I am grateful for the sun melting into the ocean on my way home from work, and the red crescent moon dipping into the ocean on our way home from date night.
~30 days of gratitude~ day 17
11/17/23
I am grateful for writing, as a discipline and hobby and obsession. One of the things I like about writing personal narrative is that there are constant opportunities to reanalyze, rethink, reassess what I always thought was true. There is a story I tell myself, and then there is a story beneath that story that I have yet to discover, and when I do finally get at that deeper story, it is always more rewarding. Usually the surface story is something I’ve memorized about my life that feels true enough, and has served me well enough, but the story underneath is truer, and will serve me better. The story underneath is always the one with more layers, more complexity, more nuance, and less duality. There is moral certainty in the top story that I have to give up, though, in order to embrace the truer story.
My son required a neonatal intensive care unit when he was born, and that is where my attention has been during the war between Israel and Hamas: the NICU in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. There is no story I can embrace where 39 babies in critical condition must be used as a shield by either side in a war. There is no justification for infants who require breathing assistance to not be receiving it, for their bundled bodies to be lined up in a row on a bed when they are prone to infections and should be in isolation, when they need warming beds, but the fuel to provide the electricity they require cannot reach their hospital because their “side” might pour it into a tank instead.
I read that 90% of the children in pediatric hospitals in Gaza are experiencing traumatic stress, and 82% of them say they fear imminent death.
I read that parents are writing their children’s names on their bodies—when children’s bodies arrive in the morgue, coroners find the marker writing on their legs and torsos. In some cases this is the only way to identify the bodies.
Women continue to give birth during this conflict, infants are being tended in a neonatal unit where the life support equipment helping children to make it through their first weeks of life has stopped beeping their heart rates, stopped inflating their lungs, stopped warming their tiny bodies. The medicines commonly needed in a NICU like surfactant and caffeine citrate have run out. Because I can remember how it felt to press my face against my son’s sedated body in a NICU cubicle, to wind my arms under and around his tubes and wires to be as close as I could to him, I can recall the comforting sound of beeping, the warmth of the incubator radiating from his body. The story I’ve carried was that I just wanted him out of there, that the NICU was a place of trauma that was keeping us from beginning our mother-son life together. I know that story served me in a way, but I know a truer story now, one in which I feel gratitude for that place and the bridge it provided to help my son make it to the start of that life. I imagine the terror and heartbreak of that comforting beeping going silent, the incubators going cold.
If we give up our moral certainty, can we find an answer that is not anti-Palestinian, nor antisemitic, nor anti-Islam? I do not know what it is, but I believe it precludes the slow sacrifice of babies requiring neonatal intensive care. The solution will not be born from the surface story that has seemed true enough and has served its purpose, but from a truer one that is harder to tell.
~30 days of gratitude~ day 18
11/18/23
I am grateful for a day saturated with writing, reading others’ writing, reading my writing aloud, and hearing others read their writing. And a little lap time with yard kittens.
~30 days of gratitude~ day 19
11/19/23
I am grateful that Rich is at least as invested as me in my gratitude posts, and I cannot go to bed without him reminding me that I haven’t written one yet. Good morning, love, I am grateful for you.
~30 days of gratitude~ day 20
11/20/23
I am feeling grateful for my mom and dad today, and realized I didn’t take any super awesome pictures of them together this summer, so I will remedy that on my next visit. I did take pictures of them separately back in June, Mom and Quinn, heads together as she showed him how to make soap, Dad on the tractor, and there is a snapshot of the two of them blurry and laughing at the dance party following my MFA graduation. I am grateful for the comments on my previous post, appreciating the love between Rich and I, and wondering if we know how lucky we are. I know it is rare, and I do know we are lucky, and I also am lucky to have witnessed another rare pair, all my growing up years.
~30 days of gratitude~ day 21
11/21/23
I am grateful to have finished work with time before sunset at 4:43, for a walk to the water’s edge, and ten minutes of listening to the ocean.
~30 days of gratitude~ day 22
11/22/23
Can you find my husband in this photo? I can, because even though I can’t read the name on his coveralls, his sideburns are unmistakable. I am grateful for him (again, I know, ew, but the 22nd is our day). He does fascinating things at work like suspend a very heavy engine on very short straps and move it from point A to point B inside a fishing boat with zero room to maneuver. Sometimes he welds and fabricates, sometimes he operates a crane, and other times he solves impossible problems like the one in this image. Which I’d like to thank his coworker for taking, because sometimes when he tells me about his day, the stuff is barely believable. For the first few years we were together and someone asked me his occupation I said he allegedly welds, because I hadn’t actually seen him do it. I mean, making things out of metal and fire? But then I did see him do it one time. And it was all true.
there is a whooshing sound that always seems to accompany the passage of the month of may.
