I have kept a gratitude journal for much of 2020. It helps me in November, and this year I needed help in all the other months. I was also looking ahead with some awareness that this November might not be my finest hour either, and thought of it as an investment, but it’s not really money in the bank I’m picturing. More like a seed bank, like I was putting away seeds from the flowers I grew this summer, knowing I would need to have the memory of past flowers and the hope of future flowers tucked in a safe place in order to get through the flowerless days. In July I recognized this, and was grateful for, “this garden of gratitude I am growing, one which will be able to be visited in November and harvested from when I may not have enough of what is in season.”
A few of the summer seeds I collected in my bank:
7-12
Hummingbird having a snack of crocosmia while the sprinkler was watering the terrace garden, and then resting on the flower stem to have a little shower before taking off again.
8-27
Pulled over on Otter Crest Loop overlook and took pictures of the beautiful blue ocean, trees, rocks, Queen Anne’s lace. Whales came by to say hello.
9-1
The smell of fifty pounds of beautiful peaches ripening in the kitchen.
9-3
Egrets wading in the bay as we drove the bay road home for date night pizza night. Their reflections in the blue, blue water (so nice and sunny) were just stunning.
9-5
Having enough energy to chop two ziplock bags of peppers for the freezer and can nine pints of fresh chopped heirloom tomatoes in rainbow colors, the urgent care variety I salvaged from the compost bin at market. One green zebra tomato (with one tiny squashed shoulder) the size of my head filled two pints with one more chopped piece leftover… one pink damsel that was about the same size (with one hole poked in it from another stem)! By tomorrow these would have been slumping with mold. Some beautiful vegetables are so vulnerable that it defies all pragmatism to try to bring them home, but I do it anyway, to honor the farming wrought, against all pragmatism, to bring them into being.
9-17
Walk on the beach- a fun egg case, a new nudibranch, and the whole place to myself since I arrived at dawn in the fog. Just what I needed.
Date night. Always.
11-5 today:
Speaking of date night, it is date night once again… modified for the times we inhabit, but we still observe this weekly tradition. I am grateful my love didn’t look at my tenderness, my propensity to fall to pieces, and decide I was too vulnerable, grateful that he defied all pragmatism and brought me home anyway. Grateful for the gratitude seed bank today.
11/6/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 6
I am grateful for the tiny bird that visited my window this morning, when the sun came out (grateful for the sun). I did not think I would get any photos but this little guy really wanted to check out what was going on in our living room, and kept lurking long enough for camera retrieval, and even after Lisa kitty wandered over and settled herself down to watch the nature channel. (The bird did decide to depart when Bart panther-pounced up beside Lisa.)
I am no birder, but my Sibley guide said it might be a Ruby-crowned kinglet. They would like our spruce trees, and would be coming down out of the treetops this time of year to migrate, possibly. When I first saw this bird’s head, I thought it could have bashed its head on the window and been bleeding. No, it was a little more red violet than red, so maybe it had smashed one of my last few raspberries on his head (DIY raspberry beret?) and finally I got a good enough look to realize it was the actual color of the feathers. (Parsimony would have helped me here.)
I later discovered that the scientific name of this little bird is Regulus calendula, and, of course this magical creature would be named after a star and a flower. Not just any star… the first schooner bunk I slept in on my first semester at sea was also named Regulus. And not just any flower… calendula, one of the only things still blooming in my flower pots in November, a botanical healer, an edible salad topping, and of which quinn asked me as a toddler, “are you going to put calend-u-willa on that owie to feel it better?”
Basically, this little bird might as well have started singing to me, “you belong among the wildflowers, you belong on a boat out at sea, far away from your trouble and worry…”
So it was an easy choice today, though happy nacho day to those celebrating (we’re out of avocados, such bad form! We all know I will be grateful for nachos other days this month!)
11/7/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 7
I am grateful that a woman can hold the office of the vice president of this country, and not just in theory anymore, but in reality.
What it’s like for me personally, is I’m just now realizing how much it matters to me. I have been thinking for a while, like since maybe a little over four years ago, of how it matters to little girls everywhere, watching, listening, absorbing, that women be trusted with positions of power, but it hit me tonight that, as Quinn pointed out to me one time, I was once a girl. Tonight, hearing our Vice President-elect say, “I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” was the moment I could no longer hold back tears. The other thing this election outcome is like, for me personally, is like the time when I was leaving an abusive relationship and I was having a panic attack that I had almost forgotten to get some of his tools out of the vehicle we had shared, and my guy friend who was helping me pack my U-haul told me, “MB, someday, someone is going to say nice things to you.”
I’m getting pretty used to the person I’m married to saying nice things to me all the time, I mean it’s pretty relentless, all the nice things he says, and does. Also, when I showed up wildly unprepared for cold rain and gusting wind at farmer’s market today (pretty sure I’m not the only one with some of my ducks not in a row this week), I was so grateful for his XL hooded sweatshirt (and the fishing community who keeps him supplied with F/V swag from all the boats he works so hard to build and repair every day) stowed in the back of the car, which nested nicely atop my size M sweatshirt and kept me warm for the whole day.
I am grateful to be able to look forward to having a president very soon who, when he speaks, will not trigger memories of years of emotional abuse. A nice aside is that the President-elect is the very guy who wrote the legislation that enabled me to get a restraining order when I needed one. America, get ready, because someday soon, someone is going to say nice things to you.
11/8/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 8
I am grateful for the glorious weather today as my honey and I made our annual honey pilgrimage to obtain our four-gallon bucket of gold. I am grateful for the fully stocked chest freezer and pantry heading into the season of slow cookers and staying in. I am grateful for the way the god light was slanting through the conifers in the fog as we drove east, and for the colorful trees painting our journey into a rainbow road trip.
11/9/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 9
Today when I was waiting an extra long time for my grocery order, I was grateful I had brought along my book. I am grateful for the ability to order groceries from home and pick them up outside the store, and for the energetic youth who cheerfully hoisted two cubic yards of potting soil into my trunk, saying he does the same to help his grandmother, who also likes to garden. I’m grateful the store gave me a discount I didn’t ask for, just because I had to wait; I basically got paid to read fifty delicious pages. I am so grateful, in case I haven’t said it yet this year, for good books. Sometimes, they take me right out of myself, and sometimes they pour me right back in. I have leaned on them hard this year for both of these essential services.
11/10/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 10
There are days when writing a gratitude post is like plucking words from the air as easily as picking raspberries off the vines in the vase on my kitchen table. Even though I spent part of my day today studying word-crafting, tonight I am in percolating, not plucking mode.
I do have one gratitude I’ve been tucking away for a day when I was otherwise undecided. I have been having a much easier time waking up in the morning this November, having finally bought myself a full-spectrum light near the end of October. I’ve suspected myself to be a SAD puppy for a lot of years now, so I’m not sure why this took me so long. I’m grateful that when I mentioned it, my husband was also wondering why we didn’t already have one, and happily turned it on for me the first few mornings, during his usual wake-up (yes, I’m a grown-ass woman who has trouble waking up before dawn without help). The thing is, just a week or two in, I’m already awake enough to turn it on for myself, and more importantly, I don’t feel like rotten black death inside for the first hour of the day as my body rejects it’s-still-night-time like a mismatched organ. I don’t know what wizardry this is, but I know this little light is better than any supplement has ever done by me. We call it my sun ball.
When I was buying it Rich supportively said he thought it would help us both, though he felt he may not be as affected by shortening daylight as I am because, he said, “I generate light.” Boy does he ever. (He meant welding but I mean how he lights up my life.)
11/11/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 11
Today I am grateful for and in awe of the connections… the unseen order of things… the cosmic consciousness. This may not make any sense to anyone else, and I’m okay with that. (I’m not taking this class for a grade!) I was told to “just obey it” yesterday when the wrong scene came to my mind during my writing workshop, and I spent ten minutes writing descriptive language about a scene I had no idea was connected to the piece I’m writing. Turns out it was so integrally connected, I spent the next twenty-four hours with wave after wave of profound revelations crashing over me. A significant breakthrough. In the earlier part of the class, when asked to explain why I was the most qualified person to write what I’m writing, I wrote why I’m the expert on mothering my son, including a sentence about the placenta that it still in a ziplock in the back of my freezer. Then today, as I was reading more of my book (my teacher is one of the authors), I came across a passage where she announced to her teen daughter that her placenta is still in the freezer. Shortly afterward, a rainbow came pouring across the page as the low and lazy November sun streamed in through the glass block window.
In other literary news, Rich and I discussed this morning what constitutes a nacho (singular). Grateful for November nacho nights, a pair of placentas, and rainbow connections.
With no great vacation prospects on the horizon, I used some of my paid time off in anticipation of changing contracts by consulting my tide chart. I picked a Monday with a negative tide at 7am, and my husband decided to take that day off, too. Suddenly it was almost like a real vacation!
Though the remainder of our day filled itself with comfortable, uneventful puttering, we headed out the door at 6 AM for the beach. We rounded the first headland shrouded in mist and a bald eagle appeared to emerge from it, perched on a large rock surveying the tidal flats.
We wandered along, closing the distance. The eagle was in no rush, but eventually decided to move north and took flight. We headed north more slowly, picking our way over the slick seaweed rainbow covering the rocky shore.
We climbed up the next headland, hoping to glimpse the eagle once more, and sure enough, it had landed in the lone tree on the next headland farther north, where its mate was also perched. A double date with eagles.
