How to get where you want to be...or the reality of the immediate needs versus the eventual goal

"House!" he said as he dumped the bin of blocks onto the floor.

For a long time now I have had goals for what I want my life to be like. I want to have the ability to choose for Alder the best educational setting that I can, and that I want to raise him consciously and full of creativity and passion. Ideal I would love to stay home with him a lot and work some as a writer. Of course that isn't our reality right now. The economy is effecting how many clients Kevin is seeing and it just isn't enough. Since we moved I have been working part time doing high end retail at a natural parenting store (read cloth diapers organic clothing, baby slings breast pumps and the like). It is a job I have a hard time with, I love helping new parents to choose the right diaper set up or baby sling but I have a hard time with the need for $60 children's hat or $18 a pair underwear. But it was a job that I got quickly and I love all the people I work with.

But our bills (which are not very much to begin with) are out of our reach still. A few nights ago I couldn't sleep and I went looking on-line for a new job when I found one that looks like I would be a good match for, it pays better and it is still only twent hours a week. But the best thing about the job is that it is one where I would be helping people reenter the work force. Teaching them to write resumes, do interviews, help them with employment skills. It would be making a difference in a real way. So once again I am rewriting my resume and fiddling with words to make me seem like the right person for this job.

I haven't even gotten the job and I feel bad. I am not ready to send Alder off for childcare yet, not as much as this job would require. I am guilty of being a dreamer about how our life should be but don't want to go through the in between stage of working other jobs while working towards becoming a better paid writer and while Kevin builds a consistant client base but we have to.

I'll admit I have a lot of envy for the lives of many of the women whose blogs I read, I want the house, the calm life, the ability to choose what I do with my time. But this envy isn't a negative it has helped me to clarify my goals and makes me realize that to end up living this life I aspire to I must be active in creating it. So I start slowly, I write article topics, I design cards, I look for work, I build toys for my son, I take him to to the woods alone and with friends, and I find joy with the new and deep connections that I am making with my family. But it doesn't mean that I don't stare longinly at the crisp photos taken with better cameras or wonder what it would be like to live in a space wholly our own.

These are only examples the reality is much more complex because there is an outside world impossing itself on me and there is a husband who doesn't always agree with me and there are days where I much rather look at blogs of other people's life than live my own.

Guns guns and more guns and a few crummy plastic swords too

I'm having to processing something I experienced the other night. We went to a Halloween party at a co-workers house last Saturday night. The first thing I noticed that Alder was the only child in a home-made costume. All the boys were Power Rangers, Star Wars characters or other "soldier" story characters (although there was one vampire) and all the girls were princesses (and on Pokemon). But the costumes we the supermarket sort and they all really looked the same, polyester one piece suits with a big gaping hole at the back and some indeterminate symbols on the front. I didn't think too much about it because I know not everyone sews or has the time to make a costume.

So we're there, all of us feeling somewhat uncomfortable. Everyone seems to know everyone else and we literally know one person. Not to mention the fact that I don't really like parties where everyone is crammed into a house and there is loud music. So I sort of hover in the kitchen talking with my friend and trying to help with setup. After a half hour I realize that Alder still hasn't left my side (A is usually searching out the other kids, even if it's to just watch them).

So I decide to walk him back to the kids room to show him where they are playing, and to give him a little space. I was not expecting what I would find in this sweet four year old's room. Guns, lots of toy guns, sixteen toy guns to be exact and an additional nine toy swords and knives of all varieties. I was speechless. The kids, even some younger than Alder, were collecting them in piles and shooting them at each other, in each others faces and sticking them in the faces of adults and pretending to threaten them. And no one seemed to care. Luckily Alder is my son and just the noise from the room was too much for him so he followed me back out to the living room.

Now I understand that I live in a bit of a "crunchy" public radio no TV bubble, but I was a public school teacher for five years and I can not remember ever this much focusing on guns. To be honest it really disturbed me. I know that it was a hyped on sugar get together but still it seemed so unchecked.

I should explain that it isn't as if I have a hate of guns, certainly not those used by hunters, in fact I spent many winters in Durango eating the elk, pheasant, venison and turkey that my friends would kill. I can even say one of my favorite toys as a child was a toy gun that my father and I made together that shot little pieces of cardboard. But in all these situations there was a great deal of understanding of what guns were for and the real effects that they can have.

The father of the boy whose room this was is a hunter, in fact he had just shot a bear that day. I thought that if anyone hunters are the ones who try to have their children understand guns and safety the best, because there are real guns around, but it seems as though it isn't always that way.

Besides the fact that they were guns I was also shocked by the quantity of them. Just the idea that a four year old had sixteen of anyone thing is sad to me. Especially when they are all disposable and pretty much interchangeable, why so many?

What does all of this means in relation to how I want to bring up Alder?

Violence is not okay, ever. Not for Alder while he is still young and forming his early sense of self. I know eventually weapons will make there way into his play, whether is pretending to be a medieval knight or a Greek soldier violence will enter the picture. But I would like for it to be introduced within the frame work of a story, one whose meaning goes beyond the fight. But these are not stories that he needs to hear for another four years, at least. Until then I am absolute in my feelings about violence and the associated play. If this means that I may shield my son from certain cartoons or other media (hey we already don't watch TV except fpr movies) I have absolutely no problem with that.

