We’re a few weeks into school now, doing our chores, our writing, our math, marking the days as usual with our regular footprints. The kids are supposed to get their chores done and practice their karate so we can go for a walk in the woods first before we start the morning lessons. Each child does a half an hour of math and a half an hour of writing or recall a day, then we read together.
So far, this seems to be working. But how could I tell? Right about now the wonderful schedule and balance and curriculum plan I’ve devised starts looking to me like a giant house of cards, and we know what happens to those. The universe does not tend to order, and I sure as hell don’t.
Like with most things involving children, home schooling is a messy combination of faith and anal-retentiveness. On the one hand I know that, with just a little guidance, enough freedom, and a lot of love, they’ll grow into themselves without my stack of books and old brain full of ideas. On the other hand I feel like I have to create the world for them and look like I know what I’m doing. God had it easy—no one was watching.
The schedules I make, I am very much aware, may be more for my own sanity than for the kids. Their purpose is to try and coordinate us all into a family rhythm, to make for us a shelter where we can all rest and grow, where we can drink from the same well and feel nourished together, part of the same tribe. But everyone has their own interests, activities, sports, friends—and in our culture, “more” is better; I’m sure wanting to stay home and do less makes me seem like a freak.
We’re busy enough that when we’re home, I feel like I need that rhythm in order to breathe, or have room for my own thoughts. In music, the rests, the silence, the spaces between the notes, along with the arrangement of the proper notes makes something pleasant to the ear. Three kids humming different tunes (literally and figuratively) without a break instantly singes my nerves. I like being creative, I like the wildness of jazz, and improvising, and I want our house to be full of music both real and imagined, but I need that energy to have a center to hold it.
I’ve found if I make myself a schedule and routines, I can still be creative but get way more done with much less stress. I know this is why many people like writing sonnets; the structure is a place where their imagination can play. And once I get my time in the shelter, I can tolerate distractions like a high-volume chicken dance with much more equanimity.
But I’m not one who naturally tends to routines and schedules. How could I think I could even be good at this? I missed an entire class in college (except for the tests) because it met too early in the morning. I’m interested in everything, and am prone to get horribly behind in the laundry because I’m reading about the French and Indian War. Left to myself, I’m nomadic; I’ll wander from tent to tent following my interests, staying for a bit and then moving on. To push the metaphor a little bit, this would appear to be a perfectly fine way to live, until you realize you’ve forgotten your camel some ways back. Along with all your clothes.
Better is the house with clean underwear and a camel full of gas, even if it’s a little stodgy. But this structure I’m building for us all—this is the challenge—how do I make it strong enough to support us, yet light enough to let in the wind and starlight?. How do I explain this to the kids? How do they see walls made of air and time? Or do we all live in a magic house, invisible except for the music?
Yesterday I read Raymond Carver’s famous short story “Cathedral”—in the bathroom, of course. In it, a man tries to make conversation with the blind man come to visit his wife. The television is on, talking about cathedrals, and the blind man wants to know what one looks like. Go get a paper bag and a pencil he says; hold my hand and draw it with me, so I can feel it. The husband doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he tries.
He surprises himself, or more precisely, the cathedral does.
So here we are. You can’t see dirty laundry with your eyes closed, and right now the chicken dance sure sounds like fine music. Our little shelter is built of sweat and spit, and it is open to the stars. We are all holding each others’ hands, trying to draw something larger than we think we can even imagine.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
There’s A Chipmunk in the Toilet and My Hair is Turning Gray
If I weren’t already in a constant state of mild panic, the chilly mornings we’ve been having would remind me that yes, it’s the end of summer. Time to get school supplies ready, start putting fall clothes in the drawers, wonder who the children’s teachers will be—oh no, wait a minute—that’s me!
I’m ready, mostly. When you home school, you have to be organized. But, I’ve found that the more organized I get the more paranoid I get, often for good reason. The universe tends toward entropy. Something always happens to throw a wrench, or perhaps a rodent, in the plans.
The other day there was a chipmunk in my toilet.
Usually when you hear the words "and it's trying to swim" coming out of your child (in reference to anything living or previously living in some kind of perilous situation involving liquid), really what it means is "it's dead as a freaking doornail." But no! In this case, the chipmunk was very wet and exhausted, but definitely among our living chipmunky friends. We had company at the time, and everyone joined in a little chipmunk-rescuing conga line toward the back door. He ran, we watched, and that was the highlight of our day.