Rich turned out to be a lot more into tidepooling than I had expected, and we covered a lot of area that I don’t always manage to visit during my solo excursions. I think I’ll hang onto this adventure buddy of mine. Later that evening, reflecting on our morning in the revelatory fog, he decided the best word for it was mystical.
The dictionary definition of mystical talks of the contemplation of divine truths that are beyond the intellect, of surrendering to the absolute, which feels right for wandering off into the fog on the edge of everything and communing with eagles. It’s common knowledge to everyone who knows us that Rich and I go to church by walking around in nature. We go to nature to know the unknowable, we breathe in the electric salt air to better connect to the source, we peer into the briny crevices to saturate ourselves in wonder.
Jessie Van Eerden wrote, “The way I see it, a mystic takes a peek at God and then does her best to show the rest of us what she saw. She’ll use image-language, not discourse. Giving an image is the giving of gold, the biggest thing she’s got. Mysticism suggests direct union, divine revelation, taking a stab at the Unknown with images, cryptic or plain, sensible or sensory. A mystic casts out for an image in whatever is at her disposal and within reach like a practiced cook who can concoct a stew from the remaining carrots and a bruised potato, or like a musician improvising with buckets and wooden spoons. She does not circumvent; she hammers a line drive. A mystic is a kid finding kingdom in an ash heap.”
I hung on every word of this definition as I read the essay I am quoting from, then burst out laughing when I got to the kid finding kingdom in an ash heap. It recalls to mind the oft-told tale of my older brother and I spreading the contents of the ash buckets lined up in the cellar way from the wood furnace that heated our home, then padding up to our nine-months-pregnant mother with our sooty 2T clothes in our hands asking for our swimsuits, because, “we made a beach!”
nudibranch sighting 2020; i’ll leave this here beside the naked nudie story…
I may have always had a streak of mysticism, as well as a tendency to seek out the divine on a beach.
Quinn recently attended a six-day online Dinosaur Discoveries camp and at the end earned the “Most Likely to Become Everyone’s Favorite College Professor” award. It launched a great conversation between Quinn and I about how online learning does not necessarily have to mean pushing a bunch of “submit” buttons to enable the instructors to assess his learning accomplishments. The instructors provided materials for him to immerse himself in, trusted that he was absorbing them, and then detected his absorption of said materials through conversations, group discussions, and other contributions (voluntarily written and presented). No grading or testing occurred. And yet, both Quinn and I felt the instructors had somehow managed to glean a lot about who he is as a learner and an individual simply through six days of connecting with him over meaningful curriculum, meaningful because it was chosen intentionally by Quinn. As for the assessment of Quinn’s likelihood of becoming everyone’s favorite college professor, Quinn said, “I think it’s extremely accurate.”
In 2012, I sat down and wrote out my priorities for Quinn’s education, a valuable and worthwhile exercise that received a lot of positive feedback at that time, and that I have returned to at times when I’ve felt a need to check the calibration of my compass concerning Quinn’s education. Each time I’ve returned, I’ve been pleasantly surprised how well that list concerning my going-into-kindergarten five-year-old still fit, say, when he was transitioning from second grade at our living school to third grade in the public school, or when he was moving from there up into the middle school. These transition points pushed me to revisit my priorities for Quinn’s education more than the years in between, but when I did so, I found that what I valued for him at the beginning of his school years are the things I still value, and each time, it has helped me orient my efforts in advocating for his learning needs in each context in ways that aligned with those values.
2020 is a different year in every way, and it is exceptionally different in terms of how education is being and will be carried out. Quinn finished seventh grade pushing buttons on a computer screen, disconnected from his teachers and peers, isolating himself at his dad’s house in the woods. However, for the month it took for the school to transition into distance learning mode, he had a fresh chance to direct his own learning, and it was an oasis between the overscheduled school year to that point, and the button-pushing specter of school on a laptop that limped across the finish line. As we envision what his eighth grade year will be like, his last year before high school, it has been on my mind to revisit the priority list yet again. (Click here to read the original post.) With years of additional insights into how Quinn learns, I decided it would be a good time to do a fresh rewrite, although once again my revisit reconfirmed that everything on the list still resonates for me. The first priority, however, is the one that stopped me in my tracks this time: “Safety- A learning environment where physical safety is a no-brainer.” This cannot possibly be assured this coming school year with any physical presence in the school building. Though the language of that priority once centered around booster seats and sunscreen, the language of school safety has grotesquely mutated into how we can carry out active-shooter drills during a pandemic. Safety will always remain priority number one, and hence, this year will look very different from other recent years while Quinn has attended public school.
Still, I wanted to write this 2020 version from a place of naming what we want to move towards, vs. what we want to move away from. This is how I approached it in 2012 when I was feeling a visceral aversion to Quinn attending public school while he still needed quite a lot of social emotional support a good portion of the time. At that time, I tried to hone in on articulating the goals I have for his learning environment rather than just describing the outcomes I wanted to avoid; instead of focusing on how likely a differently-wired kindergartener is to be misunderstood in public school, I focused on working towards an organic learning environment where choice is central, the whole child is nourished. In 2020 I want to focus less on COVID-19 risk and more on crafting the best learning options for him given the circumstances. Still striving for an organic learning environment where choice is central, the whole person is nourished. The long-term goal is still and always a thriving lifelong learner.
Many things have changed in eight years, but so much has stayed the same. Most of what changed in this list is an organization of the original 12 separate items into 3 categories they seemed to gather into naturally: safety, connection, and self-direction. A disclaimer I would attach to this and all posts of mine: this is a description of my own values and is intended only as a means of articulating them for myself; if they resonate for you, that is a pleasant outcome we can enjoy, and if they do not, feel free not to let them slow you down as you scroll on by.
~Educational Priorities~
As Quinn’s mama my priorities for his educational experience are to surround him with nurturing environments and people and to protect and feed his love of learning. While I do not distinguish between learning and the rest of life, as I believe the two are inextricably linked, I will do my best to list my priorities for how I believe Quinn can best be supported so that he may thrive as a lifelong learner. I believe this will be achieved by prioritizing:
1. Safety
A learning environment where physical safety is a no-brainer. As drastically different as the content of this paragraph may be in 2020 than it was in 2012, the first sentence is the same first sentence. Physical needs must be met before learning needs can be fully realized. At Our Living School, we repeated a mantra concerning safety, “Our bodies are safe, our thoughts are safe, our feelings are safe, our work is safe,” and this is still a useful list.
Physical safety: Quinn’s physical safety is secured in his learning environment to enable him to focus on learning. The physical safety of educators must also be paramount. The presence of my learner in a school is possible only when teacher health and safety, and the health and safety of the families of those teachers, and the health and safety of other students and their families, can be ensured.
Mental safety: Quinn is in an environment where he can express his thoughts freely and knows his learning needs will be respected and supported.
Emotional safety: Quinn is able to feel, express, and care for his feelings.
Work safety: Whether it is what he was building out of blocks at five, or a research project he is getting ready to present at thirteen, the integrity of Quinn’s work will be honored.
2.Connection
I believe that a positive learning environment for Quinn will flourish when it grows from strong roots of connection and belonging. Several of the 2012 priorities focused on specific connections; between student and teacher, parent and teacher, student and peers, student and others of all ages. In 2020 I can see that these one-to-one connections are impossible to extricate from the web of community surrounding a learner, and while these individual bonds may stand out from the web when highlighting learning priorities, they all perform their roles in the best ways when the whole web is strong and stable. Strong connections will help Quinn develop empathy and compassion, and a realistic understanding of others’ realities. They will also help him self-reflect through relationship with others, and to continue to build healthy relationship skills.
Student-teacher connection: A bond between student and teacher ensures priority #1 through open communication and positive regard of one another. From connection flows the sense of nurturing, unconditional positive regard, and feeling of equal dignity that all humans deserve and require in order to do their best learning. I believe safety and equity for all other students is necessary for Quinn to experience the benefits of a connection to any teacher. If he can see that his peers of all identities and abilities are all being treated with that positive regard, then he will be able to trust that lighthouse when its beam is directed towards him.
Student-teacher-parent connection: Open channels of communication among those involved in Quinn’s learning endeavors allow for his strengths and areas needing extra support to be known so that all involved are attuned to his unique learning style. Parental involvement in learning is ongoing and meaningful.
Student-peer connection: The stronger the connections between Quinn and his learning community, the greater sense of belonging he will experience. Quinn feels ownership of his school as a place that is Home to him, with a positive sense of caring for his fellow students, who in turn care for him as part of their community. Values are instilled by the teachers towards this end, and extend outward to include his greater community, in which his school is an active participant. These values of community care are best realized by distance learning in 2020, protecting all learners and teachers, and finding creative ways to still foster belonging. Peer connections may take the form of online paleontology discussions and online D&D gaming sessions this year.
Connection to others of all ages: Quinn is connected with older teens and young adults who have skills he has yet to acquire to look up to, admire, and imitate, and kids who are younger, to keep things infused with imagination and wonder. He has involvement with people of all ages from the surrounding community, because the real world is a place where people of all ages interact, to everyone’s great good fortune. In 2020 we’ll have less in person interaction to be sure, but this will be good to keep in mind as a guiding principle, that while peer interactions are very important to developing teens, interactions with others of all ages matter as well, even if they have to be emails and video calls for a time. Grammy and Grampy, Mario and Luigi, I’m looking at you!
