Until We Reach The Sea

I’ve found people always ask casually what home schooling is like, as if I could give them a short, polite answer other than “It’s great!” I could say that home schooling is an adventure, hard work, pain or joy or all of the above, but the words rarely come at the right time and there’s never a quick way to sum up the journey we’ve been on for years. Oddly, after the “what about the socialization” question, the most common inquiry I get is “how long are you planning to do it?” Right now, as summer beckons, my children have a similar question: “how long are we going to do school?”

Questions of duration are tough ones to answer – we’re having so much fun learning, and it’s as much a part of life as getting dressed or eating, neither of which we plan to stop doing any time soon. My children and I have been slowly making our way through history, and right now we’re in the early 1800’s soaking up the journey of Lewis and Clark. All four of us are watching Ken Burns’ PBS documentary, traveling with the brave group as they row against the current of the wild Missouri river. Those men lived out President Jefferson’s dream, searching for the mythical Northwest Passage through the uncharted mystery of a young nation. They nearly died in the mountains but finally made it, years later, to the great vista of salt water that had danced at the edge of their dreams. I am awed; I hope my children are at least mildly impressed and not just quiet because they’ll eagerly watch anything I let them, even the Paint Drying Channel.

Today we visited the Harvard Museum of Natural History, a wonderful repository of gems, taxidermied animals, insects, glass botanicals. The collections are arranged in large rooms behind glass, and in the afternoons, hardly anyone is there. We went specifically to see the stuffed woodpecker that Lewis and Clark sent back to Thomas Jefferson. We were so excited! What a wonder it would be — to view the very same bird that the great adventurers handled on their amazing trip up the Missouri—we could see it here in Cambridge.

But, maybe not. Turns out, the bird is on loan to Washington DC. We probably even unknowingly walked by it when we visited the Smithsonian a few weeks ago on vacation (the title “Flipped the Bird” occurred to me for this article). One rule I’ve discovered about home school field trips is that nothing ever seems to go right. We get stuck, we’re at Symphony Hall in Boston instead of in Springfield, someone throws up in the car. But we always keep going, and have our own good time. As I tell my son: when life hands you lemons, don’t get any of the juice into your cuts.

So the bird wasn’t there—but there were eggs, given by George Washington as well as Lewis and Clark, and hundreds and hundreds of other birds, including a colorful burst of tanagers mounted on the wall like modern art. We used the bathrooms, we sketched, we used the bathrooms. My four-year old drew a passable picture of a heron complete with what he called a “scotch-colored” beak (don’t look at me, I prefer wine). Everyone shared colored pencils without bickering. I even got to draw a white hawk with the sketch kit I haven’t used in years.

A usual, waiting repeatedly in front of the bathrooms puts me in a meditative mood. I do not need to wipe anyone—therefore I think. What do I want for my children? I want them to be strong enough to row upriver. I want them to know that there are always new things to be learned, that dreams are to be shared. And for me? I hope I’m always welcome along for the ride.

It’s a beautiful afternoon, and we’re happy. It doesn’t matter where our journey takes us, as long as we have each other and our eyes on the horizon. How long will we do this? Until we reach the sea.