Of course no answer can ever be that simple. Alder already is growing up in house with weapons in it. Kevin practices martial arts and uses swords, staffs and kuan-daos as part of his practice. But Kevin frames it as an art form, sure he can protect himself as need be but he has never deliberately gotten into a fight. Alder may end up learning to use a sword in one of the sets that Kevin does which have more in common with ballet than with fighting (something he pointed out to me). To me this is a good thing, I think that if he learns about weapons first with respect he will be more apt to make better judgments later on.

Of course all of this means that Kevin and I have had to make some choices in our movie watching habits because we like to watch action movies. I can still recite Raiders of the Ark and James Bond (Sean Connery Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan only please) is in regular rotation in my favorites list. But now they are left for later evening viewing.

When Alder is all grown up I'll be able to see whether any of this has an affect, but I'm not going to let it slide just because there isn't a lot of evidence one way or the other (according to one GAO study I read).

How do you approach things like this in your families?

Lots of Firsts

(Coffee alone at Amy's after dropping Alder off for the first time)

We've been having a lot of firsts this past week, especially for Alder. Last Friday was his first day at Beyond Childcare, where he will be spending a very long Friday. His first day at "school "went well, he is such an easy kid. I am conflicted about sending him at all but we can't get around it with our schedules. At least Beyond is more a home than a school and it as if he just joins their family for the day.

Then yesterday we went to our first Kinder Circle at the Circle School. We spent four hours with a lot of kids and parents singing songs, going on a walk, eating delicious food, and playing. Alder was hesitant at first, although he knew a few of the children. But by the end of the morning he was piled in with all the other children. There were twelve children there and it was the most people his size he has ever been around. For myself it was wonderful, spending time with like minded parents felt so good. After a year of isolation, except for one other family, for people with similar ideas about bringing up children, and life in general it felt so warm and welcoming.

I am thinking a lot about education again, not changing my goals and beliefs but joining the conversation with other parents. I mentioned to one woman yesterday that our educational plans for Alder is part of an evolving conversation. In someways the education itself is a conversation that is also evolving. More on this later.

Learning from each other

The other day Alder and I went for a hike in a near by state park. As we followed the short trail Alder and I made a game of finding the trail markers, every tree that had a dash of blue paint he would go up to and point out. We followed only the blue ones, leaving the gray ones when they were no longer on the same trees (the gray trail went off another direction). It was a fun game that lasted the entire mile of the short loop trail but it was much more than that too. Alder is learning an important skill in our lives. We go hiking a lot so knowing how to follow trail markers is important. Perhaps it the Jewish mother in me coming out but I do have nightmares (the awake variety) of loosing Alder in the woods.

But showing him how to find the trail is more than teaching him an important safety skill it is a way to include him in something that we do together as a family. Until now he had always either ridden in the backpack or just stomped through the woods finding pine cones and "nut-corns" (acorns) but the other day he was aware of the "nut-corns" as well as the painted markings. He would run from tree to tree, still stopping to explore the undergrowth but excited at each painted mark he found. Even today as we uploaded the pictures he pointed to this one as said paint.

At the time that I showed him the paint marks it was more of an after thought, something I did to quell my own imagination, but as we hiked on I realized that showing him the trail markers was a way of sharing something I loved with him, introducing him to my world, the same way that giving him small balls of yarn and some knitting needles to play with while I'm knitting includes him. He watches us and knows when we care about something, these are the things that he tries to join in. Some days I catch him standing in the same position Kevin does he standing meditation, quietly looking at the world around him.

But he isn't just a little mimic, there are so many activities I would have never thought of doing if it wasn't for him. I catch myself walking on the raised edges of sidewalks when I am walking to work alone, or counting motorcycles as I pass them in the car, these are his activities that I have now adopted. He has also taught me to slow down (a process that was begun by our cat five years ago) some day we don't leave the house. He can find hours of things to do in these five rooms. Or we may take an hour to walk six blocks, not because we are talking to others but because there is so much to explore, walls to walk on, slugs to follow as they make their way across the sidewalk, puddles to jump in until they no longer have any water left, and cats to watch as they stalk birds.

So while I am bringing him into my world he is doing same for me.

Motherhooding

Getting ready Halloween 2005

Meredith had a wonderful quote on her blog from Elizabeth Gilbert: "When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt. This is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty and also your entitlement as a human being to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

To me this is what motherhood can seem like. Some days it seems as though life with A is just a series of actions that waiver from making him happy and getting stuff done. Those are the days where it is a struggle to find the balance of joy or contentment for both of us. I know and understand what I need to give him for happiness, the things to do with our days and minutes that will make him smile and be at peace. But there is a certain sense of unrest that I feel sometimes when there are things to get done or ideas I want to get down on paper or projects I want to start. Days like that I am not a good catch partner, I can not bring myself to love every dandelion he brings me.