3. Self-Direction (trust)
The rest of the 2012 priorities group themselves comfortably under this heading. In 2012 I wrote about a whole-child approach, an emergent curriculum, a Yes environment with emphasis on play, developing an internal moral compass, and nurturing an intrinsic motivation to learn. In conversation with my teen about what works and does not work about schooling for him, we keep circling back to the need for choice. I want to strive towards a learning situation that prioritizes self-direction for the learner. (The heading contains parenthetical trust, because this path requires a large amount of it on the part of a parent supporting the self-directed learning journey of their youth.)
Whole-child or whole-teen approach: In my worldview, children come into the world as fully intact beings, destined to grow into their innate competence, as well as prosocial beings whose default desire is to cooperate, belong, and get along. Other worldviews exist in which children are born deficient or damaged, needing to be filled with knowledge and morals through a hierarchical top-down approach. My worldview encourages deep trust in the child’s inevitable trajectory towards competence, while the opposing one often requires proof through standardized testing or other means that they have reached competence.
I like a phrase coined by Marji Zintz that says, “attribute to children the best possible motive consistent with the facts.” Giving kids the benefit of the doubt in their intentions and abilities empowers them to grow into their competence.
Whole-child or whole-teen approaches to learning must acknowledge the following: Academics, while held at high priority, do not eclipse other important lessons. Some of the lessons/skills I value most, in no particular order, are:
social/emotional skills
healthy bodies
mindfulness practices
self-confidence
compassion
writing
relationship skills
empathy
communication
movement
sustainability
fine art
creative writing
world culture
cooking
sports
drama
reading
conflict resolution
scientific reasoning
practical life skills (everything from gardening to making things to voting)
being a citizen in a democracy
critical thinking
math
social justice
music
community-mindedness
Many of Quinn’s skills will be honed at home, e.g. woodworking with dada or sewing with mama, and at private (dance/music/art/sports/karate) lessons or through outside-of-school classes, so I apply this concept to Life in General as well as educational goals.)
binary hand-counting in the wilderness
Self-directed learning: I referred to this as emergent curriculum in 2012, while in 2020 the term self-direction feels more resonant for the same set of ideals around choice, maybe because it emphasizes his agency in bringing about what emerges. Quinn is able to learn what he is drawn to, and the purpose of teacher guidance is to help him create meaning for himself about what he learns. He is able to approach each component of academics as he is ready for it, in a way that he can absorb it efficiently because it’s meaningful to him. He has the freedom to opt in or out of lessons he feels compelled or uncompelled by, and there is plenty of enriching material for him to engage with and be challenged. Further, the lessons offered are set at a level that is most likely to compel him, given that they are based on his/the student body’s emerging interests/intrigues/questions/thoughts/votes. He sets his own balance of autonomous learning time to cooperative group learning. Quinn’s preparations for his life/career goals (college, trades, conservatory, world travel or whatever they may be) are in his own hands and he is confident in his ability to craft his own educational curriculum, one that will land him squarely where he desires to be, wearing a set of wings to take him far beyond.
Consent: As mama of a young man, I see it as one of my most important roles in his learning to make sure he is aware and competent around the concept of consent. By honoring Quinn’s integrity, boundaries, and self-direction in his learning, I am modeling consent. If Quinn’s stance on a given subject or learning objective is no, it means no. Often choice is seen as something a teacher “allows” a learner, but that still creates a top-down dynamic which, instead of preserving choices, in fact limits them; if one of the available options is not “no”, the choice is not freely chosen. There is an illusion of choice that is created when someone says, “I will let you choose” but then the power rests with the person “letting,” not with the person doing the choosing. Forcing someone to learn, to press the “submit” button, is one way that consent is overridden in young people routinely, and I strongly suspect it contributes to a culture where consent is undervalued. Where students experience teaching as something to be done to them, they learn not to honor their own signals, but instead become resigned to others’ demands on them. Instead, by being clear on his boundaries, Quinn is learning where he ends and other people begin, and not just knowing about it in theory, but practicing and embodying consent.
Yes Environment: Yes means yes! A Yes Environment means that opportunities, space and materials are available to him whenever he takes initiative to express and explore. When he reveals an interest, the tools and materials he needs to follow that line of inquiry appear in a timely manner so he can continue and take it as far as he wants, until he is satiated. If he is engrossed in dinosaurs today (/this week/this decade), books and activities (games, videos, camps, virtual museum tours, ecology simulations…) show up in following days based on that theme and are strewn in his path for him to gobble up. His teacher’s role is to observe what is sparking his interest and tend the flame, requiring an individualized approach and attentive observation. This is best achieved in small class sizes where curriculum can flex and adapt. Instead of “no” stance on deviations, a “how can we…?” approach is the default. A Yes environment also provides structured and unstructured time and space to play. Play is of extreme importance to learning, and not separate from learning. Play is learning. Beyond K-12, Quinn is encouraged and supported in his life goals and help is always available to guide him in the right direction to meet them.
Internal Moral Compass: Quinn gets to grapple with right and wrong based on his own inner knowing, as he practices and calibrates his internal compass. He receives lots of guidance, information, and suggestions to help him navigate territory that is new for him, but never force, coercion or bribery, rewards or punishments. In areas including but not limited to consent, it is increasingly important for him to make morally right choices when nobody is around to police him or direct him in the right decision. He will do that if he has been exercising this muscle all along and his moral compass is well-calibrated and strong.
Intrinsic Motivation to Learn: His desire to learn comes from within, and that is honored in a way that maintains its integrity within rather than pulling it outside of him and replacing it with an external stimulus. Rewards and punishments are avoided in order to protect this intrinsic motivation to learn. Self-reflection around daily experiences, triumphs and disappointments will hold more meaning than grades, test scores, diagnoses, labels.
It is my belief that by prioritizing these values in Quinn’s education, Quinn will be set up to lead a fulfilling life. He will know himself well, always having been aligned with his own internal motivators, conscience, and self-knowledge. He will have confidence that he can achieve whatever he sets out to do, and will have obtained skills and knowledge that are required for that journey. He will know what it is like to be surrounded by supportive, encouraging people, and will recognize them in society. He will be attracted to workplaces with inclusive atmospheres and friendships featuring positive regard and nurturing. He will be unwilling to tolerate injustice because of his intimate experience of participating in a compassionate, justice-promoting community. He will know how to be respectful as well as to live in a way that inspires respect. He will know how to be flexible, how to think critically and creatively, and how to navigate real world situations because the real world is the place he will always have dwelled. He will be fully competent in making choices, as self-direction has been a key component of his entire educational experience- he will know that life is made up of choices, and he will be empowered to make them. These approaches to Quinn’s education will produce a strong, capable, caring, well-rounded, enthusiastic, empowered, joyful human being.
camp boss verbosity warning: please excuse the verbosity of this end-of-schoolyear/start-of-summer month of lifelong learning and grab a cuppa!
pizza rolls and rubik’s cubes
quinn and i solved his christmas stocking rubik’s cube this month! He is pictured showing the initial progress just after the first step of solving one side (the green one, of course.)
he wants to know more about tides (the math of how they work) and the oxford comma (i gave him the zombie dinosaur spiel but he wants more details).
after a sleepover at aragorn’s house he reported that pizza rolls are yummy. the next time i made pizza for dinner i gave him some dough to work with. we ended up with a few odd attempts and some awesome commentary about pizza blobs, pizza nuggets, and a meatball pizza taco!
he procrastinated on social studies homework- he had to make greek mythology trading cards (rich laughed, “he put that off?”) chalk it up to perfectionism. he wanted to do some seriously intricate drawings, the tradeoff being he handed them in over a week late.
perfectionism likewise struck in his band assignment to record himself playing a few songs for placement next year, but these he managed on time!
middle school band concert! hard to capture great photos of percussionists, as they stand in the back!
we went tidepooling on a drizzly day. he had so much homework that i almost called it off but he expressed really wanting to go. we mostly hiked and didn’t peek into many tidepools. there were lots of seals in the areas we might normally explore further and we didn’t want to disturb them. a baby seal was right in the path to get around the last headland, so we didn’t go any farther. on our way back we found an egg (!) in a tidepool… it was so out of place, it did not immediately compute what it was. both of us had “you find an egg” thoughts like “is it a dragon? a dinosaur? A pokemon?” before returning to reality. it was a seabird egg, but had obviously been laid in the wrong spot or had gotten moved or washed out, so it was in the water, with a little sculpin treading water next to it. The bizarre context stopped us in our tracks and made us think impossible thoughts.
We saw lots of fossils on the beach, and with his upcoming paleontology camp they stood out to me. each time camp dawned on me i would get excited all over again.
Starlight parade
On the way to the parade, it was shouted around the bus “band attention! it is tradition to play living on a prayer when we are halfway there!” thus was bon jovi the 27th singalong of the trip. Most of the singalongs were crazy train, because that was one of their chosen marching songs, and the best thing about singalongs on band trips is that they sing their individual instrument parts.
when the instantly recognizable (or so i thought) intro to dream on started playing and several kids asked, “what song is this?” the other mom sitting kitty-corner from me on the bus exchanged extremely amused glances with me. We had the same reaction about them not knowing jump!
We chaperones marched along with our kids in the Starlight Parade, wearing “i’m with the band” t-shirts. some of the parents had squirt bottles of water with which to hydrate the kids in between songs; the three doctors among the chaperones were especially good at inserting water into kids without making them choke or gag, or soaking their uniforms.
