Dear Tate, Vol. 3

on cultivating pressure-cooker friendships in daily life

As a reminder to the readers:

• Dear Tate, Vol. 1

• Dear Mom, Vol. 1

• Dear Tate, Vol. 2

• Dear Mom, Vol. 2

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Village in the Austrian Alps (2016) by Cvetko Ivanov #

Dear Tate,

Some of your schedule this semester reminds me of our family’s big trip around the world. You were nine and ten years old that year, so you may not have been aware of this, but your dad and I curated our itinerary with a lot of intention. We recognized moments in our plan when it was literal go-go-go: Beijing followed by Xian followed by Guangzhou followed by Hong Kong followed by Chiang Mai, all in a matter of a month. …Phew. That’s exhausting without three kids under age nine. Your dad and I, having traveled extensively before we embarked on that wild year, knew that if we went hardcore nonstop the entire time, we’d end up hating travel and possibly each other. That’s no good.

So when we planned our year, we coupled those ‘high-speed’ moments with plenty of time following that we nicknamed ‘low and slow.’ Once we landed in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for instance, we stayed there for a full six weeks — and we absolutely needed it after that whirlwind rush through Asia. Later in the trip, we parked outside Sydney, Australia for just over five weeks (thanks to a housesitting gig), and enjoyed a semblance of an ordinary life with a house equipped with a backyard trampoline and chickens. And then a third time later that year we planted ourselves in the little southern French village of Cadenet for six weeks. These were all intentionally and mercifully longer stays so that we could catch our breath from the maelstrom of that year. Ironically, those stops were often the places you three kids named as your favorites for years after that trip. …There’s a life lesson there, I’m fairly certain.

I see this in your current semester a little. The moments I’m most tempted to ask you about are those ‘high-speed’ blips you’ve taken — Italy, like in my last letter to you, or your weekend in Prague a few weeks ago, or this past weekend in Poland, from which you just returned and I am sure from which you are emotionally and physically exhausted. Life-changing, every one of them. And I know you’ll go to Greece a little later this semester, and hopefully a weekend excursion or two more before heading back home at the end. I can’t wait to hear about those, too.

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But the reality is that the bulk of your experience is there, in your little Austrian village, at the 14th-century monastery they’ve turned into a university campus and where you’re calling home these months. The moments there are the ones you’ll probably want to put in your pocket and carry with you for years to come — the late-night conversations with friends in the Mensa, the walks to the village cafes and shops to pick up little lattes and sundries, and the hikes right outside your door because you live in the friggin’ Alps right now.

This summer, when a well-meaning friend or family member will ask you “How was Austria?”, they’ll probably think of the cathedrals, museums, and internet posting-worthy excursions — and they mean well. Those are the things we can grasp when we ourselves weren’t on a trip; they’re the things we make sense of when we imagine what it’s like to ‘study abroad in a 14th-century Carthusian monastery in the Austrian Alps.’

But I know, from personal experience in the ‘90s of backpacking through scores of Europe when I was your age, then living in a tiny Kosovo village, then again later in a Turkish metropolis, that the real moments that make an experience worth searing into your brain are those God-revealing whispers — like perhaps when a priest there said that one thing during Mass that wouldn’t let you go for days, or when a friend complimented you in just the right way you needed at that just-right time, or when you paused to look out at the view during a breath-catching hike and the sun hit the curve of the hills just-so. These are the things that are hard to talk about because they don’t involve a big story. They’re not the ones people ask about. They’re also the things that can happen right at home, sometimes in your own backyard, if you have the eyes to see and ears to hear — but these also don’t provide for sexy stories, and so we keep them inside.

But I bet you’re collecting a ton of those little stories, some of them mere seconds long, and some of which you may have already forgotten yet will slam back to the front of your brain when you least expect it years later, like when you’re wrangling a toddler in a Costco shopping cart.

For now, though, know that I’m looking forward to hearing about all the stories you’re willing to share, big or small — but especially the small ones. Because it’s those small ones that are shaping you the most; the ones transforming you into more of who you are. I want to know how it feels to hold the weight of that coffee mug you like in the Mensa, for instance, or what the air on your hikes smells like in the different months. What dumb jokes your favorite professors told.

Your dad and me on a non-date date in 2001, at the one restaurant in our tiny village along the Kosovo-Serbian border. Like many things in Eastern Europe in the late 90s/early 00s, it was called “Millennium.” (It’s where the menu had the delicious ‘Lake Crap,’ misspelling the crappie fish.)

…I’ve also been thinking about relationships, and how they form so much of our experiences, including travel. I first got to know your dad in warp-speed time because we were living in Kosovo; it was a pressure cooker season that forced us to bond in ways we didn’t expect because of the intensity of that post-war environment. That’s why we basically knew we’d be getting married within weeks of meeting, even though we didn’t even start officially dating until two weeks after we both returned to the States. He then moved from Oregon to Texas to live near me a mere two months into us dating — a state he’d never been to, let alone cared to — and yet there he was, on my doorstep with a duffle bag in hand and an interview on his schedule for two days later, totally unbeknownst to me. He first lived with Jason, then later with Eric, and we got engaged three months after he moved to Texas and it still felt two months too late. And then we got married five months after that, which then felt three months too late. (You know all this already because I’ve told you umpteen times.)

But the intensity of relationships in a cross-cultural setting is the same with girlfriends, too, and just friendships in general. These young women with whom you’ve connected? …Cultivate those friendships. You have the shared experience of being on that campus in this particular semester for this specific time in each of your lives, and these things matter. We’ve talked about Aristotle’s levels of friendships before, so I won’t belabor this point — but remember the second and third levels, the relationships of convenience and the relationships of virtue? These current friendships are the ones with whom you’ll connect because you’re sharing an experience, and then hopefully even deeper friendships because you share the same goals and values in life — Lord-willing, my mama prayer is that at least one of these girls are becoming that second level of friendship. Don’t shrug these relationships away. These are friends you’ll look back on and be glad you cultivated.

You may not have these relationships forever, and that’s okay (I’ve got so much to say on that, actually, but this letter will get longer than it already is), yet these are the women with whom together you’re all becoming more of who you’re meant to be in such a formative stage of life. Lord-wiling, you’ll look back on these college years and see that God put the just-right people in your life to better form you into a one Tatum K. Oxenreider, young woman extraordinaire.

So… Keep going on those weekend excursions with other people, and keep having those adventures. Truly! Take advantage of living near so many cool places. But really dig into those lingering afternoon conversations at the Mensa, the chats with classmates about whatever-it-is you’re learning in metaphysics these days, and the walks into town fueled by musings and wonderings about your futures. These are the things that you’ll look back on with fondness. And I can’t wait to hear about whatever you’re willing to share.

Love you,

Mom