Failure as Feedback / Homemaker4Life

“In life, three ingredients are necessary: sunshine, a commanding view and legs aching with remembered effort.” Sylvain Tesson.

"I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."  Michael Jordan

The last couple weeks have been... busy? What does that even mean anyways. We are all busy, pathologically so. We did manage to do an overnight hike on Maroon Mountain, a first time for backcountry camping or even getting up a mountain with kids in tow. Both of us used to do both, and we did attempt basic tenting a small handful of times in our earliest parenting years. Until we had one of those pivotal moments, miserable with a toddler and infant, tired from trying to divert them from falling into a fire or down a hill, recognizing that everything we loved about camping could not co-exist with children, and so we declared WE ARE GROWN UPS AND WE CAN DO WHATEVER WE WANT. Including packing up, driving home and vowing to never ever do that again. Righteous may have been the word. Did we fail? Maybe? Did we care? Not even a little bit. If failure is feedback then the message was clear: we let it go, be it for now or forever. What a relief to be an adult not governed by ideals and/or guilt.

The creek that won the day.

So feeling optimistic, maybe idealistic, but really just longing to feel once more those aching legs and panoramic views, 6 years later we try again. Did we go car camping? Of course not. We went backcountry camping, up a mountain, with four rather young children. It started out shaky as we found our feet (the grown ups, not the children), got a whole lot better as we switchbacked up the mountain, and then just before we were to reach the meadow (which we could not see so we did not know), serious adult-sized doubt set in. We were tired from hauling humans and gear and  worried that we wouldn't find a creek soon enough to replenish our water, that we had overestimated or poorly planned or both. Tears were shed on behalf of children at the thought of returning, small humans who had faced every challenge up to that moment without an ounce of misery. We had found ourselves yet again in a pivotal moment. Same as years past, but so very different. Returning down the mountain out of concerns for our well-being would be totally

Henry still processing that we could have had to
 turn around, even after we knew that we were in the clear.

 warranted (and let's be clear it's a decision we would make no matter what if it was needed), but was our well-being actually at risk? Risk defined as the edge of your skills and abilities, where it meets up with possible danger. Our perception certainly was that we were riding in that zone, simply because of the number and ages of our children. Overarching that decision, without either of us saying it out loud, both Stephan I knew the consequences of "quitting" would be painful The feedback from this failure would be dire to our wilderness dreams. Children don't understand risk. They do understand a lot of effort with no reward, and they don't tend to want to repeat those experiences. If it had to be done it had to be done, but if there was a sliver of a chance that it didn't, that's where our thoughts needed to reside. And so we didn't agree to turn around, we didn't agree to keep going. We kept walking forward only because the flies didn't permit us to stand still and within a few minutes we heard the glorious sound of running water and not long after were filling our water bottles at the creek. The relief, the victory, the emotion was palpable. The next few hours were still not exactly pleasant with an overtired toddler but that we are skilled in handling. The only thing that mattered is we hadn't quit, the ramifications of which were innumerable. It wasn't until later that evening though when some sleepless kids and I watched the sun setting over the Coast Mountains that the magic truly set in. For them, and for me. They knew as well as I that we were in a place most people don't get to, never mind families like ours. That night we were the only ones atop that mountain, staking a claim to that view. And it surely wouldn't have been so sweet had we not physically and mentally wrestled our way there. Again, without needing to say a word, the consensus was clear. As a family, we can do anything, so long as it is the thing we all together, deeply want and need. 

Over the course of this same weekend I started a job. Although I have taught yoga, sold farm goods and a few other odds and ends over the years since becoming a mother, I have never worked anywhere with fixed hours. Of all the possible ways to go back to work, this was ideal. Very close to home so no commuting, no real childcare costs once the school year got going, a low stress environment and a chance for me to regularly get out and chat with people from our community. Although I am the ultimate home-body, I have been slowly coming to understand the fact that all humans have an innate need for community. A truly physiological desire that has been recognized as a marker for health all around the world. From the surface this job would fill that void and also contribute a bit of finance to our family which of course, never goes astray. All sounds good. Well, it took approximately one day of me away from the house for a coyote to come and snatch one of our chickens (the first ever animal in 4 years we have lost to a predator), meals to fall to the way side, drought to take hold in the garden. extracurricular activities to be abandoned, laundry to creep out of control and primary income provider stress levels to skyrocket. Should we have recognized this could happen before starting? I guess although it is pretty hard to know until you try, especially in a situation as seemingly ideal as this. Should we have not considered it at all, at risk of failure? I don't think that would have been the right choice, in this or any decision. Is there some guilt present? Absolutely. In a small community one wants to show up wholeheartedly always. Will we learn from this and not seek out a similar opportunity? Absolutely. Ultimately though, be it a selfish one, we received the very best gift possible over the course of those few days of chaos, the affirmation that I am so very fundamental to the running of our home. Most days I look around and see an endless to do list or unkempt kids and just honestly feel so deeply tired. I deduct from this that I am perhaps not cut out for this role, that my energies may be better spent elsewhere, or that just in general something needs to change. But the feedback from this failure is clear.  A woman's place is certainly not in the home, but mine most definitely is. Cooking, cleaning, mothering and homesteading has never felt so good.