I miss alone time when there wasn't a list of things to get done. I miss when the creative process was always the first on my to do list. But I am learning how to include him in my process, when I bake bread he has his own dough to knead and roll. He has his own drawing space, that he goes to when he wants to draw but he wants me there with him, not drawing my own things but sitting there just watching. I want to be him there, I would scribble and draw excitedly. Instead I watch as my linear son is more interested in lining the markers up and balancing the tops on the table.

So I am learning to search out the things to do that we both love to do. We go for long walks, throw sticks into streams, make mud, we bake and we sing silly songs. Still when we come home and we are sitting on the floor stacking jar lids I turn on the radio and occupy my mind with the world through public radio. I am engaged in both directions but I am also full of guilt that I can not love spending every minute in Alder's world.

What is the secret to entering that world? I know I go there sometimes, and the day goes by smoothly, we both get things done to fill our souls but it is a mystery how and why those day come together. Other days I rush to negotiate time alone to finish just a little of what needs to get done, never getting all the way through to creativity. This blog , most days, is my is my creative outlet.

Yet I agree that we need to holding onto happiness, because it is a fight that we are in. A fight with norms a fight with expectations and with loss of autonomy. So I try every night to look back and see what worked, where we were both happy, and I try to hold it close to me and try to live in it so that the next day I can bring these moments back and add more of them to our day. And maybe, just maybe, I'll have the energy to write a few pages or make something after he goes to bed tonight.

Where this road is leading us.

First I want to thank everyone who has sent good luck our way.

I know this blog has taken a turn towards the negative lately and that isn't really a fair representation of what most of these changes mean for us. Closing the shop was really a choice that I made because I really wanted to spend more time with Alder on his terms. He wasn't made to hangout all day in a shop. I also felt as if I was missing out on so much by being there.

I was right, the last month has been so powerful. I didn't realize how little time I spent focusing on him when I was with him before. Now we have hours to do things together so when there are errands to be run there isn't the feeling of choosing between doing Alder things or Mama things there is time for both. The changes in him were pretty immediate (although they might be coincidental) he's really talking a communicating a lot with new words every day. Also with all the time we have now we can slow down and he does a lot more for himself. Most importantly there are less tears from him and better sleeping.

There are other changes going on that are wonderful as well. Kevin's decision to refocus his practice into a Community Acupuncture clinic, makes sense both for the area we live in as well as our beliefs. Rather than charging 60+ dollars for a visit he will be charging 15-45 sliding scale. The difference in treatment is that the needling focuses on the arms, legs, ear and face. All points that can be accessed without removing clothing. Patients lay in recliners in a communal room where they are free to stay as long as they want. What is missing from these appointments is the 1/2 hr to hour long conversations. He will still have some slots when people can come for full treatments. The point of this sort of clinic is to make acupuncture accessible to more people regardless of what their insurance will cover.

here's a good article also.

So these changes in our life are scary sounding but they really are bringing us closer to what we value and believe in.

train of thought

We're back and life is no clearer than it was before. In the last week we have "tried on" at least eight different possibilities of lives. Instead, I'm sitting here in the coffee shop on the computer trying to figure it all out. What better way of doing that than by asking for ideas.

We are at the point where we realize that our business was not working at the speed that we thought it would. There are a lot of things that need to change in our business plan if we are going to stay here. The only other some-what viable option is to move to Albany, although this is seeming less likely at the moment. This leaves us in the position that we are going to take some time to regroup, get more financially stable, and reconfigure our business.

This all feels a little like defeat but I am trying to look at it more as a pause so that we can come back stronger. Of course the shop is closed for good, a wonderful woman has taken over our lease and is already opening her fabric shop. Because of the nature of the area we live in a regular acupuncture business won't work, people just don't have the money to pay for it. So we have been exploring the idea of opening a community acupuncture clinic, basically the treatments involve less talking and use needles on the arms, legs, and ears only, and the patient is treated in a community room with a bunch of recliners. The advantage is that you can treat up to five people an hour at a much less expensive rate (15- 40 sliding scale). I'll write more tomorrow or Monday about this.

Because of our work experience and our family situation we have decided that Kevin will look for the primary job while I look for something that I can do from home. I've started looking but there is an amazing amount of internet crap that shows up when you look for online jobs. If anyone has any ideas about legitimate resources I would love to hear about them.

Honestly, I really can't wait to feel stable again it is tiring trying to stay happy when you are worrying about how you are going to pay rent and bills. I'm done feeling sorry for myself and am ready to just push through and create our life from real things not just our imagination.

This has turned into much more of a journal entry than I was expecting I'll keep it up here anyway since I really would love any input.

No.. and why we don't use it

'No, don't do that," Grandma quietly reprimanded Alder the other day while they were eating. He looked at her incredulously wondering what was so wrong. A spoonful of yogurt on his sweater was only part of eating wasn't it. Each time he eats there is one less spoonful on his clothing and one more time that he decides to wipe his own face with his napkin.

Grandma meant no harm, he was just trying to get him to keep clean, she wasn't angry at him or annoyed. No was just the first word out of her mouth, it's instinct to say No to kids. To halt them in the middle of what ever process they are in because something doesn't fit with our adult perception of how their situation should play out. No falls so easily from the lips it comes to mean stop and halt and don't do that to the point where the language learning child only sees the emotions behind the word (bad child) and gains no understanding.

