The Answer is Yes
On sending your kid to camp, tuning into Spirit and accepting that all things change
Dear Ones,
There is so much that I want to write to you about!
Like how I received a full scholarship to Earlham’s Masters of Divinity program, and I will start this new direction in August. How Freddi, too, will be starting a new school this August. How it’s Pentecost season - considered to be the birthday of the church - and my dad and I had a tense discussion about the Holy Spirit and who she is - Dad, close your eyes at my use of she! - and how the Spirit relates to belief relates to action. How my scholarly-pastor friend unpacked for me the first three lines of the Hebrew bible, translating the words into a plural understanding of divinity and embedding into the creation story a big question about whether God is one or more than one, about when the spirit became word became flesh, and how the answer to that question is always the same, he told me, his eyes bright, how the answer is always, Yes.
But here’s the thing. Freddi has been at sleep-away camp all week, and, while that may sound all pleasurable and Moms-Gone-Wild, what I have found, instead, is that it has been weird and tender and very hard to orient myself without his presence, though not everyone seems to relate.
Are you excited about Mom week?! Asked the camp nurse during drop-off. She winked at me like I knew what she was talking about, but I looked at her blankly.
You know, she said, winking again. You get a week all to yourself.
Freddi and I both stared at her, uncomprehending, until I said, finally, Oh yeah, I guess, but the thing is, I love being with my kid, so…. I’m sure it will be nice but…
My voice trailed off in that way it does when I realize the person in front of me speaks a totally different language, and as we walked away, I put my arm around Freddi and whispered, Maybe she doesn’t like her kids, and he whispered back, Or they don’t like her. We laughed and I added, I’m going to miss you, and he said, lightly, I know you will.
While Freddi is off “making memories” with a counselor named Badger, sneaking into the canteen at night and achieving Polar Bear Club status during early morning swims, I have been wandering around the house, starting and not completing projects. The fridge is half-cleaned, I organized two out of four pantry shelves, and I managed to gather a give-away clothing pile but I still haven’t done anything about actually giving it away. I have considered scheduling a facial at a local spa, but every time I look at the many Firm! Sculpt! Glow! options I close the computer. Thursday I showed up to a café only to realize that I had left my wallet at home. When I opened my fist of sticky car quarters, the barista smiled with pity and said, Don’t worry about it. It’s on me.
I wanted to say, I’m not usually this discombobulated! I wanted to explain that I usually drive with my wallet and keep a nice, organized routine and cross off nearly everything on my to-do list and go to sleep feeling settled and accomplished and wake up feeling, if not super rested then at least directed and clear.
Instead, I sheepishly said, Thanks, and then stood in the middle of the café and took at least three minutes to figure out where to sit.
It’s like the directional energy is just gone, packed away and sent to Albion, Indiana along with Freddi’s sun hat and toiletries, his two towels and the sunscreen he is probably not using. And so I wonder, How do we structure our days when the organizing principle of that structure disappears? How do we keep living and making choices when we’ve lost the plot and purpose of our daily lives? If the thing, role, identity or person that normally fuels our actions changes or goes away, what then will continue to motivate us towards the next right step?
Pema Chodron writes that our commitment should be to use whatever is happening to awaken our hearts.
That intention, she explains, is to realize our connection to all beings.
And so every day this week I sat down, and I wrote Freddi a Moose Mail email, entering his name into the contact form and listing his cabin number. Of course there was nothing much to say. The baby birds in the nest are starting to squawk. They have funny tufts of hair on their heads. A squirrel keeps stealing the birdseed. I planted the lemon tree into a bigger pot.
Moose Mail drama report on June 2nd, 2026. Doesn’t get more exciting than this!
Astonished by the banality of my days, I recall my dad’s letters to me when I was a camp counselor in 1996, how in his left hand slant he would satirize his own mother’s letters, listing how many cans of soup he got on sale, describing a run-in with Bud and Jan at the church picnic, and detailing the contents of his breakfast, whether he had eaten white or wheat toast, poached or scrambled eggs. Sitting on my bunk in the humid Ozark Mountain air, I would read them over and over, sometimes out loud to my campers, thinking they would be humored. Instead they were like, Does he know how boring those letters are?
Boring?! No. Even then, at 19, I knew that every word of those letters said, I love you. Every word of those letters said, I’m not quite sure what to do without you.
My mom used to say that she loved mothering her four kids so much that she would literally leap out of bed in the morning, excited to start the day with us. When we all left for college, my parents were heartbroken and lethargic. With no sporting events to attend, no big meals to make, no parties to throw, no young people hanging around the house, they wandered through their days, sat in front of the TV every night and ate big bowls of popcorn.
We each gained about ten pounds after you left, my dad mused.