I stuck with photo documenting. i overheard some choice quotes from the crowd of spectators and saw some killer dance moves as the evening light dwindled towards the end of the second mile of marching. The whole experience was magical. As I heard one little girl in the crowd say, “I can feel my heart vibrating!” Indeed.
at the end of the parade quinn was very tired. we got back on the bus and he got out of his uniform top and said, “mama can you hold this because i feel like i want to just drink water, and sleep. sleep while drinking water. yeah.”
And also, this was quinn’s shoe! his band teacher encouraged me to document this to show people why we need fundraising!
on the way home, we took the band to the zoo! quinn loves penguins.
outdoor school
day 1
the sixth grade outdoor school trip started with a climb up the dune at camp kiwanda state park. Highlights from day one included an after dinner beach trip for nature/sensory immersion and some capture the flag; meeting silvana and her mom, the girl quinn brought up in this post whose inspiring mom bonded with me throughout the trip; her story is so relatable, advocating for a differently wired child; also memorable were campfire and s’mores and camp songs!
it is also necessary to mention a boy (not actually) named pippin who is the second example of a new kid at school whom quinn has been the first to befriend this year. Pippin sidled up to me and laid the story of his life right on me at the start of the trip. his mom had died less than a month before. three weeks before, he had started school here, having moved from vegas with his three year old sister to live with his aunt. the day before i met him, he had received his mom’s ashes. “i think i want to get one of those necklaces where you can put some of the ashes in it to always have a part of her to carry with me.” the stories of these kids’ lives crack my heart open.
I told quinn how much i appreciated his way of welcoming newcomers, and quinn went the extra mile with pippin, changing cabins and leaving behind the rest of the fellowship (in sleeping arrangements only, but still) so that pippin would have a friend in his cabin. The teachers seemed to find it helpful that he had connected with an adult who would support him (he and quinn both gravitated to me at meal times) and who was also able to redirect him when necessary (he was frank about his adhd and that he had already gotten to know the principal pretty well in his short time here.) we found out we have martial arts in common and i invited him to come check out our dojo!
day 2
Tie dye art class with our group turned out to be a personality test… quinn needed his own space so no other dye mess got on his fabric, and he wanted to make a perfect spiral but was upset about his folding job, and wanted to make perfect pie slices of each color but he felt he was messing up… many pep talks and he was the last one to unfold his, but he got it done and was happy with the result. pippin was the first one done, all blue, with a few red spots, and he had left a big puddle of dye on the plastic tablecloth.
then our group walked to the lake and fished. a few volunteers who knew fishing were there to help keep lines untangled and reels working properly, and each kid was issued a rod and stood on the edge of the lake and fished. Some kids knew just what to do, like quinn, and others had never fished before. Some required a quick lesson, others an in-depth confidence boost: “you’re doing something that takes ton of coordination and some kids have done before but you’re brand new to it and it’s hard! but ‘we can do hard things’” (glennon doyle’s words came in handy a few times this week.)
Back at the lodge for our next art session, we laid on the floor and made big banners with the sharpies. “outdoor school 2019” block letters got written and filled in with doodles, and kids all added their personal touches. quinn declared “fractals!” and did a bunch of his math doodling in lime green. as most of the kids began to lose interest and wander back outside, quinn and i and the art teacher stayed and kept doodling for a while longer. quinn and i were our normal selves and the art teacher said, “i am really enjoying listening to the conversations you two have.”
while the kids did skit practice with counselors, i had break time… i filled up my coffee cup and i wandered off to one of the camp areas we weren’t using and sat in a pavillion out of the rain and read my book. at one point i laid my head on the book and power napped. in spite of the coffee, i was pooped. The quote at the beginning of the book i brought to read, unsheltered by barbara kingsolver, read:
“after the final no there comes a yes
and on that yes the future world depends.”
~wallace stevens
this spoke to me, echoing how i feel about these 12 year old people as they mature, the unfortunate state of the world they are inheriting, and how they are rising to the occasion against the odds.
At dinner i was again joined by quinn and pippin, who talked my ear off. then ran off. then ran back and checked in. he asked me for a hug and i said of course! motherless boy asking me for a hug. what am i going to do, say no? i don’t have it in me.
after dinner we went back to the campfire pit for skit night. more songs were sung, each of the six cabin groups did their skits, and smores were consumed. i sat with silvana and her mom a few rows behind quinn and friends. (he was with pippin and eomer, goldberry, aragorn and legolas.) one of the songs that was sung all week was boom-chicka-boom (with all the variations “janitor style” broom-sweep-a-mop-a-sweep-a-mop-a-sweep-a-broom… valley girl style, taco bell style, emo style “boom chicka rocka chicka MOM GET OUT OF MY ROOM” which both quinn and silvana thought was HILARIOUS and would look at their respective moms and sing loudly. all through the week, i loved hearing the sound of kid groups marching through the forest echoing repeat-after-me-songs “what can make a hippopotamus smile?”
day 3
there was unstructured time while the counselors had the kids cleaning and packing. quinn and a few of the kids were sitting around playing the one word story game. i went off to my own zone again for a bit with my coffee, as well as a short walk to the beach by myself. as i was walking through nature, i saw a flower i haven’t seen in almost 20 years called a “single delight”. it is tiny and appears to me to be rare (i had no idea it even grew in oregon and only saw it once or twice in olympic national forest) and has a lemon-lime fragrance. it was a lovely surprise to find them all over my own little adopted corner of the camp.
We made one stop on the way home at the tillamook cheese factory for a tour and ice cream. q had cookies and cream. i had hazelnut salted caramel.
starting to feel like summer
weekends… pizza and family movie night… watching the hobbit. filling up his plate with pizza 4 times. We launched our free family boating season on a beautiful sunday, kayaking for an hour.
He worked on his travel hacking assignment; the final 6 week grade was all one project, a “dream trip” itinerary and budget (they had $10k to work with). he had the itinerary roughed out but he needed to put some time in on the budget. all the googling “public transportation in perth australia” and “are there any restaurants on penguin island” and prices of admission on whatever museums and parks he would visit. he did well on his own, pricing out airfares and hotels. the small details bog him down because it feels never ending to him. i sat with him and talked him through some steps when he was really despairing of ever finishing.
Grammy and grampy!
on the last day of school, i picked quinn up at noon and he spent a good part of the afternoon watching pokemon. we started gathering materials for a journal project. i took him to karate that night since his belt test would be the following wednesday.
Grammy and grampy arrived around midnight. The next morning quinn woke up and asked for grammy to come in for his wake up. aw. they were hugging and smiling at each other, so happy to see each other. There was a visible shock reaction at how big he has gotten since last year.
We sat outside any chance we got, quinn played uno with whoever would play (always grampy, sometimes others). Grammy and grampy took walks in the morning together while i went to work to feed fish, and when quinn woke up would hang out with them. some days camp boss and kids came to bounce.
That week q had his first swim lesson. He put his face in the water more for his teacher than he ever has for me in one half hour session. she also saw the challenges he faces, and when we talked afterwards she said, “i really like him. and i think this is exactly what he needs.”
I had to take quinn to karate right after getting back from swim, and he was very put out. His prevailing feelings were, “i just need more down time,” But he also doesn’t want to not do any of the activities. i let him know how hard i had to work to get him exactly 5 lessons scheduled for the ENTIRE summer. once i got my point across i think he calmed down a bit. i can’t expect him to know what it takes for me to arrange these things to enrich his life, unless i explain. So i explained, not to guilt him into feeling grateful, but so he could understand and relax and realize it wouldn’t be every day that he would have swim/karate back to back.
One day camp boss and i packed hot dogs and snacks and all the kids in their swim stuff and we brought chairs and sat by the river in the sun-dappled shade. We enjoyed the relaxing sound of the water and kids splashing in the creek, the sight of kids with caterpillars crawling up their hands, kids throwing rocks in the water, and kids being kids.
Grammy, grampy, rich and i all went to quinn’s belt test. Quinn did very well. He received compliments from multiple people, including sifu in front of the whole group, for how well he did and how much hard work he has been doing. He was again asked to demonstrate techniques and forms the others had forgotten or didn’t know from memory, so he really got to showcase his skills. he was the only one testing who could remember kick set from start to finish and he got to lead them all through it. also he did long 2 form, which is the highest form he has learned, and did it by himself, so he got all his stripes on his belt for forms. he did GREAT for the kicks, and did not flinch! I was so proud! And i think he was even prouder of himself. After the test and pictures, he came right over to grammy and grampy and hugged them both. they were very proud and told him so. then we went home for nachos.
at lunch one day quinn saw grampy spreading liverwurst on his bread and asked, “what’s that?” he wanted to try it and gobbled up a whole sandwich of it. If grampy likes it, it must be good.
dishes washed by quinn
That night we had a very small party in the back yard. Rich had made a nice campfire, so the kids all ate smores.
on Saturday after market, quinn and i painted plywood for the band haunted house fundraiser.
that afternoon all five of us were sitting around the backyard and mom and dad were telling family stories. Quinn got to hear about grampy’s summer trips to his grandpa and grandma’s house (my great grands, quinn’s great great grands! This is the grandma from whom we got our typewriter). He described their house in Gowanda, NY, and its long, narrow yard with vegetable garden, raspberry bushes, and fruit trees, extending “all the way back to the crick.” He told how it was odd to be away from his brother tom, but grandma and grandpa took them for a week each, one at a time.