So we avoid No as much as possible in our house. If what he is doing is not harming him, others or the place we are he basically can do what he likes. Rather we try to help him to understand when different sorts of activities shouldn't happen. Grabbing Mama's legs while she is pouring pasta into the colander gets a "hot" while throwing the pile of bills on the desk gets "find something else to do." He understands these words and phrases not just as cues and as ideas. "Finding something else to do" usually sends him off to get a pan or a toy to play with, without confrontation or feeling like we are mad with him. I know he isn't trying to mess up the important papers, he doesn't even understand what they are other than a tempting stack to be knocked over. If we aren't in the middle of something, like the pasta, we immediately help him to find something to do that we are both happy with.

Of course, often these cases are really just that he needs our attention and love. I am always amazed when I remember to play with him for a half hour uninterrupted before I cook dinner or do some other grownup thing how much easier it is for him to be content to occupy himself'. On days we spend the whole day together I always make sure there is a lot of Alder chosen activities interspersed with my needs. If we have errands to do during the day I know that it's better to do them early ending with a park or hike for a while. If it's nasty out a long bath is always good for smiles so is play-dough or dried beans in a bowl of water. I don't feel that we are here to train our children to only fit our needs, we should be spending our time learning them, understanding what makes both of our days happy and peaceful.

Are we perfect? Of course not, especially when we are tired and grumpy it is easy to forget and slip into No mode. That doesn't help the situation, barking off No at random for actions that are usually okay or met with gentle or some other cue only frustrates and confuses him. This usually ends in tear.

There are times we use No on purpose, they are rare and are only when his safety are involved. Knives and traffic seem to be the main ones but everything else there is always time. (I should say we don't leave knives around on purpose but occasionally Alder has climbed onto the dinning room table while we're setting or clearing it and has grabbed the knife).

There is a second reason that we avoid the word No, and it is been successful. It seems that so many children it is one of their first words and then they go around saying it a lot, and I really wanted to avoid that. We figured if we were not saying it all the time then he might not use it as much. So far this has worked, while he might shake his head if he doesn't want a certain food or piece of clothing, the words he has right now don't include any negative. We have: yeah, teeth, shoes, eyes, tree, cat, ma(more), ha (hot), Papa and Mama, Mom, and Momi!

Sure he can be a wild monkey but our wild monkey also loves to line shoes up in rows and is starting to clear the table on his own volition.

Gestation

What is my focus? I find myself asking a lot lately. I am a mama, I am a partner, I write, I run a business, I parent, I make things, I make art, I wander, I read, I am a daughter, I am a niece .... The list goes on, these are all things that are important parts of me. But they just seem to compile until I am more like a random stack on my desk than a woman. I am lost among the books and bobbins, diapers and business cards. I rush from one identity to another never staying long enough in one to get comfortable, or to see how they might fit together. I am tired worn thin; simultaneously inspired by everything and uninspired.

For the last week I have mulled over how all these pieces fit into a nice bundle rather than a pile. Mulling, gestation, whatever word you want to use is when you just let things surface on their own without working at it. I merely kept these ideas in my mind and allowed for them to percolate. Any that came up was written down without too much commitment. It's been ten days now and I think it's time to take all these pieces of paper together and see what meshes. Try to find how I can be all these things together, instead of at once.

Note: Picture was taken of me with an original Polaroid camera about seven years ago by Alex on a delicious day in her old apartment in Brooklyn. Now I live out here close by, yet she has moved the other way and is in LA. Isn't that the way of life?

Inspiring and Living Well

I've been busy at nights making things for the spring. When the tourists return, they are like the birds. Every night I finish one project, the last few nights it has been tote bags, each one different and slowly I am learning to create the objects that I imagine. It has taken a while to pull myself away from the temptations of imitation only. I now feel comfortable knowing that I work with inspiration from others.

There is a lot in this world to be inspired by, places and people, nature itself and others projects (yes almost every word in this sentence is a link). I am realizing that I am very lucky to spend so much time creating and being around things that others have created with their own hands.

Every night as I sing Alder to sleep in the big bed with his head burrowed into my neck I realize how lucky I am. Each night I sing the same songs, I add some over time take away ones I am tired of but there are a few that always remain. We start with Twinkle Twinkle (*see alternate verses below) and then The Riddle Song, then Michael Row Your Boat. We end with Dance With Me with is a song I made up for Alder about a mother holding her child and dancing down from the mountains to the ocean, it's lyrics are changeable and the song never turns out quite the same except the chorus "Dance with me, dance with me down to the ocean. Dance with me down to the Sea."

Once he is asleep or drifting off I go to my studio and have uninterrupted time for working on projects. We may not be wealthy, I know we are far from rich, but I have time to myself everyday to be creative, that is worth millions of dollars.

*Alternative Twinkle Twinkle Verses

Are you a squid or are you an octopus,
Do you hide in the darkness,
Or do you hide in a space so small,
It's only the size of your eye ball,

Are you a squid or are you an octopus,
Do you have eight legs or are you enormous?

