This weekend, our youngest packed his suitcase, loaded his car, and left for NASA Langley Research Center where he has a STEM-related summer internship — something related to stepper motors, I believe (whatever they are). 

This move is something we’ve encouraged — strongly. In fact, we’ve told him he’d need to go to a “dorm college” this next year (as opposed to the living-at-home community college situation of the last couple years). So after he’s done with his internship, he’s off to Virginia Tech to study Sustainable Systems Science (whatever that is). 

We are delighted by these changes, and relieved, too, because there’s always an internal exhale when a child makes connections.

But now that they’ve happened, or are happening, twinges of sadness come creeping in. 

This is it, y’all. We brought four humans into the world and now they’ve moved out into it. The home we’ve spent the last twenty years creating now houses just us. (And Eucefe, but he leaves in a few weeks.) 

We are — [drumroll] — empty nesters. 

I thought I was going to love this “It’s Just Us” stage (and I’m pretty sure I will), but right now? I’m mildly bereft.

***

My wobbly feelings are mostly concentrate on one thing: his bedroom. 

See, the children’s rooms have always been a manifestation of their ever-more-pronounced personalities with the accompanying developing interests, vacillating temperaments, and strong opinions. As each of them grew, my already-minimal involvement in their rooms diminished, though my irritation at all the “wrong” ways the rooms were being managed never wavered.

It was their space in my house, and I could not wait to reclaim it. 

So for weeks now, I have been actively making plan for my younger son’s newly-emptied bedroom, a room which has driven me batty with its sprawling chaos.

But then he moved out and suddenly there was no one to rail against about the mess. His room, still cluttered with the detritus from packing, now felt like a shell. The soul had left it, and — poof — so had my excitement about fixing it up.

Why was I no longer excited? The minute I mentally formulated that question, the tears, and the answer, came: 

When I clean out this last child’s room and paint it over, I will have “erased” him from this home. 

Which is melodramatic and absolutely not true. It’s not like he’s died, for crying out loud.

1. His stuff is still here (but I’m gonna box it up). 
2. He will be coming home frequently for at least the next couple years.
3. Home is the place where when you go there they have to take you in — and for all our children, we will, forever and always. 

But this is no longer his primary place. He’s moving on.

***

I was feeling lightly chagrined about my sadness, but then yesterday a friend told me her mother always said the intense loss she felt when her children were leaving home was almost like the grief that comes from a death.

And it is a death, in a way. The family I lived in, and for, doesn’t exist the same way anymore. And even if I don’t want it to exist like that anymore, even if I’ve been encouraging the changes, it’s still a loss. 

***

And it’s not just about the bedroom remodel, either, even though that’s what my angst fixates on. It’s about the house, or me in the house.

When we bought this place, it was for us, and us back then meant two parents, three children, and a fourth in utero. Always, this house has been our family’s. 

What does it mean to reclaim space that was never meant for just two? 

***

When two single parents join households, it’s often advised they get a new space to prevent one spouse from living in the shadow of the former. A new place clears the air and sets them both on equal footing.

So if my husband and I bought this house for our family, maybe we need a new place that’s just for us? A place we can start fresh? 

We’re not going to do that, of course. That’d be silly, this is our home. But with all the children gone, there’s a foreignness to this place.

I’m not sure if I belong, or how I belong. 

***

It has occured to me that my fixer-upper excitement may be a coping technique. Jumping to remodel is my way of outpacing the pain of being left behind. 

The flipside, I suppose, is the urge some parents have to preserve the child’s room as is, so when (if) the child returns, their room will be intact. 

And probably there are some parents who don’t think much about it at all. 

We all have our tactics. 

***

So anyway, our baby has left home.  

A couple nights ago, he sent a photo of the fish he caught with his housemate, and mornings before work, he sometimes sends me outfit-check photos to make sure he is appropriately attired. (He is.) Last I heard, he’s living on bagels and cereal and having a grand old time.

Today I went rug shopping.

This same time, years previous: onion relish, yoga sol, try and keep up, so much milk, in the bedroom, black lives matter, the quotidian (6.3.19), mama said, this is us, brown sugar rhubarb muffins, when the studies end.

Last fall, one of my friends wrote in her newspaper column about an enchilada casserole that’s super-duper easy and serves as a catch-all dish for the random produce cluttering up the fridge. 

After I read the article, I sent her a barrage of questions. (You know me.) But she didn’t respond (turned out she was out of town), so I went ahead and made it anyway. People loved it, and then I made it again. (And maybe yet again? I can’t remember now.)

It’s a fantastic, simple, filling, tasty, EASY casserole that is perfectly suited for feeding a crowd cheaply and efficiently. If you’re not sure what to take to your next potluck, or what to make for supper mid-week, try this. I think you’ll love it.

There is one downside to this dish: it’s ugly as sin. Pre-baking, the mixture looks like a pile of sludge, and post-bake, it looks like, well . . . baked sludge. 

But then you sprinkle grated cheese over the top, bake it for another ten minutes or so, and it straightens itself out.

Moral of the story: Cheese fixes everything.

