We'd just cleared the roundabout at the top of Schweitzer Mountain Road on Sunday of Labor Day Weekend and were heading back to Spokane when an idea occurred to me. "I'm going to propose something," I said to my husband, "and I want you to keep an open mind about it." Dave raised one eyebrow. I took a deep breath. "How about we spend the next 90 minutes calling as many of our [10] nieces and nephews as we can."
He looked at me sideways and said, "you're full of yearning, aren't you?"
Called out in this vulnerable state of want, I nodded, and straightened. "Yes, I am."
In 2003, newly married and excited to try new things, I elected to leave my hometown of Seattle and move to the middle of Montana with my (then new) husband. I am tight with my parents and sisters, and I didn't think moving away from them would change that until I drove an actual moving van twelve hours in the wrong direction, leaving behind my job, my friends, and my family. I especially mourned leaving my niece, Zoe, whom I adored. At five, Zoe had a deadpan sense of humor, loved scary stories, and possessed a fabulous vocabulary. Dave and I used to trot her around town and pretend she was ours. Once, when she was about two, we had her over for a sleepover and set her between us and gazed at her. She stared calmly back at us, back and forth, her blue eyes steady and relaxed. Then she sat up and puked.
I figured we'd call Zoe first, but before I could pick up my phone, Dave pushed a button on the steering wheel and said, "call Cal."
This was a thrilling opening move. My nephew Cal, known within the family as the Snow Leopard, is notoriously hard to reach. He's my sister Jen's second child, a senior in college, football player, and (from what I can tell on social media) always busy with friends. Just trying his number sent a shiver of anticipation down my arms and legs. What if he answered? What would we say? Would it be awkward? We waited while it rang. And rang.
An artificial voice informed us that we had reached a number that was unavailable and invited us to leave a message. Without a plan, we left one of those interminable messages that goes on and on with no end in sight. Knowing the low probability that Cal would listen to the message (because no one in his generation listens to messages), we ended with a reward-for-listening opportunity and offered to Venmo him $30 (thirty bucks! That's $29 more than we offer our own kids for listening to their messages!) if he texted us a magic password. Then we hung up. (So far, he hasn’t responded.)
The late afternoon sun shone silver on the fir needles, and we caught a glimpse of Pend Oreille Lake at the top of the first switchback, heading down. Momentum carried us into the next call.
"Hey, Siri." I said. "Call Kate." Kate is Cal's youngest sister, the only one of her siblings still in high school, and—like many youngest siblings—has a bit of an up-for-anything vibe.
It rang three times. "Hello?" she answered.
"KATE!" we chimed, turning to each other in astonishment. "YOU ANSWERED! IT'S HEIDI AND DAVE!! WE'RE CALLING TO SAY HI!!"
Earlier in the summer, Dave and I had listened to a podcast about the positive psychological effect of talking to strangers. In this case, a psychologist was writing a book about the deeply social aspects of the human brain, and how positively we are impacted by connecting with one another. He had been commuting back and forth from his office on a train, and he noticed how he (and everyone else) spent their commutes in silence bent over their phones, reading the news, following social media, sending text messages, and avoiding interaction. He wondered how he could write a book about the positive benefits of social interaction without practicing it in his own life.
But the idea of initiating a conversation with a stranger filled him with dread. What if he offended someone by making conversation? Or made them uncomfortable? He described himself as a tall and big white man: the kind of person people avoided when choosing a seatmate on a crowded train. Would he do harm by initiating conversation with a stranger?
Determined to find out, he found himself sitting next to a black woman wearing a beautiful red hat, and screwed up the courage to turn to her and say, "Nice hat." She smiled and said thank you, and he said, "I have the same one at home." She laughed, and they began to talk. They talked about work, how they felt about their jobs, whether they could change jobs, and what that change might bring. "It was nice," he said. "Really nice."
Kate, it turned out, had attended her senior sunrise that morning. She would be starting the first day of her senior year in high school. We bombarded her with questions about school, her summer, her interests, friends, college applications, and all the usual stuff. She asked us about our summers, what we'd done over the holiday weekend, what our kids were up to. Then we dropped a big question: what did you learn about yourself this summer?