How I Do Mama

I've been thinking a lot about parenting lately. Probably because with all of the chaos of open in the store I haven't really been able to have any rhythm to the time that I spend with Alder. Since Kevin isn't practicing acupuncture yet I'm in the store solo four days a week, he takes the other three. The time this gives me to think is wonderful but now I wish I could be doing rather than just thinking.

Amanda, wrote this wonderful meditation on why she likes making toys, specifically toys for her son. But it really is more about how we parent and interact with our children, or any other person for that matter.

As Alder grows and changes I find that there is more time spent together doing things. These simple *games* that he invents are a big part of his day. Lately it has been the rediscovery of a bunch of large plastic chains that used to hang on his stroller and off of the baby bjorn for him to play with. Now he brings them to me and puts them on my finger, once he can not fit anymore on I then stick them on his wrist as bracelets until they reach almost his elbow, at which point I am supposed to take them all off and throw them onto a near by chair. Once they are in the chair the game starts over again.

It is a simple process and at some moments I find myself getting annoyed that we are doing it yet again, but I try to remember that this game is important work for him, in his learning and understanding of how the world works. I think back to the drop the spoon on the floor game which also seem to last for ever. But now he understands that it will always fall down and mama or papa will probably pick it up the first few times so it is not a game that needs to be repeated except to humor him. (Dave Albert writes about this in And Skylarks Sing With Me). These games that he plays at this age are about understanding the world around him they are process he must go through.


In general he prefers real world objects to toys, why play with a toy plastic cup when there are yogurt containers that Mama and Papa use? The only two sorts of toys that he likes are the ones that don't translate to things the world that he can find around to house. He loves blocks and things with wheels. He will spend twenty minutes by himself stacking blocks in tall towers and knocking them down, only to rebuild. the wheeled toys don't hold his attention as long but he still has an ecstatic look on his face as he pushes his wagon around the house.

The pile of stuffed animals carefully chosen for him by friends and family go untouched except for the random cozy moment when he lies down on them. The least interesting to him are the toys that mimic adult object but are made silly with colors and plastic, I handed him a plastic hammer the other day and he dropped it and went and picked up my hammer, which I had forgotten was in the room. It makes sense to me, if he is trying to figure out this world why would he want an imitation of it?

As he is changing and learning how to be in this world I am learning to be in this role of parent. Some days I wonder how I could possibly remember all the important things to do when I am with him. I read other blogs where days seem to go so planned and full of activities, while we seem to spend our alone time on errands. But then when I look back at those days objectively I can see what we really do. While the other day felt like errands to me there was also a long walk around downtown Manchester, a two hour playtime with our Tuesdays friends (on Wednesday) and time spent at the bookstore with the cool door mats to play with. I could spend my time wondering why I haven't been to the read-aloud at the library or I could realize that I am giving Alder my time and love.

Hopes and Dreams

I sat at work today and had lots of ideas about what I wanted to say here. It was a cold day and not a lot of people were out on the street so there was a lot of time to think and do things like sort through another tin of buttons and knit half a hat. But walking home I realized that most of what I wanted to do was complain, except for one thought. So I decided that I want to share with you my secret dream for my future.

This is not necessarily a pragmatic dream but it is where I want to be five or six years from now. It is also something that I have wanted to do in some form for years. I want to live on a small farm where part of the facility is a retreat center. Where we can host health wellness and creativity retreats. I don't mean that we would be constantly assaulted with groups but maybe six weekends a year there could be a group staying with us who would focus on one of those areas. Nothing too new age-y just good for you pauses in life that people don't get very often.

Part of this plan will happen sooner when we open an online version of Seven Mountain (not the acupuncture part). The idea is that we might be making enough money between the three parts of the business that we could afford to hire someone to be at the shop five days a week, leaving me to do the online orders and be with Alder at home on this someday farm.

A lot of this is rooted back in the reasons that I started CITY (creative independent teaching for youth) back in Denver. I don't want to be a teacher, but I want to help connected people, and kids especially, with creativity in a non school setting. I would never want to host classes from city schools or anything like that but I would love to have families from these same schools come together for these weekends.

Of course when Kevin and I talk about this we joke that we would end up renting space out for weddings by default (no I do not want to have destination weddings in my back yard, unless they are willing to get married on the compost pile). But when we talk about our future there is always an aspect of being integrated in the community. I could see renting out the space for very reasonable rates for local groups to use and to donate the space for nonprofits to use.

This is all integrated into our whole life dream that includes educating Alder ourselves in a very rich environment. Rather than searching out bits and pieces of the community of learners I would rather start cultivating it now. Of course it would be nice if I could have a moments rest where I could sit down and introduce him to play-dough (that's on the table for tomorrow).

All of these dreams are starting though, we are going to use some of the walls at Seven Mountain as a gallery sometimes and we are having our first artists show in January, Patti Williams and her 50 paintings. Like a garden this dream needs a lot of gentle tending.