One time Uncle Tom built himself an airplane, an inventor then and to this day. it was all going great as he ran it off the edge of the hill, until the wings folded up. Dad just laughs when he tells about their childhood… one time tom was trying to get him to play ball (dad was reading his book) and since dad refused, tom put a wasp on him! it stung dad, he chased tom around and then finally decided he’d play ball after all.
Dad remarked that he might have a touch of ADHD in the sense that he cannot Just Sit. He spent his time visiting us in constant engagement, or asleep; he read books, split firewood, went for walks, fixed things, played guitar, did crosswords and sudokus, and instigated philosophical discussions. Thinking of his brother tom, i mused that if the two of them were children now, he’d also likely have a diagnosis; perhaps ADHD or asperger’s. i think it is possible they both fall into the same category as quinn, and their “challenges” are mostly a result of the intensity that goes hand in hand with giftedness. This article about overexcitabilities and the gifted explains the different forms this intensity takes, and it is easy to see how certain intensities can be confused with other types of challenges, a topic covered in depth in the misdiagnosis book i read earlier this year. If i were to make a table for the overexcitabilities (OEs for short) in our family, it might look like this:
Overexcitability
Me
Quinn
Dad
Mom
Intellectual
***
***
***
***
Sensory
***
Emotional
***
***
***
Imaginational
***
Psychomotor
***
***
Or how about:
Overexcitability
Me
Quinn
Dad
Mom
Intellectual
makes grids to understand a topic
studying calculus and the periodic table at 12
writing book on the electoral college
apple variety identification autodidact expert
Sensory
sound, touch, smell, taste
blenders made him cry, toothpaste was too spicy
Emotional
overthinking, perfectionism and existential depression, oh my!
perfectionism; refusal to throw away sentimental objects like dryer lint
my first call when i have something big to process
Imaginational
you find an egg
Psychomotor
gardening when not hauling water or slinging veggies
splits wood for fun
Intellectual OE is not just being a little bit intellectual, it is being intensely insatiable in needing to know every detail about a topic, to always be absorbing information and engaging the brain, to be asking questions, interpreting data, proposing new ideas. This makes for great lifelong learning potential, but also means we handle anything, from a hobby to a diagnosis, like a college course. Likewise, with each of the other OEs, there can be a next-level intensity in some people. There were key imaginational intensity components to some of the difficulties of quinn’s early elementary education, though i would never trade the sparkling magic of his imagination for all the world. Learning about these intensities has helped me understand myself better, for example, how my friend in high school pointed out that I never just felt medium about a song, I either LOVED this song or HATED this song… intensely. It’s not a bad thing, it just is a thing about me, but it can pose challenges if one is too intense for others’ comfort. It also means we have the potential for extra insight and strengths in these areas; emotional intensity, with awareness and seasoning, can go hand in hand with empathy and compassion; my mom was the long-time prayer-chain coordinator at her church, and couldn’t have been more perfect for that (intense) role of receiving the heft of other peoples’ gravest concerns. This handy exercise with the grid also illustrates how, while the rest of us have a grab bag of intensity, Quinn has collected almost the whole panel!
Speaking of really liking songs, through Grandma rew’s sister ida, dad received old 45s from the jukebox in the hotel she ran and was introduced to a wide variety of music. One that he recalled fondly was “highway 101” by the cheers, and he quoted parts of it, and it is of course a funny coincidence because highway 101 runs through our coastal town. And since we live in this fascinating modern age i went ahead and looked it up:
black denim trousers and motorcycle boots by the cheers
All five of us played uno in the backyard that night. It had gotten to be routine for quinn to bring out the cards, fetch the card table out of the shed, set it up, and get grampy to play, but this time he got us all involved, it being his last night before going off to camp.
Quinn spent some of the day packing; he handled it mostly himself (12 really is sublime!). We had gotten him a sun hat, clip on sunglasses, a head lamp, and work gloves, to fill out the list. He counted the exact numbers of undies, socks, shirts and pants the list told him to bring.
Once he was mostly packed, he and i spent some time together while he glued the quotes i had printed for him into his journal. We had done little parts of the journal book making throughout the week. We layered alternating graph and lined pages and sewed them in bundles; i carved four dino skull stamps at his request (t-rex, triceratops, mososaurus and pteranodon), and he stamped them on the cover; we added a green ribbon for a bookmark. My hope is that it inspires him to journal a bit on some of these trips he will be taking, with paleontology camp for starters, and on to italy next spring!
As he glued, he mentioned some anxiety about never having been away from “both parents” for this long. i said i remembered the first time i went to camp i had felt that way and wondered if i would make it or if i would need to come home the first night, but i had stayed and loved it and by the end of the week, didn’t want it to end and couldn’t wait for the next year. i said he would feel that way too, i was sure of it. we talked about each quote and how it applied to his situation. discussing the mark twain quote “you’ll regret more not going” and also how he was like a hobbit was going out his door on an adventure, his anxiety seemed to dissipate pretty quickly.
Grammy and grampy said goodbye to quinn before everyone went to bed, since we’d be leaving before they had to get up in the morning to take him to camp. I know he thoroughly enjoyed having them visit to launch his summer vacation!
Paleontology camp
We woke up early the next morning and took him to camp! Day one of camp was 6-23, the last day about which this lifelong learner post is concerned, so stay tuned for the next post where all the juicy camp details will be posted. Sharing about camp was one of the most effective motivators for catching up on these backlogged posts. this amazing opportunity seemingly manifested itself in quinn’s lifelong learning path because of how perfect it would be for him. several years ago when i signed up for the e-newsletter from the university of oregon’s museum of natural and cultural history, the day camps in natural sciences (including paleontology) never felt practical due to our distance from the museum. I have to applaud their targeted marketing because I have not felt inundated with emails from them, but this winter when the email subject heading read: “you might be interested in: middle school paleontology explorers camp” i thought, “heck yeah i might be interested in that!” (search terms for anyone else interested: sternberg camps, through fort hays state university’s sternberg museum, who partnered with university of oregon for the inaugural oregon camps this year.)
Quinn had to write a letter of intent and request a letter of recommendation from a teacher as part of the application process; the very first of probably many in his lifetime. It turns out that the paleontology explorers: kansas camp has a waiting list each year and is fairly competitive, but as this was the first year of paleontology explorers: oregon, there were six kids who applied, and all got in. you might be hearing more about kansas next year!
The six campers were instantly absorbed into helping their two instructors load gear into their van, with which they would be traveling around oregon to various sites of paleontological interest. Rich and i mingled with some of the other parents discussing all the dinosaur t-shirts our kids had packed. Then the leader of the program spoke to the parents while delegating the van packing to the staff and kids.
he talked about why he started these camps in 2014. he sees mentorship as a huge focus (this was obvious… even in the simple things like the layering of staff – lead instructor, t.a., high school assistant, students… for example, empowering the high school assistant figure out coordinating the middle school kids carrying gear from point a to point b… “got a plan? ok go for it.” he talked about connections and how there is a guy he was a counselor with when he went to camp, who is now the head of paleontology in eastern kansas, and this great connection is part of why this program is successful. It was amazing to think of these camp friendships about to form, and how they can have lifelong impacts (i know this very well as applied to my own life, as i obtained a sister-in-law from summer camp!) i had told quinn that when i went to camp i wrote down each of my new friend’s phone and address to send letters – we didn’t have email or text yet. I encouraged him to do the same (or the modern equivalent) if there was a new friend with whom he wanted to keep in touch.
The Sternberg program is running another first-time trip this year at the high school level; paleontology explorers: Australia. I get chills just thinking of this, as Australia is a place Quinn has always dreamed of going. i asked about the probability of the australia trip happening again in future years he said, “well, i have 3 kids on the wait list for next year already.” i said, “quinn is saving up for it,” and he said, “i now have four kids on the wait list.” Ha! He encouraged him to come to kansas next year, as most of the australia-bound students were repeat students from paleontology: kansas.
he also mentioned his philosophy on outcomes/jobs and how not only is this kind of program good for resume/college application building but also the actual skills they learn on the trip prepare them well- very hands on, it shows them not only the “college professor” option of this line of work, but that there are many other ways to be in the work force besides that – everything from grant writing to lab and field technical work to scientific illustration.
the kids all popped out of their gear organizing and said to each of us, “i was told to come and say goodbye to you. goodbye!” after a quick hug, they all went cheerfully off to camp. it was just awesome to see him blend right in.
rich and i mused on the way home how it’s like hogwarts and camp halfblood becoming reality for him, but in his favorite subject.
over time, i have filled in gaps in my blog, and the final frontier that has been awaiting its day is the time between quinn’s third and fourth birthdays. i established the blog just after he turned 3, but was not posting thorough updates again until just before he turned 4, when i posted the first ~a month of unschool~ post, which technically covers “quinn’s forty-seventh month.”
in the spirit of honoring my story and attending to its integrity as one unbroken line, i have recently revisited that time period in my off-blog archives in an attempt to weave a splice joining the two dangling ends of the line. whereas the age 1 and 2 update posts filled themselves in relatively easily via mostly unedited text grabbed from emails to lau and piles of toddler photos, turning 3 was a time that i could just tell i needed to spend some more time and energy unpacking. i was attempting to define some independence for myself, and my parenting journey was particularly dramatic around that time. turbulence on many levels may be what has kept me from grappling with this chunk of my storyline up until now, but i have been rewarded for summoning the courage. the twinkling sapphires i am unearthing from the larger pockets of darker stuff reveal more wealth than i remembered. i am allowing myself to savor the quickly typed emails and simmer them down into their essence this time around (read: i tried to bridle the verbosity). i allowed myself to write from both perspectives, to acknowledge the time and distance from which i am gazing upon the artifacts, but allowing them to glimmer for themselves as well.
i back-dated each individual post, so they are less likely to turn up in your current blog reader feeds or emails (though if you did catch them, let me know through what venue? i’m curious…). here is a compilation of links to those ten posts comprising the splice in the line, one snapshot and text excerpt per post to hint at what you’ll find there. in case anyone is up for another blog binge-fest!
i feel a deep sigh of relief, gratitude and contentment to have this gap filled.
