Balance

I'm kind of struggling right now with finding a balance between meeting my children's intellectual needs and meeting my own. I am completely aware that my growth is vital for theirs, and that seeing me interested in learning is an important social cue to instill their own interests in learning.

I'm an all-in kind of person. I get slightly obsessive about subjects and people that I find interesting and inspiring. You read my current book list, right? THAT'S what I'm into right now, and I could spend 12 hours today reading and it wouldn't be enough for me. But it would be far too much for my children, and this whole deschooling/unschooling issue is something that I can only share with them to a certain degree. When my passion (which is a much more acceptable word than obsession) was for food (the health issues, the politics, the creative and social implications), that's something I talked about all the time. I shared what I learned, and it benefited them, completely.

And of course I talk about unschooling and why I think it's important and what I think the problems with the institution of school are (not education, but *school* - it's a very important distinction).

The thing is, they aren't schooled. They haven't had their spirits broken. They can't feel the same kind of passion for the subject that I can, because they are coming from a completely different place. So while all of this is so very important for me, it's a non-issue for them. Of course, the fact that I grow from it is invaluable to them, so I need to continue to absorb everything I can.

So while I'm reading and blogging and learning and growing, they are off doing their own thing. Sometimes, a lot of times, that's perfect. I am just trying to find that discipline within myself to be able to stop what I'm doing and completely shift the focus to them when they need me, and not feel like my needs are being blighted.

If only I didn't need sleep.

Teenaged Me

I so could have just fallen asleep in the sauna at the gym if it weren't for the dripping sweat feeling like bugs crawling all over me.

On the drive home, I considered whether or not Teenaged Me would like the me that I am now.

Teenaged Me was quick to snap-judge, so I'm not so sure she could get past the minivan. She was, however, intrigued by the idea that an extraordinary brain could be hiding inside an otherwise average-seeming person, and I like to think I might have that going for me. She too had a very healthy opinion of herself.

Strangely, I can't remember what Teenaged Me thought she might be doing as an adult, like, for a living. I think she still thought that you just kind of enter the workforce and be a worker bee if that's the class you were born into, unless you experienced some crazy, freak luck. I didn't realize until very recently that there are other ways to survive besides the full-time job that you don't particularly like. I thought that a job was a job. It didn't occur to me that there was an option to actually do what fulfills you. I'm sure Teenaged Me would have been suitably impressed by my baking company in Sydney. It was small, but it was *mine* and I didn't compromise anything.

Teenaged Me didn't really get adults though. She couldn't relate to them. So I'm sure she would have been distant and respectful and not really cared one way or the other.

Book list

I've kind of overdone it with the whole book reservation thing. No biggie though, library books are free. And renewable. And re-check-out-able.

Here's what I've got now:

The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn. I started this quite awhile ago, but then I got distracted by The Red Tent and Committed. I read this awesome excerpt this morning:

The way our society is set up now, something's got to prevent visionary experience. Otherwise, ninety percent of the American monoculture would shatter. People who are fully and permanently awakened to the wildness and beauty in and around them make lousy wage-slaves. On the other hand, people who are not distracted by a wellspring of spiritual and sexual yearnings can assemble clock radios or automobiles very quickly, or focus their intellects on monthly sales charts.

Sorry, children of mine, I am not giving you the upbringing you are going to need in order to while your lives away in soul-sucking, mind-numbing jobs.

Here are the other books in my pile:

Instead of Education by John Holt
Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
Teach Your Own by Holt and Pat Farenga
How Children Learn by Holt
A Different Kind of Teacher by Gatto

Nate is working through (with help) two of the Calvin and Hobbes books he got from the library. There are eight more waiting to be picked up. Plus Cosmos by Carl Sagan. So much information!

Committed (book review, sort of)

I just finished Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert's follow up to Eat, Pray, Love. I was excited to read it because I recently saw the movie, fell in love with the Brazilian character, and had to find out what happened. So I did. And eh, it was ok. The story was very familiar to me - relationship with foreign-born dude, necessity to marry in order to secure resident visa for said dude. The book is mostly an anthropological study of marriage and the author's attempts to make peace with the institution since she was going to have to go through with it in order to stay with the man she loved. She was reaching for something that would let her give herself permission to marry, but she admitted that she was reaching which made the whole thing bearable.

My favorite part was her "prenuptial informed consent release" - the list of her top 5 character flaws, "just so I would be certain he had been fairly warned." I loved them because I could have written the first two and a half myself if I was, you know, eloquent. Here they are:

1. I think very highly of my own opinion. I generally believe that I know best how everyone in the world should be living their lives- and you, most of all, will be the victim of this.
2. I require an amount of devotional attention that would have made Marie Antoinette blush.
3. I have far more enthusiasm in life than I have actual energy. In my excitement, I routinely take on more than I can physically or emotionally handle, which causes me to break down in quite predictable displays of dramatic exhaustion. You will be the one burdened with the job of mopping me up every time I've overextended myself and then fallen apart. This will be unbelievably tedious. I apologize in advance.
4. I am openly prideful, secretly judgmental, and cowardly in conflict. All these things collude at times and turn me into a big fat liar.
5. And my most dishonorable fault of all: Though it takes me a long while to get to this point, the moment I have decided that somebody is unforgivable, that person will very likely remain unforgiven for life- all too often cut off forever, without fair warning, explanation, or another chance.

