Gray

I think that this is a time better than any other time to think about how crazy our lives really are. What I used to believe was that one moment we are happy and free and another moment we are sad and despairing and there is hopelessness and there is rejoicing all wrapped up in packages in our closets separate. What I know now is that you may find me in a room full of mourners laughing at a line from an obituary wondering if the fluid running down my face is filled with joyful cells or sorrow. Life is not easily catagorical. I know a lot about this. I have learned a tremendous amount this year. Grampa John now has a chronic cough that is so debilitating that when he laughs he runs the risk of coughing himself right in to a grave but do you think that stops us? We can still be found from time to time playing "gotcha last" or reminding him about a famous wharf story about some Gloucester character that was mistaken for a dog in a motor vehicle by the police. Now that's funny.
I have learned that just because I kept my children out of school for so many years didn't guarantee that they would not be subject to the schooly way of life and that I can only hide them out here for so long. One day or another someone somewhere was going to grade them and I was going to lose track of where they were exactly anyhow. And they were going to live, and live quite happily or sadly or both.
I have learned that really it had nothing to do with school in the first place but everything to do with the people that they were born to be and the family that we create. I have joined the ranks and the herd. I am no longer alone in the museum the day after Feb vacation but totally immersed in a crowd of brown and white and fat and skinny and muslim and jewish people all running about taking their school vacationing kids to the same place. I took time off this week from my new job just like most of my office did and I will resume the joyful sorrowful difficult, exciting and boring depending on the moment employment that I have just like most of America on Monday. I am no longer swimming against the current and I am floating of a raft toward the warm sand.
That is not to say that my homeschooling world was a sham or that the joy was not there. I am grateful for every moment of it and my children are too. It's just not so one sided. Life is a heavy duty amount of gray. My mother came in to tell my my grandfather was hospitalized again and I pocketed that information for later. There was just too much in the way at that moment. I had a bill in front of me, a bunch of hyper children about me and food to think up, get out and create.
I cried later.
Right then I smiled, I think I even cracked a joke. I looked at Jonah who told me he was a honey badger today and I thought about my dying patients. I smiled and laughed on my face and cried and mourned in my heart.
My daughter Nora learned a perfect Ode to Joy today on the violin. I thought we would never have time for those things if we did school but of course we do. She ran to play it for Grampa John but he couldn't stop coughing. She cried because she was mad and then she smiled because there was a cookie waiting for her and a hug from her mother and Jonah had decided to strip down and lay on the floor and grunt like a pig. Sadie was curled up in a ball reading Harry Potter for the thousandth time and Gary was cooking.

The coughing stopped and we breathed a sigh of relief and held our breath for the next moment.

White Flowers

White Flowers


By Mary Oliver



Last night

in the fields

I lay down in the darkness

to think about death,

but instead I fell asleep,

as if in a vast and sloping room

filled with those white flowers

that open all summer,

sticky and untidy,

in the warm fields.

When I woke

the morning light was just slipping

in front of the stars,

and I was covered

with blossoms.

I don’t know

how it happened—

I don’t know

if my body went diving down

under the sugary vines

in some sleep-sharpened affinity

with the depths, or whether

that green energy

rose like a wave

and curled over me, claiming me

in its husky arms.

I pushed them away, but I didn’t rise.

Never in my life had I felt so plush,

or so slippery,

or so resplendently empty.

Never in my life

had I felt myself so near

that porous line

where my own body was done with

and the roots and the stems and the flowers

began.

Gotcha Last

Currently Grampa John's favorite game is "gotcha last." Over the last two years this game has evolved and changed to mean different things. The rules started out simple enough. I got you last meant I got you last and there was a cat and mouse kind of chase thing and a lot of slamming doors. Over the last couple of years "gotcha last" has come to be played in a more figurative way. You don't necessarily have to get up and chase someone to get someone last. You could give them a glance or carry a yardstick and poke them on their way out the door. Gotcha Last. John always gets us last. I don't know when it happened that way but it has come to be understood that John wins this game. Everytime.

And my children, even my little children who want to win all sorts of other games, understand this rule. They always let John get them last.

Lately "Gotcha Last" has meant another way to say good bye. The kids will be piling in to the car for school or an activity and John's window will open and out will come those words "Gotcha Last!" See ya later, in a while, till next time.