I hope you all out there have your own dreams to nurture.

warmly,
Stacey

My Studio

There has been some talk about how simple living and having a space of your own do not fit together. I have to disagree, simple living, when it comes to homes has to do with useful space. I have my own space because if I used shared space to work on projects the house would be a sea of fabric and paint. Instead I have a room where I work on my projects where they don't have to be put away for meals, and Alder isn't running off with spools of thread in the middle of my using them.

I try to spend some time in my studio every night, it's my personal sanctuary. Sometimes I'm working on stuff but other times I'm just sifting through old pictures or reading my book. I end up staying up late when I get going on projects but somehow losing a few hours of sleep to be creative balances out.

The room itself is a work in progress, it gets to new levels of organization and chaos depending on the day. Today we are having guests who haven't seen the place since it was still in boxes so they will want a tour, so I spent last night cleaning. I took this opportunity to take pictures and I thought I'd put them here to remind me what is under the piles when I get frustrated.

There are but a few of these in life...and they must not be missed

I spent this morning with a good friend of mine named Bliss (short for Elizabeth). Bliss is an amazing woman I met during my student teaching in Durango almost ten years ago. She was the librarian and media specialist at a wonderful school called COL (who was closed by the school district). Our friendship bloomed from their because of our interests in community, the way people think and the excitement of life. We also filled a space in each other's lives, her as a vaguely maternal figure, me as the daughter she had not had (she has two sons).

But my meeting of Bliss isn't as simple as running into a woman at the school I was working at. It all had to do with a series of choices that I had made. Choices that did not seem too big a deal when I made them but who ended up changing my life in drastic ways. They were the magic moments that were gifted to me by the spirits. The sort that no amount of guessing would have thought where they would have led. The first one was a little bigger than the rest.

1) Before the age of email I had just graduated college and was spending my summer at my parent's cabin in the Hill Towns of Massachusetts working as a house painter. Everyday at lunch I would walk to the post office and back to pick up the mail. I had four or five friends who I was writing with consistently, so there was always something for me to pick up. I had just written a letter to a close friend from my childhood how I did not have any real plans now that I was graduated, that I only knew what I did not want to do. A few days later I received a response suggesting that I first come visit her in northern Minnesota that summer and then move out west with her the coming fall. By the time I had walked the mile home I had already mentally packed my boxes for moving. Incidentally, this woman is Alder's god-mama.

2) A few years later I had gone back to school in Durango to get my teaching certification. We were all supposed to find our own placements in schools, which were limited by how isolated Durango is. I happened to be flipping in the phone book and came upon a listing for Community of Learners Charter School, I had done an internship at a charter school during college and decided to call this school. They were immediately open to me coming to work with them and it was there that I was introduced to some of my favorite writers and thinkers (John Holt, Edward O Wilson, David Orr, Janet Luhrs to name a few) as well as meeting many amazing people like my friend Bliss.

3) When on my first date with my husband, which was a blind date and I was somewhat doubtful of the whole thing, I decided to climb a tall tree that we were passing. The trees in the valley where we were hiking were tall strait ponderosa pines with lots of ladder like branches. I figured that if he follow up the tree he might be worth my effort, on the other hand if he had stayed on the ground I would have a clear idea that this was a one time thing. Well he followed me up that tree (you knew that was coming didn't you?)

4) Most recently we were looking through the phone book here in Vermont and found another acupuncturist in a town not too far away, their add said that the business was both an acupuncture office and tea house. We went up to meet the people, figuring that if they didn't seem like nice people we would have just pretended to have read the sign for tea. That's how we met our new "Tuesday Friends" a week later Kevin was visiting with them and discussing our new business and they suggested that he should open in a visible location in town and maybe have something in addition to the practice to get people to come in to the building.

That's were Seven Mountain came from, an idea that was formed fully in a matter of moments in my mind when I heard this idea. Now our life has this amazing momentum towards ... well actually we don't know towards what but we committed to this idea that really fits so well with everything in our lives and thoughts. Okay, there is part of this that isn't true, we are generally not shoppers but we figured that we would make a shop where everything in it we would be willing to have in our own home and that we would know, as much as possible, the person who made them.

Do you have any of these small/monumental moments in your life? I'd love to hear about them.

Phew, well now that you've struggled through all that writing I'll end by saying that we're off to spend time with family and friends for the next few days. Enjoy your weekend.

Think on This

"What children need is not new and better curriculum but access tho more and more of the real world: plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out." John Holt

Alder Finds Quotes

Alder has an uncanny ability to show me things that I need to see. Sometimes it is slowing down enough during a hike where we find stones and spy animals others times it is his moments of stillness where all that he wants is to stare out the window and lay on my belly. Lately he has spent a lot of time taking books off our books shelves and handing them to us. During one short version he handed me two books, Red by Terry Tempest Williams and Earth in Mind by David Orr. Both of them were what I needed at that moment.

Earth in Mind was open to this quote: "...there is a danger that education will damage the sense of wonder- the sheer joy in the created world- that is part of our original equipment at birth. It does this in various ways: by reducing learning to routines and memorization, by excess abstraction divorced from lived experience, by boring curriculum, by humiliation, by too many rules, by overstressing grades, by too much television and too many computers, by too much indoor time and mostly by deadening the feelings from which wonder grows."