i spend my weekdays pouring large volumes of water from one vessel into another, and while that is an oversimplification of what i do for my paycheck, it is how i choose to look at it when i am in good spirits about my employment. somewhere between the zen wisdom of “chop wood, carry water” (read: rich, me), and the taoist concept of wu wei or purposeful non-doing, i am most in the flow when i am doing the least amount of overthinking and pouring the largest volumes of water back and forth.
now that it is june, a photo recap seems in order; a pause to reflect on the poetic beauty of a month heralding the coming of summer. so take off your overthinking caps, and put on your heart-shaped lenses.
white: in may i sprinkled lots of flower seeds (and leftover wedding favor seed bombs) all over the yard like an overgrown fairy. dried poppy seed heads are particularly satisfying magic wands for seed dispersal.
white: snowballs!
pink: speaking of fairies, my dusty rose fairy gown columbine survived a deer eating all but one of its flower buds this spring (exposed as myth: deer don’t like columbine) and put out new buds and flowered beautifully.
pink: i’m not the only one who thinks so. i’ve caught sightings of hummingbirds enjoying the fairy gown flavor, but this is (so far) the only photo i’ve been able to capture.
pink: right after that image was captured, i discovered that hummingbirds also drink from bleeding hearts! i had no idea, and it was so captivating to watch her reach into each of the hearts and drink in the sweetness.
red: the red native columbines have been feeding sweetness to the hummingbirds lately, too, as well as providing a fun snack for the local deer pests.
orange: caledula, its vibrant color a balm for the eyes as much as its medicine heals the body.
yellow: western tanager eyeing up our cherry crop from the top of a locust.
yellow: the blooming of yellow roses reminds me that at this time last year i was trying on my wedding dress that was just arriving in the mail…
…and doing selfie photo shoots for the benefit of bffs and mom while my fiance wasn’t home.
yellow: symbolizing friendship, something i’ve been feeling particularly grateful for lately.
green: following up on her fairy gown/bleeding heart feast, my hummingbird friend sipped from the comfrey flowers for a while. the bees are also quite fond of the comfrey, which have grown up a nice weed barrier zone around two of our apple trees.
green: maple suncatcher kaleidoscope.
green: trout lily seed heads bobbing in the bayou.
green: i brought home a stray strand of shepherd’s purse in my bunch of beets last week from farmer’s market. i have a special place in my heart for this little plant with its heart-shaped seed pods. it aligns perfectly that i was buying beets to juice in order to combat anemia, when a tincture from this little stowaway played a key role in stopping my post-partum hemorrhage. i replanted this one in my garden after snapping this photo. such a trusty botanical friend could never be a weed in my book.
green-blue: violet-green swallows have taken up residence once again in our nesting box.
green-blue: i love their masks. “it’s just that they’re terribly comfortable. i think everyone will be wearing them in the future.”
blue: a house finch has been visiting the forget-me-not patches as they go to seed.
blue: i bet 0% of my readers will be surprised that a “magic fountain” delphinium found me just after my previous rainbow post entitled delphinious.
blue: it has found a home in the blue level of the rainbow terrace garden.
blue: these blue pansy seeds i planted last spring have become a thriving patch of vibrant blue flowers.
blue: this knapweed volunteered in a corner of our yard where my husband has been diligently reclaiming space from overgrown shrubs, ivy, and blackberry. last year it produced one flower, and this year it has several blooms so far.
purple: the resident fairy has been known to wave a columbine wand or two around each fall, and i think my efforts are starting to pay off in the purple columbine patch in our front yard. there is a single (not pictured) and a double ruffled variety whose areas have expanded substantially.
purple: my husband got me a new spray nozzle, and when faced with color choices, he knew just what to choose.
purple: comfrey flower spirals, love.
red violet: the honeysuckle dragons have bloomed this past week! they foretell of a whole season’s worth of sweetness to drink in.
75 years ago, on february 19, 1942, executive order 9066 was signed, enabling the incarceration of japanese americans. our federal government stole 3 years of the lives of over 100,000 people, stole their livelihoods and dignity as well, in many cases. they did this in the name of national security. the rights of these people were suspended based on suspicion, not fact or evidence.
the fact is, that no evidence of spying or sabotage by any japanese americans has ever been discovered.
alternative facts, circa 1942:
“The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third generation Japanese born on American soil, possessed of American citizenship, have become ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted. …It, therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction, are at large today. There are indications that these are organized and ready for concerted action at a favorable opportunity. The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”
— General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command
“A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched—so a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents—grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.”
— Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1942
did you know that nowhere in executive order 9066 did president roosevelt identify the particular americans whose rights would be violated? the order simply circumvented the constitution by establishing a zone from which “any or all” persons could be excluded. i didn’t know that until a few days ago, and the comparison to current events came into sharper focus for me.