I can see it, fisting that buttery popcorn into the mouth, trying to activate some other feeling than lostness, trying to taste something other than sadness, trying to drown out the quiet and kill time.
1995, my first college track meet at the University of Michigan where my parents gladly drove 2.5 hours in order to see me high jump (and not even clear the opening height) and, true to form, my mom made several dozen cookies, packing them in Nordstrom’s shirt boxes, so my track team would have a snack on the bus ride back to Bloomington. Gotta lean into purpose when it presents!
While I may not be leaping out of bed - to be clear, my mom was a very young mom! - I do eagerly anticipate and order my life around Freddi’s needs, around what would best serve him. The energy of my actions – even my dedicated alone time that serves my sanity and wellbeing - is rooted in my love for him, rooted in my desire to do what would help me to show up fully as his mom.
This is not notable nor is it brag-worthy. It is just a factual demonstration of how reciprocal relationship works. Freddi’s presence supports me and my presence supports him. But without him here - his needs and schedule ordering my actions, inspiring my best efforts - how do I get through the day? Where do I find the energy to be purposeful? And towards what end?
I can picture the dishes I left on the counter this morning, the laundry still in the dryer, the kitchen floor unswept.
Well, that sounds fine, a friend told me. Just let yourself relax.
But I know this is not relaxing. This is the disorientation that comes when we lose our North Star, when something major changes. When we lose what we had not known we even had in the first place. How can any of us really know the degree to which anything orders our sense of self and gives us momentum until it is gone?
It’s June and all around me high school graduations abound. A lot of attention is paid to the ritual of completion for the graduate, but what about for the parents? What letting-go ritual do we have for them? How might we honor this passage, this change of identity, this loss of regular or known contact with our children? It’s deeply impacting, possibly unsettling, and, for some time, might prove to be extremely disorienting.
I can’t help returning to the Five Remembrances as a way to cut through the confusion.
I am of the nature to grow old, to have ill health, and to die, I have recited several times this week. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change.
And - trying to settle into this doozy of a line - there is no way to escape this loss and change.
So, first, there is the truth and an attempt to recognize it without escaping or shading it. There is no escaping the many-layered bittersweet texture of my kid growing up and becoming independent. There is not escaping the many-layered bittersweet texture of my own identity loss and change. It is here, and it is the way of nature and avoiding it, denying it, resisting it, and/or covering it up with moms-gone-wild behavior only lifts me out of life and deepens the suffering.
But having purpose is inherent to this human existence, so what can any of us do with the disorientation that comes with the inevitable change and loss of purpose? Might there be some kind of other, larger direction towards which we can orient? What north star might we follow - outside of death-bound roles, activities, identities, and people - that will offer us motivation?
I’m so lonely, I used to say to my Zen Buddhist friend during the hardest days of my divorce, when Freddi – a small toddler – was required by the court to spend three days a week away from me. My life feels meaningless, I wept.
No, Bethany said gently but firmly. This is what you’ve been training for.
Sit down, she went on. Sit for all the lonely people in the world at this moment. Breathe in the loneliness, get closer to it. And breathe out connection for all.
The intention in all circumstances is to realize our connection to all beings.
I knew Bethany was right, and because I was desperate for anything that might bring a new feeling and a new direction, I did it. Not feeling strong or well-trained at all, I sat anyway and I cried and breathed until the crying settled and the breathing became smooth and the loneliness remained but, over time, I noticed that it was no longer MY loneliness, it was something shared and as it became shared, it stopped feeling so hot and agitating and began to seem cool, like it was no-big-deal.
After recognizing that there is no escape from the pain of being alive with all of its changeability and loss, The Five Remembrances remind that my actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions and my actions are the ground upon which I stand.
Each breath in and out that consciously connected me with all of humanity - each breath that shifted me away from disorientation and isolation - was an action that put ground under my feet, ground that could hold me for the next step. This ground did not guarantee less change, loss or pain, but it did organize my heart around a purpose.
In order to stand and move and exist in this life, we must act, but we can choose to act from and with an energy that is not rooted in that which is temporary but that which is big enough to hold the change that is inevitable.
What would Love have me do? I often ask. What would Peace have me do? How can I serve Connection?
The qualities of the in-dwelling Spirt – that same Spirit that came to members of the early Christian church on Pentecost as a tongue of fire – that same plural Spirit-divinity that hovered over the waters in the second line of Genesis – that same Spirit that is a still, quiet voice of wisdom within us – are said to be recognized by love, joy and peace, patience, kindness, and goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.
One might ask, What would Spirit have me do? What quality does Spirit want to cultivate? Can I use these questions to fuel my days, motivate an action, and organize my life?
