Empty nesters

Empty nest.

For the past five years, since our kids graduated high school, that term’s been echoing around our home. Until their college graduation a year ago, it never felt quite right—if anything, we had what I’ve long called an intermittent empty nest.

Just as intermittent fasting isn’t the same as a hunger strike, having a once-in-a-while or even a long-stretches-at-a-time empty nest isn’t the same as a permanently empty one.

But that in-between state changed a month ago. After a one-week return home that came on the heels of her European adventure, Maggie Rose moved in with two roommates some six miles away in the Windy City.

Our home’s population dropping back down to two feels different this time.

Zach’s old bedroom (which he vacated 11 months ago) is now fully fledged my office—what else to call a room that’s got my work stuff and no bed? And we’ve renamed the space formerly known as Maggie Rose’s bedroom; it’s now called The Bird’s Nest, and it’s where Bridgett (whose nickname is Bird) gets away.

And like a mama bird who no longer has to feather her nest, we—well, Bridgett, with me hanging onto her coattails—are now in full purge mode. For two solid days, as if possessed, Bridgett this week moved systematically throughout our home to various corners (and closets) to ferret out what we ought to part with.

Books, furniture, clothing, board games, a breadmaking machine that created countless loaves, miscellany too varied to boil down here—a huge smorgasbord of stuff migrated from various spots to our living room. The next day, I lugged it out to the car, then transported it all into the welcoming arms of Goodwill.

Bridgett went to great pains to check with the kids along the way, making sure we weren’t tossing anything that held sentimental or some other value to them.

Not even this yellow hat survived the purge. Maggie Rose wore it one year as part of a Halloween outfit—she and her friend Delilah teamed up as The Man with the Yellow Hat and Curious George.

Letting go of our children, as they’ve grown up and out of the house, has been a gradual process. Through the years, we did a pretty good job of periodically purging possessions, too, but it was an uphill battle. As a four-person family, our “imports” always threatened to outpace our “exports.”

Now, letting go of possessions that no longer serve a purpose—but could get renewed life with others—feels right. So does simply ditching other things that belong in a trash bin.

Clean, uncluttered surfaces and spaces are staples of interior-decoration magazines, so soothing and pleasurable to behold. Less is so much more.

Same holds true in our household. Our empty nest.

The FIFA World Cup has grown on me. For its first week of action, it was background noise to me.

I casually kept tabs on some of the results but barely watched it. Then, this past week—even as I was helping raise awareness of my brother Andy’s podcast series on Mark “The Bird” Fidrych1—something changed.

Virtually overnight, like the flip of a switch, I’ve become a soccer diehard. The last three or four days, I’ve been planning my schedule around matches between countries that I’m challenged to find on the map and whose rosters are composed of players I’ve never heard of.2

What’s going on? A partial list:

• The United States is playing well. The U.S. won its first two games, enough to clinch moving on to the “knockout round” on Wednesday night against Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their 2-0 victory that night advanced the Red, White and Blue to the Round of 16 for the first time in 24 years.

• The skill and teamwork are astounding. While I never played soccer, beyond the occasional schoolyard game during recess, both my children played the sport competitively for most of their childhood, well into high school.

  I’m still no expert on all the rules—and that includes the mystifying nuances of what constitutes “offsides”—but seeing the sport through their experience, and witnessing their own development in it, provided me with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the game.

• It’s been really, really hot. Here in Chicagoland, we’ve had a run of 100-degree-plus days (including heat index) and being in the cool of our basement has positioned me in front of our television set.

How about you? Catching World Cup fever?

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We went to Steppenwolf Theatre to see a play this week. Its name: Catch as Catch Can. Its gimmick: three actors portraying six people.

The performances by Gary Cole, Tim Hopper and Audrey Francis were impressive. Each actor played not only themselves, but a parent of the opposite gender. However—and perhaps this is due to the heat wave rendering me more fatigued than usual—the ambitious double-role action left me with the distinct (and unwanted) feeling that I had to work extremely hard as an audience member.

In a recent interview with Vince Gerasole on the Chicago CBS station, Cole called the premise “compelling.” OK, I am a fan of Cole—he’s a Chicago native who has played a slew of memorable TV and movie roles over the last 40 years3—so I’ll give him “compelling.”

But here’s what I also caught: confusion.

An excerpt of commentary provided by the company’s artistic director: “The central conceit of the play—that each actor inhabits two different characters (bridging different generations and genders)—is a bold challenge for the performer.”

That bold challenge came at the expense of my comprehension. For those in or near Chicago, the play’s run wraps up on July 12th — if you’re up for something adventurous, with quality acting and that will force you to lean in a bit, this play might be for you.

The youngest of four children, all born in a four-year span, back in 1968 I was due to arrive on July 4th. I took my sweet time and finally arrived, at eight pounds and eight ounces, 11 days later.

A heat wave had descended on the Boston area, and rather than suffer in a hospital with no air conditioning for upwards of a week—that was the norm back then—my mom prevailed on medical personnel to let us go home within a few days.

Our nation turns 250 years old today. It’s a milestone that comes right on time, an opportunity to look back not on the past few months or years or even decades—but the entire sweep of this beautiful, imperfect country’s history.

I’m grateful that with the same grit and gusto that my mom exhibited at my birth, we can individually and collectively take matters into our own hands and effect positive change, in whatever areas where we see a need for it.

Here on Day 91,311 of our nation’s life, with our freedom to choose—to serve others versus serving ourselves, for one thing—what can each of us do with these 24 hours?