Oh yeah!

Two peas in a very happy pod!

Henry announced he wants to learn how to play electric guitar. This had something to do with some very cool older boys, to be sure. It is a little known fact that I play. And his Dad is actually a bit famous around here, for his playing. So, I think the kid comes to it naturally. And everyone is thrilled! Look it, an Epiphone copy of the legendary Gibson SG, best freaking rock guitar EVER! And, now we have one. YAY! Oh, this is so fun! So fun! SO FUN! Happy Rocking Forth, y'all.

Thanks Grandma Mira!

Barbara Kingsolver's address to Duke graduates this year. It is terrifying. It is most of what I tried to say all last year on the Denim Jumper. And it is achingly beautiful. One taste now:

"The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides."

(And Lori, this quote makes me think of you today, as much as anyone. God, you are brave!)

What are we doing? Glad you asked. Even gladder that I have an answer. In this crazy whacked out unpredictable year where we were going to study permaculture, no - go to Canada, no - go to Vermont, no - sell our house and buy a new one, no - ah, yes, study permaculture, I am not surprised at the confusion.

We have cleared a generous quarter acre of land for blueberries, figs, apples, roses, herbs, vegetables, chickens, and a frog pond. We are pondering the meaning of permaculture. We are finding that while it took enormous courage to cut down perfectly lovely trees, the open space is intoxicating. The blank slate is inspiring. And the anticipation of our plants, a delightful feeling akin to pregnancy. Like pregnant people, we are also scared and nervous. We question ourselves. We fear mistakes. We spend money we don't have.

And we are thrilled, excited, in a hurry for every ripe moment to hasten, and steeped in possibilities. I hope to eventually try bees with a top-bar hive. I can't wait for my children to harvest dinner, gather the warm eggs, nestle roses in a vase on the table. We will add a tool area at one end of the chicken coop and a large shed roof to cover both. We have 600 gallons of water collection and storage planned to fit under that roof. We hope hope hope we've chosen the site wisely. And I have to sit on my hands to keep from ordering four Adirondack chairs (two in light blue and two in white) for placing just so. There won't be much time for sitting, now will there?

Pressing questions: which kinds of chickens, do we need a cover crop right away, is there enough light, and finally, will we be finished paying off our credit card before the economy tanks?

Pull up a chair and sit awhile. Watch with us as we grow.

Forget the mall or a new hairdo. If you really want to feel like queen for a day, hire yourself a back hoe. And if you really want to impress your kids, have your back hoe dig a big hole.

As Ry becomes a more proficient reader, and yes of course, we still have work to do. We work together every day. But as this looming dark need of mine to have two children who are solid readers lightens a bit everyday with Ry's progress, I notice myself casting around for a new dark cloud. Isn't that odd, that my mind would start fishing for a new educational worry? While, in the style of Pema Chodron, I notice the interesting and ever shifting nature of my mind's gravitation toward worry, and while I attempt to meditate my way to acceptance of groundlessness and the True Natural Wisdom of Rikpa* Mind, I am also looking for the next topic of educational obsession. Ha!

This is odd for an unschooler, this pushing desire to improve the children. My goals for the children progressed in this order: sitting alone, walking, manners, potty training, manners, swimming, manners, biking, manners, and reading and more manners. I have said that after these milestones, the rest is environment. Having nurtured, I've been looking forward to handing the reins back to Mother (True) Nature. (Please, I am really trying to avoid all the gobbly Buddhist terms and connections.)

An interesting thing happened yesterday. I was waiting at a traffic light for entry onto an interstate highway. The music was rocking: "Kindness will be your guide. Put a little love in your heart." The kids were patient in the back seat. I had on my shades. On the side of the road a beggar was holding a sign. I did a double take. I thought, for a moment, that his sign said "Please Give. Homeless. Gobble." GOBBLE. In reality the last words were GOD BLESS. But for an instant I read gobble. And this seemed an amazingly brilliant thing to do, stand on the side of an interstate highway with a sign that said gobble. I almost rolled down my window and handed him my only twenty. Then I realised he merely said "God bless" and the light changed.

Why was I so moved by gobble? A poet friend once described the after effect of rape as being left to gobble like a turkey. And what else do we do but gobble? We gobble food and resources and money and oil and television and the internet and constant distraction. We gobble constantly. Our minds gobble. Its repulsive, all the gobbling. There we were driving our gobbling cars to our gobbling destinations our gobbling hearts starving. And there he was just standing there in unimaginably uncomfortable heat and stank, with his sign.

So what to teach the children next? I've been thinking that I will be forced to formally address mathematics before the children go to high school or college. I assume, by the time they have unschooled the topic, it will be a short and delightful course. Because math actually is really cool and not all that difficult to study.

Math set aside for formal inquiry later, my mind alights on language. I want the children to speak Spanish. I simply want it for them. As I want so many things for them, that I myself have previously failed to do. Aha! Notice that? I just discovered where my searching dark worry comes from, my failures. Good to note. I'm thinking we should have Spanish day once a week around here. Watch movies in Spanish. Read Spanish books. Have a native speaker in for a weekly lesson. Gobble in Spanish, as it were.

*Rikpa: "In Tibetan there are several words for mind, but two that are particularly helpful to know are sem and rikpa. Sem is what we experience as discursive thoughts, a stream of chatter that's always reinforcing an image of ourselves. Rikpa literally means "intelligence" or "brightness." Behind all the planning and worrying, behind all the wishing and wanting, picking and choosing, the unfabricated wisdom mind of rikpa is always here. Whenever we stop talking to ourselves, rikpa is continually here." ~When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

The last Little Elfie. In which our narrator finally joins the cast. They eat waffle flavored carrots. Other things happen (while I am busy taking pictures.) Little Elfie has gotten darker, a black comedy, since the elf shed his wings. And of course, it all ends with the eating of pancakes and farting all night long. Fair well Little Elfie!

