Empty Nester? I Don't Feel Empty.
Weekends are free writing times which means there are no official themed prompts published for those of us participating in NaBloPoMo.
So I have decided to rework something written ages ago when I fist thought of starting this blog.
I have not felt empty since I gave birth to my lovely little bird who, in this blog, I shall call Phoebe.
I did miss her kicking me at first after she was born, even though I held her in my arms as the flutter, thump, kick, was a constant from the “quickening” when I first consciously felt my little babe’s jab to my kidney until her birth. Okay, okay, actually it was just fluttering at first… but eventually I became convinced I had a world champion pugilist inside me.
Anyway, this post is just a bit of explanation about the blog title. I will never be done parenting or grand-parenting, Goddess willing (more on the use of the word Goddess another time) but I am done nesting.
When I studied for one short but memorable semester with in Dr. Earl Count (I am NOT making this up!) in college who was an octogenarian when he taught the course on The Biogram I learned a great deal. Not enough for Dr. Count, though, who gave me a B for the course much to my dismay. (I, me, moi only received grades of A, or so I thought up until that time.) One of the things I learned about in his course was nesting behavior and something called the broody phase. All female vertebrates when they are pregnant, if I remember correctly, experience a broody phase where normal behavior is replaced by behavior that is directed toward creating an environment that accommodates the successful rearing of offspring.
I think I am done with the broody phase and the following nesting phase where offspring are raised. I’m off to focus, for the most part and to some degree for the very first time, on my own life. So while I will always be a mother, I have exited the broody phase and am exiting the nesting phase. This blog will chronicle this transition and perhaps the next phase of my life.
If you are into ethology, the book we used for the course on the biogram was called, Being and Becoming Human: Essays on the Biogram by Earl Count. I found it to be a very good text that rounded out my reading of Lorenz, and Eibl-Eibesfeldt when it came to basic ethology.
(Wanna make something of my love of bibliography? Let’s step outside.*)
* see: Notes page.