(white) Wartime Civil Control Administration workers
because japanese americans looked like the enemy, they were given identification numbers, put on buses, and forced to sleep on straw mattresses in horse stalls. they were not given due process, not charged with crimes, because they hadn’t committed any crime. evacuees built the barbed wire fence intended to contain themselves; forcing prisoners of war to labor is a violation of the geneva convention which states, “No persons may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed.”
prisoners clearing more land to hold more prisoners
in the grip of fear, we lost sight of our values.
george takei, who was five years old when his family was imprisoned, reminds us that, “The stigmatization, separation and labeling of our fellow humans based on race or religion has never led to a more secure world. But it has too often led to one where the most vulnerable pay the highest price.”
i was touched by the photos of japanese prisoners taken by dorothea lange. in the spirit of frederick douglass, i am once again engaging in photo activism, borrowing her amazing work, which as far as i understand, is in the public domain. up until 2006, most of them were hidden away in the national archive, and were only seen for the first time a decade ago.
i was particularly moved by the photos of japanese american farmers who were removed from their land, as a farm kid myself, there are few things that pain me as much as the thought of losing our land. though it was claimed the prisoners would be “given opportunities to continue farming and other callings,” that promise was obviously never going to make up for the loss of land and livelihood, and reminds me a bit of the potted plants i kept on my sidewalk when i lived in the city.
there isn’t (to my knowledge) an official day of remembrance for the japanese internment, but informally, many paused and remembered this past sunday, on the 75th anniversary of executive order 9066. i hope we do not need to commit any more atrocities against people of any race, religion, or ethnicity, because the calendar feels full of heavy, dark remembrances already. may remembering these grim events in our collective past prevent more crimes against humanity from bring committed; may we live based on love instead of fear.
i have been delinquent on posting ~a month of unschool~ for so many months now, that it is time for an update on a whole year! i gave up on the idea of back-dating the posts and decided to do one giant long post of the whole year in the life of one lifelong learner. which also feels like a more fitting title for where we are in life at the moment. i am not threatening to make these posts become an annual thing, i’d rather go back to monthly, now that we’re caught up… so go run to the bathroom and fetch yourself your beverage of choice before you read on, this one is going to take you a few minutes! and as always, thanks for reading. xoxo
june 24- july 23, 2014
~ ols summer program ~ pinata making ~ new owner of a library card ~ game making ~ logic game playing ~ book sewing ~
~big creek park hiking ~ water quality testing ~
~ snake witnessing ~
~ oregon country fair ~ pokemon toting ~ totem ogling ~ beauty absorbing ~ fun having ~
~ snail experiment to test intertidal snails’ tendency to move towards red and away from blue, hence towards “shallow” based on the attenuation of light at depth ~
~ tidepooling ~
~ scientific method! a good experiment is repeatable! repeating the snail experiment with a different batch of intertidal snails, different species from a different beach, but same experimental design ~
~ experimenting with wind energy and how blade configuration affects windmill efficiency ~
~ blueberry picking ~ livestock visiting ~
~ earth dough volcano making ~
~ more snails, this time freshwater snails whose parasites are pretty fun to watch under a microscope ~
~ marine science center fun ~
~ returning the snails to their river home ~
~ reading ~ playing ~ eating ~ yoga-ing ~
july 24-august 23, 2014
~ pancake-ing ~
~ marine discovery touring ~
~ developing a farmer’s market booth (a biweekly tradition observed at ols for practice with currency and entrpreneurship) around trading cards ~
~ camping with family. i love the magical glowing dust motes suggestive of fireflies, and the purposeful walk of the kids ~
~ comic reading, pasta slurping, river romping, adventure plotting ~
~ joy bubbling up at the river’s edge ~
~ tent dwelling, water meditating, karate dancing, tire swinging ~
~ big creek park adventuring ~
~ library summer program fun, including dragon puppet theatre’s 2014 feature “it’s electric!” ~
~ selling his very own homemade pokemon cards at farmer’s market, using magnatiles to display his wares and organize his cash~
~ noodling, sparkling, sprinkling, camping, and generally having fun at squirrel fest ~
~ tie dying ~ peaceful kids power teaming ~
