Riva and her family are living a cherished story.  Their wholehearted and tender pursuit of ‘making home’ connected us initially.  It was a joy to get to know them through the Nest-Building private coaching experience.  

Riva now offers us an invaluable gift.  As a professional writer, sociologist, and mother, Riva Soucie, she shares her family’s story and experience with the four big questions of Nest-Building.  

Her thoughtful and life-giving reflections on her family’s personal process of Nest-Building will be a delicious summer treat inspiring us all to “weave, adhere, and sculpt” our homes into nests where our little birds thrive.

Please welcome Riva to the Learn Forward community.  Thank you for your ongoing support of Learn Forward by sharing our content far and wide.

I was raised by two loving, broken people who came from broken, burned out homes with hopeless characters where families should have been. My husband’s histories are full of different, but still significant sorrows: unresolved and unrelenting for generations.

When we met, as teenagers in college, we were drawn to each other instantly and eternally. In the years (nearly seventeen) since, we have wondered where that spark originated, and why and how it so quickly grew to a roaring, warming fire. We know now that, in each other, we recognized potential partners in making the homes we wished for as children.

This work, making home, has connected and drawn us together from the moment we met. It is the throughline of our story. Our conversation and contemplation. What gives us hope, how we build momentum. The thing that keeps us up at night, and makes us weep with belly laughter. Our secret experiment, what we put on the line. Our exile. The thing we watch for, copy, model and marvel at when we are with others. What we protect. What we ache for. What we don’t get for free.

When our son was ready to be born, nearly a year and a half ago, our work of making home suddenly took on new meaning and higher stakes.

We had existential questions. How could we help him cherish and make sense of a rich emotional life? Develop a grateful spirit? Believe in joy? And abundance? These and other similar goals charged our activities with the electric energy of exhausted new parents.

We also had practical concerns. For instance, how should we celebrate his milestones and achievements? What about marking birthdays and hosting holiday dinners? Did he need to attend church? Without ‘built-in’ traditions and rituals drawn from extended family and inherited practices, these decisions felt overwhelming.

When we first came across Learn Forward’s online coaching sessions, we had recently brought together all these concerns, and more, into a single, sobering question. Namely, how could we provide for our son something that, for us, is still a work in progress?

We wonder this because, despite our endless love for our precious child and for each other, we still feel as if we are making home in the dark. We’re so grateful for and curious about what may come in our conversations with Learn Forward. We already feel assured us that nest building is an ongoing journey, and that we have everything we need. What a blessing this will be to finally believe.

by

Riva Soucie

Please continue to join us this summer for more inspiring Learn Forward stories of hope from Riva and others!