Miss Mimsy Quite Contrimsy. The children often call me Mimsy. Or sometimes Ms. Mims. They don't know that mimsy means catywhompous. But I do and this secret layer of meaning, that they are sure to discover and delight upon one day, pleases me. For it is true, I am often mimsy. I was trying, yesterday, to write about pain and homeschooling. Poppins said once that she tries to include the difficulties in her blog, so that she is not always reporting sunshine. She is bravely willing to admit the mimsy. Thank you for that, Poppins. This is how we learn from one another. It is difficult enough homeschooling, more so trying to pretend that it is all easy and planned. And anyway, we all know that is a lie.

I happen to be blog-writing and surrounded by real writers in my real life. By "real" I do mean professional. I live with and love many people who get paid to write. That could make it difficult for me to blog. But, this is not a professional situation. Obviously. And I try very hard to feel free to just write here, to be myself, to offer a window into our homeschooling world, and to use this blog as another way to interact with all the other wise folks who are homeschooling and mostly figuring this out as they go. I need to be in the Figuring This Out As We Go fray. And I have to write to do that. I have never promised to write well. My motto in life is: I just have to do the best I can.

As a person blogging and doing the best I can, I am dependent on spell check. If you spell check catywhompous on my computer you will be told you are wrong and offered only one possible solution: jodhpurs.

At work last Sunday as I sat and polished rabbit links, I listened to Phil Collins being interviewed on NPR about song writing. He said that the best songs are the simplest and most direct. He said to never try to sound clever. He said to make the words spare and straight and trust the music to enliven them. The music carries magic to the words. Real writers don't even need music. Their words, so skillful, bring magic right to us.

And I am aware that it is a cliche to sit and write about writing. But today it is necessary. I am an unschooler trying to carry the magic of our real life to this blog through words. Since I am unschooling, I am comfortable with this mimsy state of unprofessionalism. Occasionally big mistakes will be made. Mistakes are an excellent learning tool and I am prepared to model plenty of them for the children. Coming as I do from emotionally rigid and perfectionistic people, I have learned to delight, almost, in making mistakes.

Except when someone gets hurt. To anyone who felt trivialised yesterday, as I tried to write about homeschooling in pain, I am sorry. No one's pain is trivial. I would never want to imply such. Everyone has stress and everyone has pain and it is all real. All too real. That, to me, is exactly the beauty and comfort in the phrase "Everyone has stress." That must not have been conveyed well. Stress and pain are the truth. So what 'cha gonna do? There it is. I guess I take comfort, like Mr. Gradgrind up there, in certain facts. More accurately, I take comfort in the Truth, as slippery as ever it is.

" ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."