~ eating, tracking down carmen sandiego, breaking into dance moves ~
~ perhaps foreshadowing his future karate self, or maybe air drumming ~
august 24- september 23, 2014
~first day of schooling ~
~ setting up a rock museum ~
~ best friending ~
~ learning through games ~
~ learning through engineering ~
~ learning through time for reflection ~
~ ceramics magic ~
~ biking ~
~ slicing up a fresh batch of pokemon cards to sell ~ reading aloud to younger students ~ figure drawing ~ math gaming ~
~ 3 dimensional geometry using a variety of media ~
september 24 – october 23, 2014
~ a study of optics prompted by a visit to ols by a local eye doctor ~
~ pancaking ~
~ airporting ~ flying ~ cousin reuniting!~
~ happy times in new york ~
~ helping grampy with the tractor ~
~ noodle field hockey at the nature center ~
~ observing lots of nature center beauty and life ~
~ these photos were taken by quinn, as material he planned to use in creating pokemon stadium cards ~
~ shelter building ~
~ demolitioning grampy’s broken wagon ~
~ lounging with grampy ~ mountain coastering with rich ~ perler beading with cousins ~ celebrating with grammy ~
~ apple picking wagon riding ~
~ play time with friends and cousins ~
~ writing ~ practicing with the metric system ~ more work on the eye and optics ~
~ hiking and exploring cape perpetua ~
~ experimenting with color mixing ~ contributing to group art piece gratitude poster made from finger prints ~
~ reading the raven and other books about northwest native american culture ~ creating art in preparation for dia de los muertos ~ visiting a local tribal cultural center ~
~ learning firsthand what it means to be a seal or a sea lion, during a pinniped lesson ~
october 24- november 23, 2014
~ taking lots of walks down our gravel road, often wielding a staff like donatello ~
~ baking pan (bread) for dia de los muertos ~ learning all about the day of the dead traditions and participating in a celebration of it ~
~ writing stories ~ drawing zombies ~
~ making maps of haunted mansions ~ coming up with the idea for his halloween costume from a pokemon card ~
~ making a group totem pole, including his own totem animal, the owl ~
~ delving into dungeons and dragons (seriously academic stuff, folks. lots of great math, storytelling, mapping, creativity!) ~
~ listening to his dad play banjo and guitar at ols ~
~ celebrating birthdays ~
~ studying animal classification ~ solidifying concepts about the 5 groups of vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish) and also being introduced to kingdom-phylum-class-order-family-genus-species ~ playing a scattergories-esque game where you have to name a mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, and fish all starting with the letter chosen (this got all the kids opening up reference books, and i quickly abandoned any time-limits in favor of letting them dive deeper to find more obscure animal names) ~
~ making gratitude trees ~ making games ~ making adventures ~
~ learning about the process of taking wool from sheep to sweater ~ more figure drawing, this time from life ~ reading my old book the little lamb ~
~ taking care of dogs and guinea pigs ~ breakfast with a guinea pig snuggled in your blanket is a great way to start the day ~
november 24 – december 23, 2014
~ making applesauce (which them became fruit leather) using simple machines (apple peeler-corer-slicer and food-mill) ~
~ making pumpkin pie ~ simple machine grinder to crush the ginger cookies for the pie crust ~
~ rolling with the simple machines theme ~ building a rope-making machine from scratch ~ making rope ~
~ sculpting storyteller dolls ~
~ coming up with new pokemon card designs to sell ~ making a set of cards and a special elven rope (very thin, exceptionally strong) using the ols rope making machine, for his dad’s birthday present ~
~ clearing limbs off the road after a storm ~ drawing by flashlight in power outage ~
~ taking care of ruby tuesday ~ listening to stories ~ reading stories ~
~ planting a new tree for the local public library ~
~ celebrating friends’ birthdays. i love his birthday song face ~
~ 3d geometry ceramics project in final form ~
~ caroling at ols, this year’s favorite song was “do you hear what i hear?” ~ decorating our tree ~ making gingerbread houses with friends ~
december 24, 2014 – january 23, 2015
~ celebrating with family ~
~ exploring the arctic ~
~ indulging mama’s photography practice by posing in front of christmas tree lights ~
~ for a while ~
~ super patiently ~
~ worked on a new report topic (started out with dragons but ended up focusing on oregon trail) ~ studied perspective through painting ~ learned how to rock a kilt thanks to an awesome homemade gift ~ visited whale bones ~
~ around this time, quinn made a few quotable statements:
“learning would be so much easier without teachers”
“when ava sat down it looked like a white lily pad!”