I watch this sense of wonder in Alder everyday. The joy that I see as he explores his environment, as he figures things out, and puzzles new ones, is something that I do not want to disapear. More than anyother reason this is why we have made certain choices in our lives.

The copy of Red was closed, I opened it and read bits and pieces and came across this: "I stop. The silence that lives in these sacred hallways presses against me. I relax. I surrender. I close my eyes. The arousal of my breath rises in me like music, like love, as the possessive muscles between my legs tighten and release. I come to the rock in a moment of stillness, giving and receiving, where there is no partition between my body and the body of Earth."

I have stood barefoot and welcomed the sun on the sandstone she speaks of in the Canyonlands. I have tasted the wall of a canyon as I hiked through it arms outstretched reaching both sides. I did not meet the desert until I was twenty four, but it was then that I came home. It may seem odd that I have left the west for New England, but my love of the desert is so consuming that I have never wanted to live in it. When I was close I would visit alone for weekends like some people visit lovers. The intense feeling of being there is not sustainable, I must leave or I think I might be consumed by the sandstone and sage brush.

Luckily, Kevin's parents live close enough to the desert that when we visit I can rendezvous with it, alone or with my family.

More on the Move

As our days in Denver diminish I find myself distracting myself with thoughts of colors. Specifically I am pondering wall colors for our new home. It isn't a very practical thing to think about when I've seen the place but it keeps my mind away from the larger issues that moving brings.

I've come to terms with leaving Colorado, but I think the sorrow of leaving friends will come later, probably on those days this fall when all I want is a long walk with a friend. The other issues are more practical starting a business, finding a part-time (from home?) job, money, making new friends, yet they are all their in the back of my mind.

At this point it really is better to just think about paint and curtains, did I mention the curtains? Tomorrow is the beginning of the good byes. We are going out to eat with good friends for the last time. This isn't meant to sound mopey. Just trying to contextualizing for myself.

The funny part is I look at my last entry here and I see that in some ways we are still just living here. There isn't really a transition period like with other moves. Kevin graduates and three days later we drive out of here. Period.

So many of our moves have involved weeks of in between time where we would stay with people in neither place. These were always the most difficult for us. This time we are jumping in no time to ponder and doubt our choices only time to do.

Of course this past month we have had to abandon any semblance of simple living we had going on. Between the heat, Kevin's boards and moving we've spent too much time in the car and not enough outside or in the kitchen. Hopefully we can quickly regain our balance when we land in Vermont.

Rethinking Structure vs Love perhaps its Rhythm

A few weeks ago I wrote this post about why teachers and other adults often say that children need structure. My basic argument was that the structure was a substitute for love. A few nights ago I literally woke up from a dream thinking about this. It occurred to me that while yes love is realistically gone from school relationships that isn't what the structure is replacing. Structure is replacing rhythm.

Rhythms are natural they tend (but not always) to be cyclical and can easily be mistaken for structure if you aren't looking carefully. In our family we have a pretty consistent day but most of it occurs at certain times because that is when they work best. Naps happen when Alder is tired, and since he usually gets up at the same time they usually happen around the same time. Meals are eaten not by the clock but by our stomachs which digest food over a certain period of time, but in the summer when it is very hot we eat less and less often because our bodies need less and the kitchen is too hot to spend a lot of time in. In the winter we eat more and more often, not only are our bodies working harder to keep us warm but we are drawn to the warmth of cooking and the kitchen.

While I am not a proponent of schools for our family specifically I know there are schools out there who follow a more rhythm oriented schedule, both daily and over the course of the year. I would guess that the difference between those two settings are more subtle and more telling. That being said I would also guess if you were to look at a day in our life and a day in the life of a family who impose their own structure that the difference would be striking.

Scheduled families also seem to be families who live disconnected from the natural rhythms of the day and year. How could someone who isn't aware of the cycle of the moon, for example, be expected to trust in letting natural rhythms run their course. These people not only seem to look at children as different creatures but they themselves would be afraid to live with out their day planners filled. The current Mothering Magazine has an article about a mother choosing not to sign her four year old up for soccer. The pressures to fill children's time with directed activities isn't only part of the whole over achievement craze but it is also a result of adults who do not know how to spend time just living.

Work fills most people's days not only at the office but afterwards either through additonal commitments or stress, beyond that there are gyms to join, reading groups to be part of and I haven't even started to talk about any religious, political or service commitments people give themselves. At first look there is something of value in each activity but any of these loose their value when they are crammed into a week where relaxing with a cup of tea is considered wasteful.

My bias is to say that a lot of this has to do with American's disconnect from nature. As animals we are bound to these rhythms but our intelligence has, as it often does, gotten the better of us. We are beyond conquering we have banished it to a picture frame next to visits to grandma and baking. The result of this separation is a constant searching for ways to fill the gaps, schedules take the place of rhythms, organized activities take the place of socializing with your neighbor. The one I always find the saddest are the people who go to the gym to run on the treadmills or ride the bikes while watching the Nature Channel or reading Outside Magazine when they could just as easily step out their front door and experience the world for themselves.