This week, I’ve done my best to live into these questions. I sit down and breathe. I rise up and complete a 15 minute core workout. I lie down and rest. I stand in my back garden, water the plants, feel the sun. I check on a friend, I settle the dishes in the dishwasher, I register for my Fall classes, I watch White Lotus, I read Lena Dunham’s memoir, I make a phone call about my insurance, I scrub the cheese drawer, I take a sunset walk with my friend, I cry a little, standing over a sink of dishes, and I wonder, Who am I, without my son? Should I do this now or that?
And the answer that comes, frustrating and true, is always: Yes.
In Pema Chodron’s new book Another Kind of Freedom, she reflects on her early Buddhist studies with her teacher Choygam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Many of us sought transcendent experiences, she writes about the 1970’s. Unconsciously, we went into spirituality to leave this messy world behind.
But the message, she explains, was consistent. Personalities do not get cleaned up and smoothed over. Life does not get managed and ordered. Loss cannot be avoided. Change keeps happening. Suffering deepens when we try to escape the inescapable.
The way we become sane, Chodron writes, is to train in being right here. The basic practice is to be present… To be right here with whatever is on our plates.
Becoming radically present with our direct experience won’t necessarily result in a cleaner kitchen or an instantly less lonely heart. It won’t allow us to experience more pleasure and less pain. But it will mean we’re living into a greater purpose… one that seeks to connect, to be fully alive while we’re alive.
Yes, we say to the disorientation and Yes, we say to aliveness, and Yes we say to the Spirit of Love, letting it build ground under our feet, to guide us forward.
In place of a compass on the dashboard of my car, I keep a faded sticky note from my dad. Just remember, it says simply. The way you feel about Freddi is the way I feel about you.
I’ll see it later today, when I pick Freddi up from camp, and it will show me the way forward - through the change and the loss, the disorientation and the lack of purpose, the tender heart and bittersweet feelings. Connecting me to something bigger and unchanging, I will follow that lineage of love. I will trust that it will take me where I want to go.
I am yours in saying yes to life and doing my best to say yes to it all - the raw experience of change and loss, the texture of both sweetness and bitterness, the plurality of this divine and holy life - and I am yours in keeping my heart tuned into that Love which would guide me through it all, however imperfectly, mundanely, and with laughter,
Love,
Sara
This is the worst kind of first day of school/camp, squinting into the sun picture, but nevertheless, here I am, clinging for one more minute to my purpose.
Can You Believe it?! I’ll be in the Catskills in TWO WEEKS!
I still have room in my Saturday and Tuesday classes and my sister and I have a few more spots in our half-day yoga retreat. Come to Chichester, NY! Dip in the swimming hole! Lets move and breathe and chant and sweat and hang out together. Connection brings purpose!
One Day Renewal Retreat (for men and women)
When: July 3rd
Time: 11- 5
Where: Catskills Yoga Studio 540 Route 214, Chichester, NY
Exchange: $150
What: A day of yoga, heart-opening connection, nourishing snacks, restorative practices, yoga nidra, and a dip in the swimming hole.
To Reserve: Retreat space is limited. Please email me here or Julie at jnpeacock@gmail.com and reserve your spot by paying through venmo (@julie-peacock-2) or Zelle (jnpeacock@gmail.com.)
Cancellation Policy: Refunds are available if requested 7 days in advance, minus a 15% administration fee.
CATSKILLS YOGA CLASSES
What: Open Level Vinyasa: a slow, steady, breath-centered practice with modifications encouraged for all bodies and restorative options offered. Expect to sweat, restore, go inward, open up, laugh, feel deeply, strengthen and enter the beautiful temple of your own body’s wisdom and experience.
When: Saturdays, June 20th and 27th… July 4th and 11th
Time: 9:30-11 AM est
Where: Catskills Yoga Studio, 540 Route 214, Chichester, NY
Exchange: $25 in person, $20 online (zoom link offered closer to the class and after reservation).
Venmo: @Sara-Beck or reach out for another method of payment.
What: Movement and Meditation: breath-centered movement including vinyasa, restorative and yin yoga as well as other mobility exercises for joint opening and vitality. Each class ends in a few minutes of meditation.
When: Tuesdays, June 23rd and 30th… July 7th and 14th
Time: 8:30-9:45 Am EST
Where: Catskills Yoga Studio, 540 Route 214, Chichester, NY
Exchange: $25 in person, $20 online (zoom link offered closer to the class and after reservation)
To reserve your spot for classes: Please email me here and pay through Venmo (@Sara-Beck). Refunds are available if requested 72 hours in advance of the class.
PRIVATE SESSIONS for YOGA and COACHING
I am open for one-on-one or small group private classes and/or coaching, hypnosis, spiritual embodiment sessions. Please reach out for more info, to schedule a free discovery call, and to set up some time. I meet with clients online and in-person in my home studio in Fort Wayne, IN and in the Catskills.