But that’s not the extent of it. Each morning, I’ve been getting up at 6 to write and do paperwork, in the alleged quiet before my children wake and come down for snuggles. This is apparently when all the things in the walls begin to wake up and actively chew through our joists. I try to write, but their chewing is rhythmic and incessant, like little furry metronomes.
Last night as I went to brush my teeth, there was a flying squirrel on our foosball table. I think he was playing red. He stared at me with little almond-shaped eyes then darted into the wall as I looked for a bag to trap him. I later learned that the southern flying squirrel, Glaucomys volans, apparently prefers to nest communally, so who knows how many of his little buddies are hiding in the walls.
Like the rodents (any comparison to vermin is strictly subconscious), my children have minds of their own too. My plans look real nice in my folders, my calendar, and my PDA. Looking at them, you’d think that I sat down and focused without any distraction and figured everything out. Yet, on our first day of school, I realized I couldn’t find my son’s math textbook. On our second day of school, everyone was in the kitchen doing the chicken dance instead of brushing their teeth.
I am aware that the schedules I make are for my own sanity as much as for the kids’ benefit.
Life is hard, home schooling is hard, and I so want something to be easy. Yet, I’ve realized that part of staying home is having a house full of life and learning to love it even when the distractions are driving me crazy. It’s not about me; I only live here. It’s a dance, and I only get to lead sometimes.
At the moment, two of my kids are making weapons out of KNex (“these are bombs, arrows, bombs, bombs, and more bombs”) and flinging them at each other while the other is inexplicably picking out “The British Grenadiers” on the high notes of the piano. Another chipmunk has jumped out onto me from the home schooling shelves, and instead of writing I’m checking out the web page for the National Flying Squirrel Association. The dog is staring at me, with a huge erection.
Why try to concentrate? I can do the white-girl two step, and I can do the chicken dance. It’s amazing what I can do when I’m not being attacked by rodents. For now, that’s enough.
I’m ready, mostly. When you home school, you have to be organized. But, I’ve found that the more organized I get the more paranoid I get, often for good reason. The universe tends toward entropy. Something always happens to throw a wrench, or perhaps a rodent, in the plans.
The other day there was a chipmunk in my toilet.
Usually when you hear the words "and it's trying to swim" coming out of your child (in reference to anything living or previously living in some kind of perilous situation involving liquid), really what it means is "it's dead as a freaking doornail." But no! In this case, the chipmunk was very wet and exhausted, but definitely among our living chipmunky friends. We had company at the time, and everyone joined in a little chipmunk-rescuing conga line toward the back door. He ran, we watched, and that was the highlight of our day.
But that’s not the extent of it. Each morning, I’ve been getting up at 6 to write and do paperwork, in the alleged quiet before my children wake and come down for snuggles. This is apparently when all the things in the walls begin to wake up and actively chew through our joists. I try to write, but their chewing is rhythmic and incessant, like little furry metronomes.
Last night as I went to brush my teeth, there was a flying squirrel on our foosball table. I think he was playing red. He stared at me with little almond-shaped eyes then darted into the wall as I looked for a bag to trap him. I later learned that the southern flying squirrel, Glaucomys volans, apparently prefers to nest communally, so who knows how many of his little buddies are hiding in the walls.
Like the rodents (any comparison to vermin is strictly subconscious), my children have minds of their own too. My plans look real nice in my folders, my calendar, and my PDA. Looking at them, you’d think that I sat down and focused without any distraction and figured everything out. Yet, on our first day of school, I realized I couldn’t find my son’s math textbook. On our second day of school, everyone was in the kitchen doing the chicken dance instead of brushing their teeth.
I am aware that the schedules I make are for my own sanity as much as for the kids’ benefit.
Life is hard, home schooling is hard, and I so want something to be easy. Yet, I’ve realized that part of staying home is having a house full of life and learning to love it even when the distractions are driving me crazy. It’s not about me; I only live here. It’s a dance, and I only get to lead sometimes.
At the moment, two of my kids are making weapons out of KNex (“these are bombs, arrows, bombs, bombs, and more bombs”) and flinging them at each other while the other is inexplicably picking out “The British Grenadiers” on the high notes of the piano. Another chipmunk has jumped out onto me from the home schooling shelves, and instead of writing I’m checking out the web page for the National Flying Squirrel Association. The dog is staring at me, with a huge erection.
Why try to concentrate? I can do the white-girl two step, and I can do the chicken dance. It’s amazing what I can do when I’m not being attacked by rodents. For now, that’s enough.
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