Love may not equal rhythm but for children being trusted to have their needs and feelings, and those of the families as a whole, to lead the way in the way that the day goes is a form of love. Alder may only be a year old but I already let him to for himself what he can and one of these ways is letting him choose when he is tired and when he is hungry. Every day he adds another thing that he does for himself, or chooses. The other side to this is that he knows that we are there to take care of every need he has, that he will be cuddled when he is cuddly, changed when he is wet, and loved always.

THE BIG ROAD TRIP

Just to clarify for all of you who have been confused about the plans this August. Kevin and I are renting a 17' truck and driving it and the car across the country and we are camping out along the way. We are willing to pay one one way ticket for someone to help us, anyone else who wants to come along is welcome but should know that we can't afford their plane ticket. We are not staying in motels because after being in the car all day we look forward to camping out. We are not towing the car because there isn't a place for Alder in the truck. We are planning on picnicking and cooking our own meals, except one special diner meal. And most of all we are not in any way shape or form hiring movers.

Our plan right now is to drive rt 34 most of the way across the country rather than the interstate since we aren't going to be moving that fast and there is more to see on 34.

Coming into My Own (long)

Grandma Mary has Alder today so I have been busy working. The morning was slow but I made up for it with five super productive hours after lunch. In the middle of editing and rewriting I was inspired to write the following, it is more a personal meandering than anything. I would really love to hear other people's stories about coming into their own.

My story is a bit of a ramble, but understanding doesn't always come in a flash. Mine was more like a stone wall, rock by rock as they are found. There was a breaking point though, a time in my life that I can look back at as when this all began.

It was the summer after college, I was making up a few classes at Umass and living in my dad's cabin. I was finishing eighteen years of school and was looking for a job.

No, actually I wasn't looking for a job. While my friends rushed off to interviews with resumes on linen paper I could not see that in my future. I still had a few months of classes before I was employable and was fine that there was nothing there waiting for me.

After the courses ended I fell into a job painting an old colonial house (who said you can't do anything with an art degree). It was a solitary job, I'd work my eight hours stopping for a two hour lunch when I would bike to the lake and go swimming. I saw people occasionally but I was happy in my hermitage. After work I would walk to the post office to get the mail and send off a few letters (this was back when people still wrote them).

One day I received a letter from a friend who I had been writing about my indecision about the future. Her letter suggested that I visit her in northern Minnesota where she was living and then move to Colorado with her in the autumn.

By the time I had reached home I had mentally packed my bags and boxes. It was reading that letter that made me realize what I wanted to do with the rest of my life: be happy. I had not applied for any jobs because every job description sounded constraining and consuming. I wasn't interested in tons of money so that was never a motivator. Understanding this I realized that I was happy to work various jobs to support my real interests.

That first year after college I learned more then than I had in all of my schooling. I had driven cross-country, canoed in the Boundary Waters, learned how to shoot a gun, learned how to ski, rock climbed, tried snowboarding, took a solo hiking trip in the desert and much more. I took what ever jobs I could to cover rent and food.

As the years in Durango passed I still felt that something was missing. I had fun with my friends and lovers but it just that, fun. I went back to school to get my teacher's license and stumbled upon what was missing, practically by accident. I did my student teaching at Community of Learners Charter School (COL) (and continued to be connected to them for two more years). The school was travel/ natural world focused. Students did not move from grade to grade only completed portfolios one each for elementary, middle and high school, with areas such as intrapersonal skills and natural world. The teachers I worked with blew my mind. It wasn't their teaching styles that was so amazing but their views on life and how to live it. I began to discover a entire world of people who looked at the world in a way that immediately made sense to me.

But for the five years I taught I still felt torn. Here I was implementing the very structures that had made me so miserable. Even in a place like COL there are rules and expectations.
Out of misplaced responsibilities I returned to school to get my master's through Goddard College, in a low residency program. Goddard's model of education was student led, I loved what I was learning and how much automony I had.

My studies introduced me to authors like David Orr, Ron Miller and John Holt. I focused on the importance of a connection to place had in people's lives, specifically how to connect children in school with the places they live. But the more I read the less I saw a need for the educational system in my life. I think there is a place for schools in the world but it wasn't my place to be working in them.

A moment of clarity came while I was reading "A Life Worth Living" a compilation of John Holt's letters. Reading the progression of his ideas I realized that I had been unschooling myself since I had graduated college. That having the freedom to learn what and when I wanted had been what made my life so different now. I knew that I did not want send my own children (unborn) to school and that I couldn't support the system I worked within. So I decided to stop being a teacher.

This was the final piece in my search for understanding of my own happiness. Understanding what constructs of my life are unnecessary and caused me to be unhappy, and being able to let go of them, has allows me to be more joyous in much that I do. Without expectations it is easier to work hard, care deeper and love more easily.

Of course this tale was not as solitary as it sounds, I had many guides along the way, none more than my husband. I feel that I should thank those people who have touched my life along the way, some only briefly others for years.

[In no particular order]
Bliss Bruen, Kate Chasson, Hallie Whitney, Sam Carstens, the Darby's of Paonia, the Lehrman family (where are you now), and Molly Peacock.