While she was highly ashamed of these traits, I find the first two and a half (you know, the ones that apply to me) to be quite charming. Go figure. I do tend to be very forgiving, even of my own "flaws". I am very impressed by the notion of acknowledging and addressing one's flaws. It's admirable stuff.

All in all, it was a decent read. Some of the marriage history stuff was interesting. Near the end, she goes into depth about the fundamentally subversive nature of marriage - the state can never control a relationship based on private intimacy which is why extreme leaderships (cults, communists, slave owners) have historically attacked personal relationships. She found solace in this, the idea that even though she and her partner were more or less being forced by the government to marry, it was by nature a subversive act. In my opinion, all of the justifications are unnecessary. You do what you gotta do, and if what you gotta do involves having your relationship recognized by the state, more power to you.

¡México!

Thanks to my bestie Melissa for planning her wedding next month in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. I'm making my travel arrangements. Mine. My own. I'm going solo. It is so insanely exciting.

My last (and only) solo international flight was in 2002 when I flew home from Australia knocked up. I didn't yet appreciate what a treat it is to make that kind of flight by oneself. Since then I have made 9 round trip overseas flights, all of them with at least one child. One trip to America I even did as a solo parent with three kids, aged 6, 3 and 17 months. Whoever is handing out the awards for superhuman accomplishments missed me on that one.

So the prospect of going to Mexico without children feels so... free. Adult. Independent. I only feel a teeny tiny bit guilty because I'll only be gone for a few days. It will be my first time away from Eli, but I have done the separation thing before; when I came home to help my mom through her chemo, I spent a month away from Nate and Maya - she was only two months older than Eli will be - so three nights doesn't seem like quite such a big deal.

I only just looked at the map this morning to see where Playa Del Carmen is exactly. I had no idea. Depending on who you ask, it is a 40-60 minute drive from Cancún. The closest capital city is Havana, and it is only about 200 miles away from the Belize border. Three hours away is Chichén-Itzá, the spectacular Mayan ruins. I kind of feel like - how can I just go for a few days when there is so much to be explored? I'm thinking I'll have to get to Chichén-Itzá, even if it means spending an extra day. How could I not? I mean, it'll just be me. One backpack, one bottle of water. Nobody else's capacity for hiking or sightseeing longevity to take into consideration.

No checked baggage. No carseats. No games and toys and children's books. No complaining. No boredom. Ahhh, I could get used to that kind of traveling.

Fragile

I had a good run there as a parent. Today I'm struggling though. I just had a tearful "can't we all just get along" breakdown. I'm out-energized today. I feel a severe lack of serenity. I'm surrounded by toys and things and yells and screams and bickering and laughter and energy and I want to be in a dark, quiet hole. All morning I have found myself putting things away, vacuuming, making beds, doing dishes, getting things in order, hoping that the order will penetrate through to my mind. I wonder why sometimes my family and the love that lives in this house is enough for me, and sometimes I feel so lonely, like none of it can find a way through, it can't penetrate this bubble.

And I *know* that my music choices aren't helping. I wonder why I do this to myself. I was the 10 year old kid who made myself depressing mix tapes so that when I was feeling down I could keep myself there, really wallow in it. I like to think that I'm not a particularly dramatic person (outwardly at least) but that is certainly dramatic behavior. Maybe I am supposed to be living in a time full of drama, and since I don't I find myself making my own personal drama. I try to keep it to myself, but I gave my kids a heaping portion this morning.

I am so lucky, though, that my kids get me. They love me anyway. I have created my own peaceful space downstairs this morning, and they are upstairs for the time being. Nate just came down to give me a hug and then went back up. If we were still in that motorhome, I would have had to go walkabout today, but we're in a house with spaces for people to be alone when they need to. I like that.

Okay. Emotions processed. Feeling better. Calmer.

I just read back the first line of this blog post and had to have a bit of a laugh at myself. Dramatic much?

Writing

I was on a roll there. Now it's gone.

It's funny, I've never been much of a writer. Well that's not true. I've always been a prolific writer, but a very self-critical one. This is why none of my journals from before I moved to Australia still exist - I found them, read them and was so mortified by the complete rubbish they contained that I had to destroy them. Bummer. I'm sure I'd find them all really interesting now.

In high school English classes, I found the writing really hard because I was such a perfectionist. Each reading, I would make multiple insignificant changes and feel such relief, like thank goodness I didn't turn it in in that state, that would have been so embarrassing. Then I'd read through "one last time" and find more changes, and more, and more, and never really got to a point where I felt completely satisfied with my work. And then I'd get an A+ and wonder if I was too pedantic or if my teacher wasn't paying close enough attention.

I'm not sure what changed really. I never would have been able to write a blog back then. I spent a lot of Nate's early years on parenting forums, and in the beginning it would take me a ridiculously long time to write a simple post. I would read and re-read and wonder, does this make me sound smug? permissive? strict? hypocritical? judgmental? Regardless of my efforts, I have still been misunderstood so many times. Maybe I have learned that all of the proof-reading doesn't really help me avoid being seen the way I'm going to be seen. People see what they want to see, or what they need to see to keep their stories flowing.

Really, it's a whole lot easier to just write and not give a fuck what people are going to think. I need to write. I can see me in the future (because there are less distractions in the future), sitting in front of this computer, processing every thought that goes through my head. I feel like the more I write, the more material I have. I swear, people, there's so much atrophied brain in here. Parenting does wonders for the heart and for the soul, but it somehow manages to suck away my intelligence. Definitely my memory has suffered. And my focus. But every time I write, my brain wakes up a little bit.

To writing.