As we wait for this lung I think about that farewell. I remember when he could get up to chase us and I wonder when did that happen that he has lost that ability. Now on most days I find him under blankets on the couch sleeping or fading. Last week I walked in on him roughly carving a peice of wood. He looked up at me almost ashamed or embarrassed as if I would wonder about his new activity. I can't believe how strong he is. I can't believe I think I ever have problems when I can't find my earrings or my pants don't fit right.

routines

Part of me wonders where this change all came from, is it healthy, are we really ok. But then again, if I read through this blog I will find all sorts of circumstances where I wonder this same thing, am I ok? Are we making the right choices and to be honest my wondering doubting voice is very quiet lately. Mostly I am hearing voices of clarity adn voices of laughter and lightness. The kids have been in school for one week and all of the sudden there are other things in the world going on aside from homeschooling. We are an expansive family that are making our way through many different areas of life both together and apart. Yesterday I had forgotten to pack Sadie's spelling book and so Jonah and I drove over to bring it (Jonah is only in Kindergarten on Mon Wed and Fri) and we had the great opportunity to hear and see Nora running wildly through the playground with the other kids in her class laughing and creating and doing all of those things that I worried she wouldn't get to do if I sent her to school.
I know it won't always feel like this. Life is not all packaged neatly like that. Things ebb and flow. Nora has a spelling test on Friday and she and I both wonder about what that will be like. But Sadie is going canoeing with her class on Friday and Jonah is having his art class on Friday and they can't wait.
In the end there is me and Gary. And really in the end there will be just me. I am spending a lot of time alone right now but for some reason not too much in my head. I am reading a great book and running a lot. My house is still a mess, everyone told me that wouldn't change and I am glad it hasn't. It means I am winding down and it's ok.
I miss the comraderie of our homeschooling group. I had hoped Nora would choose to stay home mostly because I wanted to still be part of that group. And the school moms are not going to replace that community. But its ok. Life moves on and I have made some new friendships recently unrelated to children. I am fairly certain that I got a new job that I interviewed for last week working 9-5 as a hospice social worker and that feels absolutely wonderful.

John continues to struggle and I am glad for a quiet house for him. We wait for a new lung and hope for trajedy and feel surreal. I pray for health and stregnth for him every day and am again always reminded because of him what is really important in life. As I breeze in to borrow a bowl in the midst of craziness in my house and run towards the door to get to the next thing, he stops me and I am able to sit and talk slowly and quietly with him. Nothing is more important now.

We are Family

Family

Changes

It has been so long since I wrote in this blog, I am not sure how to begin. Everything is changing. Things are beginning and things are ending and life is moving so swiftly. After much hemming and hawing, last spring we decided to embark on a new journey for Sadie. School.
I couldn't believe that we were even entertaining this idea. I dreamed, thought and hoped that we would be that family that had our unschooling kids hanging around with us, taking the train in to Harvard Extension and trying all sorts of neat and interesting things with us as adolescents and in to adulthood. But Sadie wanted to try school.
I ached about it. I had nightmares about it. I talked about it. I prayed about it. A lot. And then one morning in April or May I awoke and it was ok. There was a deep calm inside of me that permeated throughout my body and mind and I knew that school or no school was not the only thing that identified our family and who we are. We chose a very small Christian school to try out first and Sadie spent the day there. She loved it. She came home with lots to report and with the story of one of her classmates who at the closing prayers prayed that Sadie would make a good decision and come to their school. I loved thinking about a child praying openly.
My best friend Ashley (who someday I will write a big long blog entry about) is Orthodox Jewish and works at an Orthodox Jewish day school and she talks about this affectionately. That although there will be things that bother me about the religiousness of the school, the fact remains that we are raising our children in an Episcopal church and we regularly pray before meals and we hold the hope and belief in our home that our Grampa is in heaven. It's ok. I knew it when I woke up that day.
What is literally shocking is that over the course of the summer, because we had opened that door, all sorts of other doors proceeded to open in front of my eyes. Jonah started to talk about going to school and we figured out ways to creatively cut costs so that he could enter Kindergarten with Sadie next year. And now we are in the final stages of working out Nora going too.
All my children are thrilled for this adventure and there is a calm and ease in our home right now that has not been there in this magnitude for a long time.
I am so glad that we homeschooled. I am so glad that we kept our little kiddos close and that we will continue to do so. It has made all the difference. I am grateful that I was able to hear my children and let them go when they needed to be flying free a little.
Right now Jonah is still in his PJs playing the drums with Gary downstairs in the basement. Nora is brushing her hair in front of me and asking me questions. And Sadie has buried herself in a dictionary learning how to spell better. Molly is in Vermont having her own adventures in college and I am here marveling at this life unfolding before me.

Awakening.

There's a darkness upon me that's flooded in light


In the fine print they tell me what's wrong and what's right

And it comes in black and it comes in white

And I'm frightened by those who don't see it



When nothing is old, deserved or expected

And your life doesn't change by the man that's elected

If you're loved by someone you're never rejected

Decide what to be and go be it.



There was a dream

One day I could see it

Like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it

And there was a kid, with a head full of doubt

So I scream till I die and don't ask for those bad thoughts to find me out



There's a darkness upon you that's flooded in light

In the fine print they tell you what's wrong and what's right

And it flies by day and it flies by night

And I'm frightened by those who don't see it