"Um," she said. "I was alone a lot this summer. I guess I learned to enjoy my own company."
Fireworks went off in my heart. Kate, the infant born during a windstorm so fierce her entire family had to live in a hotel for a week before they could take their newest baby home. Kate, the infant who battled RSV and screamed loudest to be heard in a family with four kids under the age of six. Here she was learning something at eighteen that I didn't start to learn until I was in my mid-twenties, striking a chord of joy, longing, and hope in my ringing heart.
Somewhere near Lake Cocolala, we left a message for Claire and another for Johnny, offering similar financial rewards for calling us back.
Then we called Zoe. Now in her early-twenties, Zoe lives in Boston and works at her former college. Surely, she'd be busy. When she answered, we practically screamed with delight. “ZOE!! YOU ANSWERED! OH MY GOODNESS! WE ARE CALLING TO SAY HI!!!”
After some preliminaries, we settled in and enjoyed a long conversation. We talked about her job, her area of research, the college students who'd arrived for the start of school. We talked about the presidential campaign, what she thought of the candidates, how to achieve a ceasefire in Palestine. The conversation felt easy and relaxed; it restored in me a sense of connection with Zoe. It eased my ache.
Right as we passed the Idaho/Washington border, Claire called us back.
She and some college friends had found rooms in this 20-person house near campus where, theoretically, everyone speaks Spanish. "None of my friends speak any Spanish," she laughed, "But I'm going to take some lessons." Claire was getting over a bout of Covid, anxious to rejoin campus activities as soon as possible. We talked about her summer teaching mountain biking at Big Sky and the excitement of meeting new people in a place she already knows. I asked her what she learned about herself this summer.
“One thing I learned was that people wanted to ride with me even when I was not as fast or skilled as they were. They liked me for who I was, not how I rode a bike." We nodded in delight. What a fabulous thing to learn at 19. What a fabulous person she was. What a fabulous world we lived in.
By now, we were nearing home. Dave turned off the freeway, and I was eager to get one more call answered. "Call Grace," I said into my phone.
Grace answered fresh from a walk in the hills outside of Eugene where she was housesitting for a friend. She was winding down the day, trying to get rest before a long day teaching yoga on Monday. Like her mom, Grace has become a skilled and well-loved teacher, whose classes, are both tough and thoughtful. I know this, not because I've taken her class, but because I know her style, her attention to detail, her poise and determination. "How are you guys?" she asked, expertly deflecting our barrage of questions. "Heidi, when are you going to post another essay on The Good Question?" As far as I know, Grace is the only representative of her generation of my family to subscribe and regularly read my posts. I think of her often when I write, wondering how to reach across time and space to say something worthwhile to her.
"What have you learned about yourself lately, Grace?" I asked.
"Hm. Good question," she said, buying herself time. "I guess I've learned to listen to myself and trust my interests. I felt so much pressure after college to move away and get a certain kind of job, but I'm really happy here, doing something I love."
We'd pulled into the garage by then, and we all sighed, glad that we reached out, glad that we connected. "Thanks for calling," said Grace. "It was really nice to talk to you."
We felt the same.
In only four phone calls, my aching heart felt fully healed (though I still have some phone calls to make). Not only was I reassured that I was capable of reaching across the barriers of social awkwardness, uncertainty, and potential embarrassment to call my younger family members; I was relieved that they were willing to answer.
Just the other night, a friend asked me what brought me joy, and my mind drifted back to that afternoon in the car, driving home from Schweitzer. "I love asking young people what they are learning," I said. It makes me feel like a cheerleader yelling from the stands for my favorite team. Which is to say, it makes me feel like I'm part of something bigger, that I have a role to play, and that we belong to each other.
This is awesome, Heidi. All the warm and connected feels. It makes me want to do it too!
After talking with you about this very topic the other day, reading this Heidi was pure joy! It made me want to do the same thing with some of my nieces and nephews whom I dearly love. Thank you for writing this and reminding us of what’s really important.