Plus, you can gussy it up with all the fixings — pickled onion, cilantro, hot sauce, avocado, salsa, sour cream — and by the time you’re done with that, it basically looks like a diva in heels. 

Baked Enchilada Casserole
Adapted from Sarah Beachy’s column in Lancaster Farming.

Before you start, let me run through the answers to your potential questions:

• No, there is no need for a leavening agent.
• In addition to topping with cheese, you can add cheese to the mixture itself.
• Fresh veggies like peppers and onions will lose their crunch in the oven. 
• As long as there aren’t too many watery vegetables (like zucchini) in the mix, the batter can be mixed ahead of time and then allowed to rest in the fridge prior to baking.
• Swap out some of the tomatoes for salsa or tomato juice.
• Browned sausage or ground beef could be added.
• For added flavor, grease the pan with bacon grease or lard.

The ingredients are endlessly customizable and amounts are suggestions. Swap out some of the chopped tomatoes for red or green salsa. If feeding vegans, omit the cheese. Use whatever veggies you have on hand.

Re the spices: more is better.

4 cups cooked red or black beans, drained
4 cups chopped, canned tomatoes
4 cups assorted veggies, chopped, grated, or mashed (corn, sweet peppers, onion, greens, sweet potato, winter squash, zucchini)
1½ cups maseca flour
Spices: cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, dried garlic and onion powder, oregano, salt, red pepper, etc. 
3 cups cheese, grated

Mix everything together (except the cheese). The texture should be like thick pancake batter, so adjust by adding more maseca flour or more liquid as needed. 

Pour the sludgy mixture into a greased 9×13 pan and bake at 350°F for 45 minutes, or until the center is firm and the edges and top are brown. For this dish, over-baking is better than under-baking.

Remove the casserole from the oven, sprinkle with cheese, and continue to bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese is melty and golden.

This same time, years previous: ice cream comprehensive, the butter conundrum, the coronavirus diaries: week twelve, period, the quotidian (5.28.18), an evening together, the quotidian (4.28.14), spicy cabbage, the quotidian (5.28.12), one dead mouse, the ways we play.

For Eucefe’s birthday, we decided to throw him a surprise party. He’s made a lot of friends in the last year, and since he’ll soon be heading back to Mozambique, his birthday seemed the perfect opportunity to pull everyone together in one big rah-rah hoopla. 

The plan was to grill loads of hot dogs, have people bring sides, and then hang out on the patio while the sun set, the birds chirped, and fire crackled. But the weather threw a us a curveball — a whole string of rainy rainy days, yay. 

For a few days leading up to the event, I was in an emotional tailspin — where would we put everyone? what are we gonna doooo? — but then my husband suggested we gather in the upstairs of his barn. He’d clean it up, he promised. It’d be fine.

The day of, my husband and two of the kids worked all day cleaning and sorting and running extension cords.

I washed the mildew from the doors and the bird poop from the windows. We hauled up electric and real candles, twinkle lights, and leftover strand lights from the wedding. My son covered the table saw with an old door, and then I covered that with an old tablecloth. We wiped down rickety old chairs and clustered them around ratty rugs and tossed old blankets around the room in case people got cold.  

And then the people came!

While we waited for Eucefe to arrive, they milled about drinking cups of decaf coffee, visiting, and playing cards.

And then Eucefe arrived, and he was surprised! As I suspected, he hadn’t a clue. (The friend who brought him home from work that day just told Eucuefe that he needed help hauling some chairs down from the barn so their family could borrow them, haha.)

It’s always a little tricky hosting a group of people who don’t know each other, so I had everyone go around the room sharing their names and how they were connected to Eucefe. Along with our immediate family, there were coworkers from his work at Jubilee Farms and from his work at Gift and Thrift, his English tutor, the director of the men’s choir that he sang in, friends from church and our small group, and his host family from the Old Order Mennonite community.

After the supper and the birthday songs and cake, we gathered round a second time to share stories about Eucefe and the experiences we’ve had with him and things we’ve enjoyed about him. 

Among the things people mentioned were his:

• Ready smile
• Graciousness
• Meticulous work ethic
• Adventurous spirit
• Language aptitude
• Patient teaching skills
• Poise

And there was a shout-out to his cool mama who, according to him, tells her kids, “You can be crazy, just don’t be stupid.”

After everyone left, and we’d shooed Eucefe away when he tried to clean up (because birthday boys don’t do chores), my husband and I lingered, listening to the sound of the rain thrumming on the roof and basking in the glow of our makeshift event space, and the glory of a suddenly very clean barn.

This, I gushed to my husband, is the perfect space to host parties and meetings and classes.

But then he reminded me that it’s not insulated or heated, so really, there’s only a small window of time each year where the space is actually usable, and I was like, well, darn.  

And then we switched off the lights and went inside to wash the dishes, the end.

This same time, years previous: the Baer Family gathering of 2025, strawberry rhubarb pie, sugar-crusted popovers, snake charmer, butter chicken, the hard part, the quotidian (5.26.14), down to the river to play, questions and carrots.