New bow, The Dangerous Book for Boys, The Boyscout Handbook, and his favorite knife. I'm not sure what he's studying today. But maybe we should take cover? Or maybe he's headed on walk about? I'd love to know what he's dreaming.

What's Up Doc?

Scroungy-assed old truck, smelly dog, loitering, unkempt demeanor. Meet one of the most beloved physicians in this area. Doc meet Them. Them, Doc. God, I love this man. I took my two day old baby Henry in for his first check up to this doctor. He picked Henry up, held him on his shoulder, and rocked him for about 5 minutes in silence. Just stood there with my new baby like he actually might never let him go. Stood there so long it got a wee bit uncomfortable and then said, "Ohhhhhhhh, I LOVE babies. And this is a good one." That was the bulk of the exam, really. Yeah, Doc. He keeps a guitar in his examining room. Puts nervous big fellas at ease when Doc can pick a bit as they talk. I Love This Man. What was he doing in the parking lot? He was, literally, he was chasing rainbows. He likes to photograph them.

Then there is Doc. You can click over for a picture. One of the most interesting things about Doc, is that as you read through her blog you can't quite figure out where she fits in the social strata. Is she really a "Doctor" working while she farms? Is she independently wealthy? Does she muck with goats for fun? Is she a freak homesteader? Did she work like hell for a long time and is now retired? Where do we put this Pollyanna farm girl with the fluttery eye lashes? Turns out, I learned 10 seconds ago, she is retired. She is a retired molecular biologist, among other things. But what I have enjoyed a lot for the few years I've been reading her blog, is that you never could quite tell for sure.

Then there is my Dad, a doctor himself. Then there is the kid mopping up after a night in Hell (that's Trolls for all you old timers.) She probably has her PhD, or is about to. Our community has the highest PhD per capita in the United States. We are one well educated crew. Call us Dr. NC if you like. But that's not what makes us most interesting.

Consider Clyde. I'll make a few assumptions about Clyde for you. I've met him, more than once. Clyde is a scary redneck. Seriously. His face is frighteningly dirty. He smells. He lives in a hovel. I feel certain he hates niggers, and I can't say any worse about a person than that. Most uneducated, he wins that prise. He also hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Or the Smithsonian, I can't remember which. Back a long years ago, Baryshnikov was dancing for the American Dance Festival in Durham. He heard about Clyde's work and decided he wanted to own hisself a piece of Clyde. He drove up to his house (oh dear God) and offered him (ok, and this was the early 80s) offered him $10,000 for one sculpture. That may actually have been equal to Clyde's property value at the time. Clyde ran him off. He isn't for sale. Clyde flat don't care. But I've walked away from his house with art freely given. Clyde gives his art to children for free.

I come from this totally bizarre mixed up culture of amazing wealth and culture and amazing poverty and culture. I've pissed barefooted in Hell and I've pissed underneath original Degas. Within a two mile radius, actually. We are rednecks here. We eat redneck. We talk redneck. We have plenty of hate to spare. And we also walk in rarefied air.

Here is the thing so many don't get. The feared rednecks are no worse and no better than the wealthy upper class. And hating rednecks is not so different from any other kind of racism. If you fear rednecks or judge rednecks as so very many do, you have missed something profound and deep. In a way, we are all rednecks. We may be dressed up, but we are no different. Why? Because folks are folks. I've met most of the kinds of folks there are to meet. The only real difference is smell. Folks are folks and they all smell different. They all come from various cultures, each with blindness and gifts. But folks are folks are folks are folks.

This is the lesson in diversity I most hope to convey to my kids.

Pema Chodron explains Maitri

sigh

Late evening found me off my desk chair, in a yoga pose, stretching my back. A long badly needed stretch. How badly needed? About 10 years overdue. I quit stretching after the kids were born. It takes too long. And there were more important things in my life, such as eating and nursing. So neglected, my yoga just slipped quietly out the kitchen door while my needy back was hunched, turned, and scraping dried yogurt off the floor. It grabbed my youth by the hand and they departed together. I hardly noticed. Until somehow I found myself here in my early 40s with an ever increasing list of aches and no one but myself to blame.

Now I'm on the floor in Child's Pose with my breath. To my right I hear tap a tap a tap tap tap as my daughter gently pecks away on my computer key board. I don't have to turn my head to know she is composing one of her beautifully colorful emails chock full of love. To my left and down the hall about four yards I hear clickety clickety click click click. My son is at his desk working on another American Zombie Girl installment. He composes on his new typewriter. (You have all forgotten typewriters, haven't you? They are way more satisfying than computers. How did Henry know?)

A circle of satisfaction moves through me. After all these long years neglecting myself, doing it the hard way, I return to myself. I am found on the inside, a long draw of breath and pull in my legs. I am found on the outside in good company with children who naturally write, quietly and without coercion. They reflect to me the behavior I have been modeling all these years.

Inhale, try to stay calm and balanced. Exhale, write it all down as best you can. Inhale, take life up with all your senses. Exhale, arrive with love, remember not to yell at the children. Inhale, they do as you do. Exhale, they are lovely, they are doing it! Inhale, return to your breath. Exhale, they reflect your worst as well. Inhale, I put sprinkles right on their heads when they were little. Exhale, they are my dessert. Inhale, all those years too scared and too angry. Exhale, return to your breath. Inhale, unschooling works. Exhale, life works.