“three was a time of still needing to figuratively crawl back inside the womb and reconnect with mama regularly, interspersed with bouts of shoving off the mama dock and paddling the canoe of his person purposefully away with equally great frequency and intensity.”
quinn’s thirty-eighth month (march 23, 2010-april 23, 2010) long, long ago, in the great days of the grass sidewalks
“during that trip, quinn just kept walking and walking, an impressive distance for such a small hiker. he was filled to the brim with enthusiasm, fueled by easter eggs and the promise of treasures along every stretch of sand. on one of our beach hikes he told me, ‘those two seagulls are having a bath! i’m amazed by it!'”
“on mother’s day, we cuddled in bed, then after a lazy bagel and granola breakfast we played a game of soccer-on-the-stairs, risking life and limb to toss the ball up and down, quinn at the top, me at the bottom. he would laugh hysterically every time the ball made it past him and hit the washing machine, making a gong sound. an audio recording of his laugh reverberates across the years that have elapsed, reminding me in one more sensory modality of just how much he has grown. his voice plays a deeper music now, and is on the very cusp of plummeting yet another octave, accompanied by the background refrain of time whooshing past.”
“the recollections from this month that don’t read like a report on our saturdays at the farmer’s market, read instead like a menu of the food i prepared from our first csa boxes, our garden, and the wild.”
“this was the month i was establishing this blog, this glass bowl into which i began attempting to place some small portion of the petals as they fell, realizing even then that this, too, is all going to pass away, but knowing that it will always be worthwhile to cup a petal in one’s hand and contemplate it for a time.”
“pancakes from scratch, sweetened with honey and applesauce. (another beginning whose future importance i can now see vividly through the wide-angle lens of time, from this point onward, not only did pancakes earn the favorite breakfast title and become a staple in his diet, but other loved ones have been folded into our lives to whom we refer as pancakes, based on our sunday pancake tradition and their sweetness.)”
“i would find ropes and strings secured to all manner of objects throughout the house. in one image a string was tied to the step stool, with one of his toy boats tied to the other end. as much as i celebrated him becoming himself, i hoped he would remain this tightly secured to me as he grew.”
“storm clouds were gathering in the mama realm as well. the mountain of my ideals promised of a rain shadow, but i was still climbing up the other side where the moisture piled up, sliding back down in each deluge, unable to bridge the disconnect between what i believed i ought to do, and what i was actually doing.”
“dried plant skeletons withered in the fog of the autumn marsh. blackberry vines had turned a deep merlot, surrounded by brown of every shade. there was still so much green, only now with ecru lace (dried angelica) and beaded silk (spiderwebs collecting droplets of fog) woven throughout. the change of season kept me mindful that all things pass, and that winter storms would come and scour the landscape, scrubbing it bare and making space for new growth come spring.”
“by this magical age of three, many of the most quinn-ish aspects of quinn-ness had emerged and i was starting to observe and take notice of them. the blog has been a bit like dumbledore’s pensieve in which i have been able to store memories, and at various times revisit them, swirl them around, and discover connections among the memories and the present days’ events, coming to understand both more fully. i find it incredibly fitting that the memories in the pensieve seem very much alive, as though pulsating with bioluminescence.”
i’ve been thinking about how we can move towards finding connections, instead of focusing on differences. i see the image above and i think idealistically about how the united states would be so cool if we lived up to our image as a place where all are welcome. (i do not know the source of this artwork, and hope the artist does not mind it being shared!)
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
~emma lazarus (the quote associated with the statue of liberty on ellis island, the entry point to our country for my ancestors, all of whom came from europe.)
some would say, “but it’s not that simple. we have to think about national security.”
others would argue, “yes, it really is that simple” to be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. i thoroughly enjoyed reading about the refugees the pope personally rescued from syria here and here. i also love this rainbow-rific image (unknown source) of pope francis, whom i have come to admire for his practical, no-nonsense way of practicing what he preaches. it’s one thing to claim you have no problem with someone of a different religion; it’s another thing to wash that person’s feet.
speaking of rainbow-rific, this is the current boss of our hummingbird feeders, and i think he likes having his picture taken! and clearly, he has found the rainbow connection.
red: i am finally overcoming the inertia of winter and making some real progress on wedding planning! i feel some flat bride posts coming on… because there is some good comedy in taking your own measurements for a wedding dress, let me tell you!
red: a friday lunch for my ten year old young man!
orange: brightly colored driftwood on my lunch break beach run today.
yellow: the daffodils are coming!
green: a new bayou vista opened up by my trail blazing fiance.
blue: blue hair braided with black hair. they found a rainbow connection. (image from reuters)
so i’m puzzling on this, but i think that trying to find a rainbow connection means not defaulting to the scripted polar divisions and not becoming reactive on topics regardless of whether the topic is pokemon go, colin caepernick, the election, or standing rock. this neural groove of either/or is well lubricated, so it’s going to take strong intentions and follow through to avoid slipping into it. what if i could be with each of those topics, without taking a side? without having to justify an opinion?
instead, what if we used a new language? what if we stepped off the continuum of us/them, right/wrong altogether and asked in what ways do we already agree? in what ways can we move forward towards the common goals we have? can we acknowledge how our fears are clouding our solution-finding?
what if we stop seeing causes as mutually exclusive, stop assuming scarcity, and work to achieve both/and? can we both fund the national endowment for the arts, and maintain our military? can we care both for refugees and our homeless veterans? can we help young women and help unborn babies?
i’m pretty sure we can!
blue: sunnier days ahead! welcome signs of spring are all around.
purple: primrose surprises in the front yard!
as i keep seeking the rainbow connection, i keep looking for the silver lining, looking for the ways in which people are being the rainbow, even in the face of some very dark clouds…
like the community of american muslims who raised funds and provided assistance in the restoration of 150 headstones in a jewish cemetary damaged by vandalism.
like the bystander to the hate-motivated shooting of south asian men in kansas who put himself in harm’s way to help.
i think they, too, have found the rainbow connection.
“what’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing and what do we think we might see? someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me!”
a long time ago (2015), in a galaxy far, far away, there was a yoda snowflake.
yes, it all started with a yoda snowflake. that was what possessed me to buy another exact-o knife, even though somewhere in storage, there is already a perfectly serviceable exact-o knife in my possession. even for what could be considered essentials, it is hard to convince me to buy something that i already own a set of in storage. rich had to give me an assignment about long johns one day over christmas break, because thus far into the cold weather months, i had just been carrying on with a single pants layer; the pair of long johns i own are buried deep in a box with all the winter clothes, in a galaxy far, far away, called storage.
unconvinced by my reasoning, he told me i could find time in my busy day to buy myself a pair of long johns. “and get the good ones, not the cheap thin ones.” thank you, honey, for saving me from my frugal self.
i digress. because of storage, and because we had no ornaments, i collected fun free ornament-making ideas earlier in december, and i was excited about star wars snowflakes, and so i overcame my reluctance to buy a tool i already own and got the exact-o knife. i only managed to make the one snowflake, yoda. it was an arduous process, so i laminated that bad boy, and maybe next year i will attempt leia.
meanwhile, my son, game engineer (he named his game engineering firm qaz8quintillion just yesterday; no idea what qaz means, but it sounds like the first syllable in quasi) has taken his game engineering to such a new level that i have started having trouble holding all of the various numbers and quantities and damage points and health points and karma points in my admittedly deficient brain.
game master pajama
another aside: rich laughed and laughed, when my sister-in-law posted a retort about “rew memory” on my bro’s facebook post concerning a time capsule from 22 years ago that he had discovered in the junk drawer. none of us rews could remember anything about it, but apparently he had unearthed it, she said, maybe even within the past year. “good old rew memory” she teased us, for how the same discoveries are novel, over and over again. i think rich felt validated by this aspersion cast upon our collective brains as a family. there are many times he just shakes his head and laughs at my forgetfulness. but, i mean, we’re smart people, everyone forgets things now and then, right?
what was i saying?
oh yeah, so i was trying not to poke my eye out with the pencil while quinn was going back over which ninja weapons each ninja of various expertise could use depending on their belt rank status, and how many times they could attempt to roll the d20 any time they were on the attack, based on which weapon they chose, while i tried not to let static take over my brain as all the rules blurred together on me. (you feel me after reading that run-on sentence, i know you do.) while my son would have been perfectly content to play this game verbally, and hold all the growing and shrinking relevant variables in his considerable noggin, the only things growing and shrinking for me were my dread and my attention span, respectively. i needed a visually appealing, tactile way to keep track of it all.
and then it came to me: sliders.
for every geek attack, there is an equal and opposite geek attack reaction. at least, when i bring my a game to being a mama.
d20, the 20-sided die from d&d, comes in handy for lots of games!