noted here so that once the sticky note i jotted them down on gets washed in my jeans pocket only to end up stuck in the lint trap and lost forever, they are somewhere
~ began a month-long pioneers and oregon trail unit ~ making corn husk dolls ~ keeping an oregon trail journal from perspective of a pioneer, including a budget for the supplies they would need for their journey on the oregon trail ~
~ acting out pioneer life in a wagon built from fort magic (what a great learning tool! we used it in many applications throughout the year) ~
~ presenting his research on life on the oregon trail, specializing in the life of pioneer children ~
january 24- february 23, 2015
~ pioneers continued ~
~ slates ~ rules and rulers ~ pioneer lunch (ham, biscuits, jam, cheese, pickles, dried apples, wrapped in cloth or stored in glass jars) ~ nail, ear, neck inspection ~
~ baking biscuits, shaking butter, building a salt dough map of the united states featuring the oregon trail ~
~ building an oregon trail diorama, calculating the number of times a wagon wheel turned depending on how many miles it drove ~
~ celebrated a grand finale *pioneer day* featuring washboards for washing doll clothes, candle making, soap pouring, lunch packed in baskets with no plastic baggies or tupperwares or individually wrapped snacks, and 3-legged races ~
~ research presentation on scorpions ~
~ egg drop engineering ~ spill-and-spell and handwriting practice ~
~ beginning a salmon science unit ~ provided a home for some salmon eggs in a tank on our ols science counter ~ ate snack made with graham crackers, peanut butter, chocolate rocks and blueberries, that looked suspiciously like our tank bottom ~ played return to the redd board game (so much good curriculum on salmon science is available online, the problem was not thinking up curriculum but sifting through all the great stuff already out there!) ~ group art project and puzzle making a large salmon poster from individual coloring sheets ~
~ found our way home using our noses (each stream had its own characteristic essential oil fragrance in a packet clothes-pinned to each fork in the stream; i made the stream finger-knitting while kids were giving their research presentations ~ watched eggs hatch out alevins ~
~ science counter with tank full of eggs, and finished poster ~ we also sculpted and embossed fish in art class, but i didn’t have good pictures to show ~
~ turning 8 at school ~
~ turning 8 on his actual birthday ~
february 24 – march 23, 2015
~ large floor diagram of internal salmon anatomy ~ adding the heart ~ all parts taped on and labeled ~
~ dissection of an adult salmon (provided by fish and wildlife, who had some leftover from a trap survey ~ thousands of eggs! this was a female, and we got to see a male, too ~ one egg ~ the lens removed from the eye ~ (note: a dissection is actually not quinn’s idea of a good time, and he opted to do the virtual dissection and not attend this dissection; i still wanted to record it here, to remember what i taught in science class!)
~ celebrating turning 8 one more time for good measure! dragon party at the dragon house ~ featuring reading of treasure hunt clues and science experimenting with lava lamps, amid all the cupcakes and fun ~
~ pancaking ~
~ climbing ~
~ fraternizing with eagles ~
~ unstructured time playing pokemon in costume in fort magic ~ watercolor and marker on wood veneer ~ reading great books, such as buffalo woman, to himself ~ organizing his pokemon cards in a binder, with a cover he designed and decorated ~
~ sand therapy ~
~ game making lab and library (including all the game pieces you might need for creating your own game- fake money, dice, spinners, timers, mover pieces, letter tiles, and more); students developed their idea for a game, tested it by having other students play it, and then were given a blank game board (thrifted and covered with white paper) and a sharpie to make it a real game ~
~ fry growing rapidly in science counter tank ~ returning carcasses of dissected fish to the stream ~
~ group project: stop-motion animation of the entire life cycle of a salmon ~ man in black currently operating the camera is quinn ~
~ setting up insect prey and making salmon eat them ~
~ the finished film ~
~ returning a week later with our ready-to-release fry, we observed the way the ecosystem was utilizing the salmon carcasses; all but one had been “utilized” completely, and this one remained, covered in snails ~ each student got to release individual fry, carefully netting it and setting it free in the stream, along with a “wish for a fish” for health and survival prospects ~ a fun frog was found on release day as well ~
~ some of the kids named their fish; quinn released swimmy and sammy ~
~ the free fry, swimming in the stream ~
~ his own stop motion studio at home, this time with his birthday lego set of mos eisley cantina ~
~ fully absorbed in the wings of fire series about dragons, by tui sutherland ~ pinewood derby fun ~
~ started karate!!! ~
~ what he looked like in the evening after the first few karate practices ~
march 24- april 23, 2015
~ room makeover ~
~ creating a board game for a best friend birthday present ~ decorating eggs ~
~ diving wholeheartedly into his new passion ~
~ celebrating a friend ~
~ experiencing a watershed model ~
~ exploring book covers as a material for art making ~ contributing to a group art exhibit at the local public library ~
~ pancaking is always so much fun ~
~ dabbling in photography, quinn has recently had very urgent needs to use my camera, and these two are some of his shots ~
~ drumming on a drum set ~ i see more drums in our future ~
~ karate game called “whack the students” for practicing basic blocking set ~ quinn got to go first and not knowing what to expect, the whole group ended up laughing together as he dissolved in giggles ~
~ did you see me? ~
~ brief flashback to another day, another daisy ~
~ earth day writing assignment, inspired by an out-of-print book i came across at omsi years ago, and then bought a copy of, called while a tree was growing ~ quinn’s story from the perspective of the tree he chose to write about ~
april 24- may 23, 2015
~ alternative energy experiments with solar panels and windmills ~
~ an earth-day board game ~ experimenting with wind energy, using it to perform work, such as hauling “kids” (washers) up in an “elevator” (cup) which was great fun ~
~ making their own laptops and ipads, on paper ~
~ sucked into the diary of a wimpy kid vortex ~
~ earned his red tip, and qualified to test for a yellow belt ~
~ yellow belt test success! ~
~ guinea pig research presentation ~
~ practicing coordinate plane with “find the spy” game ~ making a special egg quilt square for teacher k ~ becoming a wizard with a handmade blue-agate topped staff ~
~ visiting tall ships with class and learning about shipping trade and the life of a sailor ~ visiting tall ships with mama and learning about capstans, windlasses, tillers and lines ~
may 24 – june 23, 2015
~ horsing around ~
~ creating our own comic strips ~ singing spanish songs ~ fishing and canoeing ~ reading a ton!~
~ going on “dates” with mama to the food co-op for treats and quiet time after school and before karate and devouring calvin and hobbes ~
~ yellow belting ~
~ learning about babies ~ grating the purple cabbage of science, and using purple cabbage acid/base indicator to test our water supply ph (it’s all good, we don’t have a lot of trouble with acid rain here) ~
~ practicing archery (here only in gesture, but for real at his dad’s house) ~
~ tidepooling and adventuring with friends ~
~ learning the yellow belt curriculum ~
~ sparring ~
~ graduating! the ols kids had a last day of school outing to one of our state parks, and had a wonderful, heartfelt graduation ceremony, involving stuffed bears with graduation caps, tassels with meaningful symbolic charms attached, and diplomas, in addition to some wonderful words spoken by teacher k about her hopes for the kids as they leave ols ~
(condensed and excerpted here, so he can look back on it and remember!)
