. It is a beat for life to dance to. In the chaos of our modern world full which values productivity and efficiency over people and connection, we silence the natural melody of our own soul in favor of ease and speed. 

What if, instead, we chose to do the hard thing? What if we created space for our chests to expand fully with breath, our heels to feel the earth below us, and our legs to feel the burn of the distances we have travelled?

When dogs walk side by side, they learn that they are on the same team team. They realize they are not opponents, but compares. Somewhere in those shared steps they find unity. What if we, as humans, chose to walk alongside each other? Perhaps we could hear the rhythm of our feet moving in time and realize that together they are not discordant, but a symphony of life that needs each individual beat to create harmony.

Water me, I’ll water you.

The houseplants I do my best to keep alive day after day, repay me by the pops of color they provide and the fresh air they exude into our environment. Our relationship feels mutually beneficial.

It made me start to reflect on human relationships and which ones feel as if they suck me dry and which ones make me feel nourished and support my ability to grow.

Human “watering” comes in many different forms. Sometimes it’s a text or an email out of the blue which lets you know you’re being thought of. Sometimes it’s an invitation for a walk, a coffee date or a “you would love this” comment.

Whatever those hugs are for your soul—are you getting enough of them? Do you have the courage to ask for more of what you need? We desire connections with one another in ways sometimes we may not know because we haven’t paused long enough to take inventory on what those things are.

Here’s an invitation to reflect on not only how you are nourishing the relationships in your life, but to also gauge how watered you feel inside.

How well do you listen?

When Someone Deeply Listens To You

By John Fox

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you've had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind's eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

Sparking Joy

Recently, on a drive to work, the hosts on a morning radio show were discussing ways in which we can find and invite joy into our daily lives. One of the suggested strategies was being curious. As an advocate of asking questions, I launched out onto the web to see what others had to say about how curiosity ignited joy in their worlds. I fell upon this blog entry by a teenager who inspired me to dust off one of my notebooks and head outside to explore and let my mind wander and grow. Where does curiosity actively live in your life? Does it in fact release a dose of dopamine for you?

The joy of curiosity in my nature journal — Nature Journaling Week

Why am I the way I am?

There are days I wonder and then there are the days it all makes so much sense. Like perfect, last-piece-of-the-puzzle-clicked-into-place kind of sense. I love a little bit of both of these and here are some reasons why.

Let’s begin with the days where you can come up with no logical answers as to how or why you ended up where you are surrounded with the life you have. Maybe you have had one of those days—where you don’t feel worthy of the job you have, the children you have procreated, or you have surprised yourself by the number of tasks you have been able to (or not) complete by the day’s end. I love ending these days by asking myself what I have done (intentionally or otherwise) to have led me to these spaces in time…

In contrast to those days, I have days where glimpses of my childhood sneak out of the memory bank and into my mental camera reel. I am able to watch a short film of my family in action, and I nod my head with a little better understanding of how I got to where I am. I see my sister and I home alone for hours on end because both of our parents were gone working multiple jobs to ensure we never did without. It then becomes easier to understand where my work ethic originated. I don’t use work as an escape from reality as much as I thrive on providing for the family I so deeply cherish and adore. (Thanks, Mom and Dad.)

When I find myself cracking jokes and lightening the mood in a room, perhaps is my Enneagram 9 taking hold and aiding me in keeping everyone in the room a bit more comfortable?? When I ask others if they want to go on a long walk or grab a coffee, is that my Love Language of quality time rearing its head?

I can’t know all of these things for certain, but what I can know is that by being curious about what makes me, me and by asking and finding out what makes up the people I love, I can more intentionally show up in situations for others and I can also show up better for myself.

So, what makes you the way you are?

Flex your question marks.

In my time working simultaneously with elementary students and adult learners, I have collected countless hours of informal, observational data.

One thing I have noticed over time is the dialogue shared by children in the primary classrooms is more frequently peppered with question marks than the conversations I share with older students and even less than the ones I share with adults. Why is that?

At some point, the bight-eyed inquisitive nature fades—is it eroded by embarrassment or shame for not knowing or understanding? Do we somehow subconsciously condition kids to ask fewer questions over time?

A clear example of watching curiosity phase out is working with adolescents. Students appear to become embarrassed by raising their hands or their apathy towards digging deeply into a topic outweighs the joy they could have for the discovery of new-found learning.

Asking the right question can unlock a new idea—solve a pervasive problem or even bring a new invention to life. As important as asking questions appears to be, they are not always welcomed at discussion tables. The chairs at those said tables get filled with egos, hidden agendas or even worse—closed minds.

This is one of my burning curiosities. How can we make more space in our conversations for the question marks we so eagerly used when we were children? In what ways could asking more questions benefit us? Our work? Our relationships?

What are your thoughts?

For further reading:

Embarrassment by Thomas Newkirk

The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier

What’s in a name?

Welcome to Curiosity’s Nest.  The name, to many, may not mean much, but I would like to take a moment to explain the intention of this site.  Leaning into the unknown, in my opinion, can lead us to the root of an issue, it allows us to diffuse assumptions, and it often opens a flood gate of new information. 

I love learning.  I love interacting with others. The act of being curious has afforded me a wealth of meaningful connections and relationships with so many amazing people. This is where the idea for the site initially began.  I wanted a container and a platform to showcase what the act of being curious enhances in most, if not all situations.

The nest is the container for these wonderings to grow.  A nest is comprised of so much more than just twigs.  It is an infrastructure created out of necessity, but the end goal is to construct a safe environment for nourishment and growth to occur.  My hope for this site is to serve as a collection of wonderings—big and small—an interesting place to be due to the variety of voices and intellectual contributions that will be made. I sincerely hope your voice will be one of them.

The Incredible Art of Nest Building