it’s possible, as a mama, to not really actually desire to play ninja wars on graph paper for the entire 72 hours of long weekend, and yet also possible to surrender to the need for connection with my son (who i rarely get to hang out with for 72 consecutive hours anymore), and fully immerse in ninja wars on graph paper for the entire 72 hours. as for me personally, i just needed to put my own spin on it, and get a little crafty so that i could remain awake and static-free.
qaz8quintillion h.q.
i grabbed my exact-o knife, some card stock and a thin sharpie, and started by making a slider for keeping track of my ninja’s health points. (she has princess leia buns: see? my own spin.) something about keeping my hands busy while the game went on… and on… really enhanced my endurance. as usual, this is not a tutorial, i don’t really do tutorials, but i am hoping that the pictures give you a sense of how to make something similar, should the need arise in your household. it’s essentially a piece of paper sliding along another piece of paper, with some way of indicating the value it is keeping track of (in this case, a hole punched in the sliding piece of cardstock).
by the time i finished the first one, i had a sense that we were in this for a very long haul, so then i really let my geek out to run around. we ended up making sliders for keeping track of 4 different ninja’s hp’s, 8 opponents’ hp’s, each ninja and each opponents’ belt rank status, which boss we were fighting, the boss’s hp, karma points, level, and gold coin earnings.
belt color slider; she’s an orange belt!
opponent belt color and hp slider consoles
karma points, level, and gold coin sliders; for some sliding pieces i hole punched and cut 2 slices with the exact-o, and for others like the yin-yang symbol, i taped an additional strip of card stock to the back.
like a boss; a side note: this game is heavily inspired by ninja warz 2, a game i’ve never played and that quinn saw his friend playing online. quinn is not allowed to play this game online, as the site requires an account owner to be age 13 or older. we’re talking a lot these days about ethics and honesty and integrity in online choices.
it wasn’t until after i got fully involved that we worked out some actual rules and ways of making the game really a game that someone could walk up and play, even if they didn’t happen to be quinn. since he had already applied hp as a quantity to determine who would win each battle, we used the multi-sided dice from d & d and came up with a points system, also based on belt status, weapon choice, and so on. ultimately, we spent the whole weekend doing arithmetic and rounding out loud with each other: “14 plus 8, that’s 22, plus 7, that’s 29, plus 6 is 35, now roll the d10 mama, ok plus 4 is 39… that rounds up to 40 damage!”
we get a lot of mileage out of those dice, such as when quinn decided to bust out his oregon trail journal from last year at ols, and begin writing in it again. we made a list of 20 events that could happen on any given day that he has to incorporate into his story writing, just to add that element of chance that one would experience out on the trail. broken axles, backtracking, weather, health, and hunting bison. river crossings aren’t on the list, because he’s actually attempting to write over a realistic number of days, and traveling a realistic number of miles per day while following a map, so rivers will come along in the story according to geography. this is all just part of my plot to help quinn bloom as a writer, of course.
but maybe that’s the subject of another make like a geek moment. until next time… embrace your inner geek!
custody mediation is a roller coaster ride. focusing on one of the peaks of the experience, i had the opportunity to spend time writing up my priorities for quinn’s education, and i find that i continue to think about it and tweak it even though the decision has been made and quinn is, for reals, going to attend our living school (insert excited jumping up and down mama emoticon). i am glad to have had the motivation to articulate these thoughts that represent many years of contemplation, research and reflection. when i shared my list with my mom, she expressed that as a former public school teacher, this is what she and every other teacher she knew would want for children, if only they could accomplish it in that setting. to say the least, a grammy emoticon is also jumping up and down in excitement about her grandson attending our living school. and it got me thinking that i should post my educational priority manifesto publicly, and hope that in some small way, via ripple effect it influences someone in some way until someday our public schools provide this kind of educational experience for our children. feel free to distribute wildly. this thing is so going to go viral and change the world. ;))
My priorities as Quinn’s mama for his educational experience focus on surrounding him with nurturing environments and people and preserving his love of learning. While I do not distinguish between learning and the rest of life, as I believe the two are inextricably linked, I will do my best to list my priorities for how I believe Quinn can best be supported so that he may thrive as a life long learner. I believe this will be achieved by prioritizing:
1. Safety- A learning environment where physical safety is a no-brainer. First aid, booster seats, sunscreen, and other reasonable precautions are all taken as a matter of course, and all caretakers are attuned to his (and all childrens’) safety as the utmost priority.
2. Connection Between Student and Teacher- A bond between student and teacher that ensures priority #1 through open communication and positive regard of one another. Quinn’s teacher is someone he knows he can confide in immediately if he ever felt unsafe, and count on to immediately provide safety. In addition to how connection enhances safety, it also promotes an enriching educational experience, because of the comfort in which he can learn. From connection flows the sense of nurturing, unconditional positive regard, and feeling of equal dignity that all humans deserve and require in order to do their best learning.
3. Connection Between Teacher and Parents- Rapport among teachers, student and parents will allow for real, tangible assessments based on the individual student. Teacher observations are translated to parents in detail through open channels of communication. Daily experiences, triumphs and disappointments that Quinn has, rather than letter grades and test scores, (or worse: diagnoses and labels) are emphasized. Connection allows for his strengths and areas needing extra support to be known to all involved, because his teacher is attuned to his unique learning styles and pays attention to his experiences. Parental involvement at school is frequent and meaningful.
4. Sense of Belonging- Quinn feels ownership of his school as a place that is Home to him, with a positive sense of caring for his fellow students, who in turn care for him as part of their community. Values are instilled by the teacher towards this end, and extend outward to include his greater community, in which his school is an active participant.
5. Whole-Child Approach- A worldview that sees children as intact beings who are destined to grow into their innate competence (given their basic needs are provided for), as well as prosocial beings whose desire by default is to cooperate, belong, and get along. This can be expressed as giving kids the benefit of the doubt in their intentions and abilities. The opposing worldview is one in which children are deficient and need to be filled up with knowledge and morals through a hierarchical framework that places them below their teachers and other adults, and re-shaped into good human beings, and must prove through standardized testing that they have reached competence.
6. Emergent/Constructivist Curriculum- Choice is very important to a successful education. Quinn is able to learn what he is drawn to, with teacher guidance to help him create meaning for himself about what he learns. He is able to approach each component of academics as he is ready for and drawn to it, in a way that he can absorb it efficiently because it’s meaningful to him. He has the freedom to opt in or out of lessons he feels compelled or uncompelled by, and there is plenty of enriching material for him to engage in and be challenged by. Further, the lessons offered are set at a level that is most likely to compel him, given that they are based on his/the student body’s emerging interests/intrigues/questions/thoughts/votes. He sets his own balance of autonomous learning time to cooperative group learning time. Extending this to middle and high school years, Quinn’s preparation for his life/career goals (college, trades, conservatory, world travel or whatever they may be) is in his own hands and he is confident in his ability to craft his own educational curriculum, one that will land him squarely where he desires to be, wearing a set of wings to take him far beyond.
7. A Yes Environment- Opportunities, space and materials are available to him whenever he takes initiative to express and explore. When he reveals an interest, the tools and materials he needs to follow that thread appear in a timely manner so he can continue and take it as far as he wants, until he is satiated. If he is engrossed in dinosaurs today… books and activities show up in following days based on that theme and are strewn in his path for him to gobble up. His teacher’s role is to observe what is sparking his interest and tend the flame- requiring an individualized approach, attentive observation, and one-on-one time with each student. In turn, this requires small class size and ability to steer curriculum to tailor to the students at hand. Also required are outlets for fine art, drama, choral/instrumental music, dance, creative writing, world culture, cooking, sports, etc. (When I refer to a Yes Environment, this is one of the things I find it hard to extract from Life and label it School: Many of the interests Quinn will develop will be honed at home, e.g. woodworking with dada or sewing with mama, and at private (dance/music/art/sports) lessons or through outside-of-school classes, so I apply this concept to Life in General as well as educational goals.) Again, extending to his life goals beyond K-12, Quinn is encouraged and supported in his goals and help is always available to guide him in the right direction to meet them.
8. Developing His Own Internal Moral Compass- Rather than responding to external triggers like “do I get a sticker for sharing,” or “do I lose a sticker if I talk in the line,” Quinn gets to grapple with right and wrong based on his own inner knowing, as he practices and calibrates his internal compass. He receives lots of guidance and suggestions to help him navigate territory that is new for him, but never force, coercion or bribery, rewards or punishments.
9. Steering Clear of Rewards/Punishments With Respect to Learning- Rewards and punishments are avoided in order to protect his intrinsic motivation to learn. His desire to learn comes from within, and that is honored in a way that maintains its integrity within rather than pulling it outside of him and replacing it with an external stimulus. My belief is that rewards and punishments backfire in the longer term when used as extrinsic motivators for learning academic subjects.
10. Play- Time and space to be a kid, with both structured and unstructured time to play. Play is of extreme importance to learning, and again, not separate from learning. Play is learning.
11. Academics, while held at high priority, do not eclipse other important lessons. Some of the lessons/skills I value most, in no particular order, are:
social/emotional skills
healthy bodies
mindfulness practices
self esteem
compassion
writing
good relationships
empathy
communication
movement
sustainability
arts
reading
conflict resolution
scientific reasoning
practical life skills (everything from gardening to making things to voting)
being a citizen in a democracy
critical thinking
math
social justice
music
community-mindedness
12. Age integration- Kids who are older to look up to, admire, imitate, (who have skills he has yet to acquire), and kids who are younger, to keep things infused with imagination and wonder. involvement of people of all ages from the surrounding community, because the real world is a place where people of all ages interact, to everyone’s great good fortune.