“Always do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Remember that we are one. Anything you do for another, you do for yourself. And anything you do for yourself, you do for another.
Obey all laws so long as they’re just. Check to see if a rule or law is fair. Ask questions. If you find that a law is fair, then abide by it. If it creates injustice for another person or being or a group of beings, then don’t.
Love, Love, Love, Love. Keep your heart open and your mind sharp. Remember that the best way to conquer an enemy is to become their friend.
Finally, never accept the status quo. If everyone around you says it can’t be done, then ask them to kindly step aside so that you can get it done. If you want to see more love in the world, then be the love.
Remember that each of your lives is essential to our world. Be who you are. Love who you are. Like the many instruments in a symphony, we each play a part. Play yours with all your heart!”
~ seeing the world through rainbow colored glasses ~ here he is looking at his tassel, with its golden key to the world, and musical instrument charm (his was a saxophone) ~
~ earning his first black tip on his yellow belt ~
~ first lesson with nunchaka (“chucks”) which quinn thoroughly enjoyed ~
~ and onward we go, embracing whatever comes around the next bend or over the next bridge, learning all the time! ~
i’m lying with my eyes still closed, most of my head huddled under the covers trying to ward off hypothermia (rich opened windows in the middle of the night without knowing he did so, and also my hair takes 28 hours to dry and i had taken my fortnightly shower just before bed). i am trying to avoid getting up just yet, when i swear i feel a bird land on the piece of my head that is not covered. this is what makes me finally open my eyes, and when i see a bird actually fly across the room away from me, i keep them open, the covers now clutched under my chin, waiting for rich to come back into the room.
“honey? there’s a bird in here. it just landed on my head.”
somehow, in my sleepiness, i have determined that this falls squarely in his department, and with both duty and joviality (“i bet it thought your hair looked like a good nest”), he takes it upon himself to throw the sliding door open wide and usher the bird out. we laugh all day long (off and on, including via text) about how he is really outdoing himself with his wake ups and if monday was this creative, just imagine what tuesday will bring!
my wake up technician
~~~
maybe because we live so rurally, rich and i tend to refer to any trip into town, in each others’ presence, as a date. i like it. you know, we don’t want to let the romance fade just because we are a year and a half into this relationship. some of the dates were what others might think of as dates, like watching shakespeare over dinner and a beer. others are borderline- watching fireworks from a bridge (two nights in a row) or swinging by the new maritime museum after perusing the farmer’s market. others are just plain excuses to be in each other’s presence as mentioned, such as sunday’s date: to buy a newspaper and a new lawnmower blade, and put gas in my car.
~~~
the bird situation sorted, i head for work, where the child i nanny for (k) is finding out what the different textures of wood chips, rocks, sand, pavement and grass feel like under his moccasins, and seeing how much mileage he can get out of the word, “uh-oh.” quinn, meanwhile, is explaining to me the intricate details of how crabbing works, including tides and weather and timing and what comprises a “sunny night”, and seeing how much mileage he can get out of the word “technically.”