It is my belief that by prioritizing these values and qualities in Quinn’s education, Quinn will be set up to lead a fulfilling life. He will know himself well, never having been divorced from his own internal motivators, conscience, or self-knowledge. He will have confidence that he can achieve whatever he sets out to do, and will have obtained skills and knowledge that are required for that journey. He will know what it is like to be surrounded by supportive, encouraging people, and will recognize them in society. he will be attracted to workplaces with similar atmospheres and friendships featuring positive regard and nurturing. He will be unwilling to tolerate injustice because of his intimate experience of participating in a compassionate, justice-promoting community. He will know how to be respectful as well as to live in a way that inspires respect. He will know how to be flexible, how to think critically and creatively, and how to navigate real world situations because the real world is the place he will always have dwelled. He will be fully competent in making choices, as choice has been a key component of his entire educational experience- he will know that life is made up of choices, and he will be empowered to make them, to lead where others might defer to someone else, or wallow in indecisiveness and let decisions be made by default rather than empowerment. These approaches to Quinn’s education will produce a strong, capable, caring, well-rounded, enthusiastic, empowered, joyful human being.
the day i brought quinn home after our 3 weeks and a day apart, we happened upon our local elk herd, grazing peacefully beside the road. this has happened to us about 20 times in the past 3 months, as well as everyone else with the same commute, so that doesn’t necessarily mean we have elk medicine, right? yet somehow all those mamas and their gangly teenagers and young children and pregnant friends felt like kindreds to me that day more than any other. yesterday we caught them as they were crossing the road and got to see the whole herd up close again, watching us as intently as we were observing them, and as usual a little voice in the backseat greeted them, “good morning, spirit helpers!”
as with all borrowed spiritual ideas, “spirit helpers” has been a concept we have had to try on, and break in, and feel our way through understanding and applying it to our own lives, or choosing not to, if it didn’t fit. it turns out, it does fit. and i know there are folks who think borrowing from native traditions is a no-no, but i am this way with my whole spiritual path. very little of it is my own original thought. after all, religion, as joseph campbell pointed out, is about “linking back” or connecting ourselves back to something bigger, something before (campbell used the latin religio to define it thus). and so for my own personal journey, i feel like borrowing and trying on is ok. it is the only means i have of making a connection back to so many of the world’s spiritual ideas, but i want to embrace whatever tools and concepts can enrich or lives, whether or not i was born with some sort of entitlement to them. (does anyone really have a claim on the natural world, the source of all of these spirit helpers, anyway?)
so what is an elk spirit helper all about? i like to think of spirit helpers as friends on the journey who remind us of who we are and why we’re here, to help remind us of traits we strive for, and help us celebrate ones we already embody. watching this herd of mother elk banded together, i am brought right back to here and now, where i am doing the hard work of mothering in the face of many threats, but not alone- i have many other mamas on my side. for the elk, spring is birthing time, and the elk mamas support each other, just as we might bring a pot of salmon chowder over to our human friend who has just given birth. mothering, at its best, is non competitive. it’s a cooperative effort- it takes a village, a community of friends, reminding each others’ children to speak with kindness towards their mama, or take their muddy boots off when they come inside the house. our children thrive from hearing from the chorus of women’s’ voices rather than one lone mama singing solo. and we mamas, we elk women, are a force to be reckoned with when threatened. don’t let our peaceful grazing and child rearing fool you. there is incredible strength, stamina and nobility behind all that soft, fleshy, motherness. we mamas got each others’ backs.
we’re also tapped into the spirit realm. though the bull elk are the ones with the big antlers, the mamas are also sensitive to the energy out there, able to pick it up on our receivers, though they might not be as big or obvious. there is nothing like a mama’s intuition to guide her through the tough times.
good afternoon, spirit helpers (hawk)
driving along the willamette valley to get to and from track meets, i have been spotting hawks like crazy by the sides of the road. i’ve always had a pretty good eye for wildlife, but with the hawks it has gotten kind of disproportionate, to the point where they are blatantly obvious to me, even though no one else in the car, even self-proclaimed hawk people, are missing some of them. as though they are there just for me. which they just might be… there has been a huge focusing of the collective consciousness around quinn and my coparenting/custody situation in the past few months, taking many forms such as prayer of all varieties. over a span of years i have been attempting to sift through the aspects of christianity (the religious tradition that i was born into) that work for me, vs those that do not, in an honest attempt to not throw out the baby with the bathwater. my own spirituality is its own unique blend of things that work for me, collected from everywhere and from within my own self (and i would submit that for all of us this is true…). while rejecting the whole of christianity (baby and bathwater) felt right for a time, i am no longer in that place (for me, there’s still lots and lots of bathwater. i am still in that place). i gotta say, some christians take prayer seriously, folks. and i like that about them. i like prayer. it has taken me a long time to arrive at a place where i can say that, but here i am. whether you are sending it out through a smoke ring released from a sacred pipe, or kneeling at an altar, or simply focusing your consciousness while you’re doing whatever you’re doing, i have come to the conclusion for myself that prayer is a powerful act. when all those people all around the country (christian, buddhist, pagan, and too many others to be named) all pray with one purpose in mind, it is a pretty profound thing. and sometimes the answers we receive come in the form of fleets of hawks, their sheer numbers overwhelming us with the power of it all. they circle around the sky, carrying prayers upward and outward and cycling back again with the comforting message that i am not alone in all of this.
hawks have keen long range vision and they soar above it all, or perch high above in a tall tree, soaking in the big picture perspective. insights flow so much more freely from that vantage point. and while it’s no good to always be zoomed way out in a wide-angle view like that- there are plenty of little details that require a mama to zoom in on them each day- the ability to take a step back from a particular event or emotion or reaction is often quite quite useful. thank you for that wisdom, hawk.
sometimes taking the long view of things means we put our reactiveness on hold while we prioritize the more important lesson to our children. rather than telling my son what i think about something his dad has said to him about me, and making sure to point out his wrong and making sure to get my side of the story in edgewise, the lesson i am really trying to impart here is think for yourself. not listen to dad, nor listen to me, just… listen to you. please, my son, never lose track of the you in there, the person inside, your compass bearing of true north can never come from any of us, even if we are your parents. you are the guy who has got to find truth for you. hawk helps me to hold onto that larger need, that overarching goal for my son, and let go of the pettiness and the need to vilify my coparent or boost myself up in my son’s eyes.
just as elk share safety in numbers, hawk is independent, hawk’s insights are its own. although hawk is soaring above it all, she trusts her intuition and before looking outward, seeks her own answers from within. soaring full circle, spiralling inward, outward, upward.
good evening, spirit helpers (owl)
as hawk is to daytime, owl is to the darkness. owl sees in ways that other beings cannot, through the black night. owl is still a mysterious spirit helper to me, though i have been aware of it as part of my make-up for a while now. owl is stealth, flying on silent wings, going silently and subtly. without a fuss, without reactiveness. coming home a couple weeks ago after dark, an owl swooped low directly along the center line of my car, scaring me “half to death” (interesting how owl is the totem associated with death), and flashing a blaze of feathers at my windshield before veering off just as suddenly into the dark void. (i’m scratching my head as to why i am driving every time i encounter my friends lately- obviously i am driving too much!) my sleeping son in the backseat did not get to say good evening to this spirit helper, but i have been aware of owl ever so much more in my life since quinn came into it (if a mama can presume to be aware of her child’s spirit helpers). thinking of the death aspect of owl can be especially scary given that owl flies close to my son, but as with every aspect of spirit helpers, there is a flip side to each trait. owl also reigns over rebirth, renewal, healing. there is deep healing in owl’s silent wings. and nothing else about mothering has been more central to the experience than how closely birth and death are intermingled, starting from day one when my son was whisked into a nicu ward. being a mama is being given a gift so huge, and yet being vulnerable to lose in ways that devastate beyond comprehension. the magic of the owl’s realm of night time remains a mystery to me, in spite of having owl for a friend.
as a mama there are so many thoughts (like ones about mortality) running around like squirrels and being generally unhelpful. it’s a good thing i have owl on the path with me to keep down the squirrel population in my head… 😉
i’m back! i finally stopped feeling like i was rocking about three days after i got home. today is my first day really back online, though i arrived at the dock a full week ago.
i’ve spent a whole week just simply being with quinn and reconnecting…
in the form of beach romps, strawberry picking
snuggling and napping with this lump of sugar
a special sushi date to hear his dada play guitar with an awesome local band
and many hours spent admiring our gardening projects, of course (i think we planted these potatoes roughly 5 minutes before i left for sea).
it’s been nice to ever so s – l – o – w – l – y reconnect! (and we’re looking forward to copious days off from work in the next few months to continue the process!) i’ll be slowly gathering photos and stories and deep thoughts to share about my trip, but i’m not in a big rush (and have film pictures that didn’t make it into digital format yet.) i know, i’m tired of hearing me say that, too, but i tried out some digital cameras on board and was delighted to find 1) that some of them fit my lenses and 2) that they don’t always have a delay anymore! not that i should spend all my sea pay on a camera or anything… but stranger things have happened. i will just say that everything went so so so well, better than i could have imagined, and the trip was amazing. stay tuned.