last wednesday morning quinn and i went to our living school for the day. he is now welcome as long as i am present, and we plan to go on wednesdays for the summer program, and see what will make sense for fall in terms of how much “enrichment” will feel right. i hesitate to make any pronouncements given that i have seen circumstances change rapidly and dramatically several times before around his schooling and my work life, but i will just say that i feel pretty happy with our current unschooling life and quinn’s world seems pretty enriched. quinn picked out his clothes the night before going to school: orange shorts with orange shirt, and red socks. this is an ewok outfit, one of several. he also quite calmly chose his underwear with luke skywalker and his blue light saber on them, the calm contrasting wildly to the controversy we experienced over them the day before. that day’s ewok outfit, a light colored hawaiian button down shirt with light colored sweatpants, had to be worn without underwear, because the luke skywalker underwear with the blue light saber were not available, and no threats about wearing other dirty pairs of underwear or not going to take care of k with me that day were able to goad me into extracting the special pair of undies from the laundry basket locked in the trunk of my car where it was being held in order to be laundered later that day. assuring him that he could wear them the very next day, just as soon as they were clean again, i allowed him to gradually come up against that disappointment, trying to place fenders in between the hard places so they didn’t hit too awfully hard, but knowing in my mama heart that handling disappointments smoothly is an important life skill, i allowed this one to unfold.
quinn brought with him a drawing he had done the day before to share for show and tell; it was a map of the zoo from the book goodnight gorilla. he explained to the class very thoroughly how he had drawn each animals’ cage, and how the zookeeper’s keys were color-coordinated to open the cage of the same color, and proudly showed the compass rose of his map. he went with the flow of the ritual as it has been established in the school, for how to ask, “does anyone have any questions or comments?” and then how to ask, “does anyone else have show and tell?” and then chose the next child to share. when he fielded questions, he would ask, “what?” instead of naming the individual asking, but that was the only piece of the ritual he needs to work on. mainly what i noticed was that he felt comfortable belonging in this group, even though it was a brand new group for him (a few of the kids are the same, or are children he knows from outside ols, but some were brand new faces for him).
teacher kelly prepared a lesson on independence day for the morning, and later quinn told me that the best part of his day was watching the battle of lexington and the shot heard ‘round the world (a reenactment of it on youtube). she showed the children a parchment replica of the declaration of independence and talked about what the american revolution was fought about. we also watched a reenactment of the ride of paul revere.
while quinn and the other kids were occupied on the play structure outside, i got to chat with kelly about handwriting curriculum, and the importance of correct letter formation. i think i have a better handle on the why behind that now, and the reading i’ve been doing on neuroplasticity makes me think there is something to it, that handwriting practice is not just tedious busywork. i left feeling armed with some new strategies of how to encourage him in beginning his letters from the top (he often starts from the bottom) and then got online and got even more insight from the handwriting without tears website. kelly explained the wet-dry-try method to teach a letter using a small handheld chalkboard, where i would write the letter in chalk, then he would use a small wet sponge to trace it, then a dry cloth to trace it dry, and then “try” it himself with chalk. i appreciate the full sensory approach to handwriting that this curriculum uses.
quinn seemed to be quite comfortable being back in a school setting, and i couldn’t remember if that was how it had been last year. in fact, i think it was more comfortable now, given the way we have spent the past year, including homeschool group and just being a kid in the world growing a year older. he sat on a bench with another boy at lunch, and proceeded to cover his face with berry juice.
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this year on the fourth, i have been feeling the miles that have passed underneath my own moccasins more acutely than in years past. holidays in general seem to call up previous holidays in my mind, along with whatever attachments they bring. this year i sifted through all the fireworks i could remember… the ones where quinn and i went to bed before the fireworks, the ones more recently when he has stayed up to watch them, the ones i watched 14 years ago from the deck of a schooner in the middle of new york harbor, the ones even earlier when i ran track at the empire state games. still farther back, the ones when i was a teenager holding baby cousins in my lap on a dock on a lake in the adirondacks and listening to their cooing voices exclaiming, “ooh, yay!” the ones in 2010 when i declared my independence from oppression. the ones in 2012 when i stood on a bridge with rich and watched fireworks together for the first of what will be many, many times.
the three of us joined our local adopted family for camping over the weekend. i baked my first rhubarb upside down cake in a dutch oven. quinn went with the rest of the gaggle of children to kids’ fishing day at the hatchery and caught his limit (3), two of which were “this big! 17 inches! too big to fit in any of the pans!” he helped tend crawdad traps, got married to snow white (you do a dance and have a hug) and wore a plastic bucket helmet on his head to fight battles all weekend. he was nervous about crawdads pinching his toes, but he still waded in the river and joined the other kids at the swimming hole which one of the uncles helped all the kids “swim” across. quinn’s bride is one of my favorite children, and she is the most warmed up to rich of all the children. she consistently calls him richard even though no one else does. she and rich could be found being “vampires,” both had on sunglasses and were alternately growling and giggling, and then she chased the rest of us with her vampire care bear.
quinn experienced porta potty sensory overload this year, and flatly refused to use it. i insisted he use it exactly two times, the rest could be handled in the great outdoors, but in his effort to avoid using it, he experienced a few close calls. i basically had to inform him that he actually had to go, even though he would insist he didn’t (dancing a jig all the while) and bodily place him inside the john, hold the door open for air, as he tried to decide whether to use his hands to cover his ears or plug his nose. the onslaught of sensory input in there was simply overwhelming, and really, i can’t say i disagree. i had the fun of “playing pioneers” with my friend one morning, washing a few sleeping bags and pajamas in the creek and hanging them to dry in the tree branches.
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sitting around a campfire with my sister-friends is always therapeutic for me, and it also occurs to me that i have grown enough as a person that i may actually have something to offer in friendship. the miles i have walked have not always been easy ones, but i’ve come all this way for good reason. the more i share my story, the more i feel i gain from that sharing, and receive so many gifts in return: gems shared from their lives, and of course, inside jokes about olympic hand holding. each time i try to articulate how it is that i have found a way to open up my heart to love again, i find it opens up even a little bit farther, sometimes so wide that a little bird flies in.
“i am neither christian, nor jewish, nor muslim. doing away with duality, i saw the two worlds as one. i seek One, i know One, i see One, and i call One.”
we interrupt your regularly scheduled ~this moment~ because i can’t narrow it down to one picture and today, i’ve got words. 🙂
one of the things that has come home to me from various angles lately is a need in myself for surrender. it was a topic that stuck out to me in caroline myss’s book anatomy of the spirit where she discussed how the healing work of certain chakras is about surrendering to a higher power. letting go and trusting in a higher power was always a big topic in 12 step circles, and my days spent in al-anon are always going to be powerful influences for me, even though i am not currently engaged in the program. it was one gateway that led me back to focusing on healing myself, rather than continuing to deplete my energy railing against a situation i had no control over. in yoga classes i have absorbed the idea of finding the balance point between strength and surrender in each pose, and as with everything, learning this in my body has really helped me apply the concept in other areas of my life, moreso than learning the concept, you know, conceptually.
i think i somehow confused this form of surrender with the other version: the one with the waving white flag. the one that is more like succumb than surrender. subsiding, slumping, succumbing to an inevitable fate, total loss of control, being taken over by the surrounding chaos. to me, surrender is more of a realization of where myself ends and the rest of the universe begins. a realization of what i can do, a full embracing of doing those things, and a step back from the illusion of control over those other things.
right now, in this moment, i feel as though i am approaching that balance point and starting to understand surrender. i have done a lot of struggling with control, and my relationship with trying to obtain or maintain control. i never understood “letting go” and letting a higher power do things for me, i sort of had a fuzzy understanding that letting go doesn’t mean “do no more leg work”, but that didn’t get me to the point of grasping what it does mean. i still do the leg work. and i still make choices and discern which way to go, based on all the available information. then…
it’s the “then” part i am only just beginning to get. my “equilibrium” state used to be to do leg work, then continue to clench and feel stress and try to hold up the world with the tendons in my neck straining for all they’re worth, on high alert anticipating there being more i need to do, feeling twisted and wrung out by every piece of unsolicited advice and “should” and “have to” that comes my way… but now i do all the leg work and then… i rest. i have done what i could, and now i can be with what is. this is what is. it’s not perfect, it’s not a finished product, it’s just the here and now and the flow. it’s where i’ve arrived, based on where i’ve been and how far i’ve come. there’s no more to do, there is just “be”.
even as i feel i am grasping this concept, it is like water slipping through my fingers to try to articulate. in my tangible world right now, things are changing moment to moment, and each moment has high stress potential. coparent has been irrational and verbally caustic towards me, while remaining a devoted dada to quinn, and the reality of sharing parenting can feel like a cage. a sentence. a collar around my neck that i want to bite and scratch at, in order to get free of it. very difficult decisions are in front of me, some situations that are seemingly impossible to resolve, and the decisions evolve or evaporate or pop up suddenly, with contradicting input coming from every side. well-meaning advice and input can have the effect of adding to the tumult rather than comforting, if i am not centered to begin with, and able to deflect what i don’t need, match up what feels consistent with my beliefs, and keep walking with the knowledge that i’ve got this. if i didn’t know myself very well, i could easily have been swept away or engulfed by all this. and i’ve been, at other times, not very acquainted with myself at all. i’m so grateful that is no longer the case!
it would be easy for someone to succumb in the face of this stuff, rather than surrender. at the end of the day, i cannot get away from what is. i’ll be sharing parenting, and there’s no way around that. i do have all kinds of freedom though. lots and lots and lots of choice, an infinite amount really. it doesn’t mean things will go “my way” and it doesn’t free me of having to deal with a person i find to be very trying. but i can walk through it with integrity, then look back and see myself for who i am, and drink in the truth that everything i need, i have.
surrender is not giving in, and losing oneself. it’s the opposite. it’s being filled right up to the brim.
a friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. a simple, special moment. a moment i want to pause, savor and remember. inspired by soulemama
