a smorgasbord of thoughts

Thought 1: Samoa

I am slowly going through our Samoa pictures. There are so many!

The one above is the view from our ferry—the one we took from the "mainland" of Upolu, to the bigger but less populated island of Savaii.

There, in the photo, is Savaii, looming in the distance. (Not the little island on the left, but the really big fuzzy one far, far away!)

On this island, my daughter got pretty sick and we had to take her to hospital. On this island, I too had to go to hospital, 30 years ago. On this island we swam and ate and rested and on this island

we

spread the ashes of my father.

In this photograph, all of that is looming: expectant, promising, waiting.

It carries weight and hope and heft. And when I look at it, I actually feel tired!

But complete, too.

In these days of having returned and still feeling afloat,

I am sorting, finding, organising my thoughts, processing,

not just the many photographs,

but also the journey

which began when we were first deciding whether or not to go, back in September

and ended when the plane touched sweet, beautiful ground last Thursday.

Because it wasn't just a holiday

and it wasn't just a time to say good bye to my father

and it wasn't just a family reunion

and it wasn't just a homecoming

and it wasn't just relaxing

and it wasn't just complicated

and it wasn't just emotional or

difficult or

tiring or

scary

… it was

all

of these things

together.

I still feel like I'm on/in a boat/plane/car and I still feel like I'm not quite home! And yet, it's also

so so good to be home. To have faced fear and accepted adventure and to have embraced hope.

And, now, to have it behind us. It's been a long, long journey,

and I am ready to rest.

Thought 2: Now

My Samoa Diary: Days 5 - 10 is coming very soon! I promise.

But

in the meantime, the kids are super busy here with learning, and thinking and writing and making and playing and being and talking and I want to share a little.

Yesterday, my daughter wrote and made a book called, The Little Yellow Kitten. It's just awesome.

I read it just now and marveled, "It's just like a real book!"

My girl gave me a look. (You know the type.) And she said, "Mum. It IS a real book."

Sorry! Of course it is.

I totally want to post the whole story here. I've asked my girl if that's okay, and she's "thinking about it."

Which means I have to wait. Which is kind of hard for me. Do you think I should ask her again? It's been five whole minutes…!

While we were away, she also filled her writing book and her art book with stories, poems and art. Filled them. So she got a new notebook in Samoa, and it's already half full of stories.

She has become a writing maniac. Her stories are so rich, full of wonderful characters, dialogue, adventure, and awesome words like "agile," and "tumbled." This is the girl who at the beginning of the year said she didn't like to write stories!

As for my son, he finished all the books we brought to Samoa on day 5, just after we'd arrived in a tiny village in Savaii, far away from any book shops. The very rustic and lovely hotel we were staying in had a "library" room somewhere. My husband and son scouted for books and came back with a book from the '70's about diving for treasure, a musty copy of Lord of the Rings, and an old, old Encyclopedia Brittanica Volume 1 (the letter "A")

I didn't know which of these my boy read. I was in a blur with looking after a sick girl and saying hello to dear family friends and spreading my father's ashes. I still feel blurred by it.

But two days ago, my son blurted out, "I can't believe that encylopedia didn't have an entry for Arrhidaeus!"

Um? What? Who?

"Oh, Arrhidaeus, the dyslexic brother of Alexander the Great, who looked after his son after Alexander had died.I can't believe they didn't mention him!"

Really? They didn't have that? Say it ain't so!

I googled Arrhidaeus afterwards, to learn a little, and my son was spot-on. Though he wasn't dyslexic, he was epileptic. (I guess my son would have failed that in a test?) My son said, "Oh, yeah, that's right—I knew there was something different about his brain; I just forgot what."

Yeah, my beautiful boy. Rock that knowledge!

Thought 3: Unschooling

I have one last thing to share today. (So many thoughts, tumbling, tumbling!)

Someone, a very nice woman, mentioned my blog in her comment on a post on unschooling. It's a fascinating post, by The Pioneer Woman.

This post has literally hundreds of comments, and they make for an amazing, rich read, with hundreds of different perspectives given on this Thing Called Unschooling/Life Learning/Natural Learning.

I managed to read about fifty, before my brain petered out. I've bookmarked it and can't wait to go back for more. It's also a very respectful thread, which is refreshing! I highly recommend anyone interested in this method of homeschooling go and check it out.

Anyway, something someone asked in the comments section was this:

"What IS unschooling?"

And it got me thinking.

I think that is a near-impossible question to answer!

Unschooling, by its very nature, is a fluid thing—it's organic, highly personal, and can't really be pinned down. For me, I believe unschooling is based on respect—listening to and respecting how a child learns and wants to learn. It is built on following a child's passions and interests, and on finding ways to help learning happen, ways that are individual and infinite in number.

But that's my version of what unschooling is (and it's pretty dreamy and unspecific, I know!). In fact, I'm not even sure I'd call us "unschoolers," because by my very nature, I avoid being defined, or pinned down. For someone else, their definition of what unschooling is might be very different.

I believe there is no one, "right" way to unschool, or to homeschool for that matter. Because homeschooling is a deeply, deeply personal journey.

Our homeschool journey incorporates all methods of learning—at least, the methods that work for us. It allows for leaving a day completely open to see what comes up, but it also allows for using curriculum, incorporating schedules and routines, and having mentors make suggestions and offer up ideas.

Our journey, ideally, is "personalised, non-coercive, and interest-led" and it is built on respect. Sometimes our homeschool doesn't fit this goal—it gets snarled up in outside worries and expectations, in the sense that we "should" be doing this, or we "need" to do that to get it right. Then we take a deep breath (or at least, I do!). We talk, we pick ourselves up, we focus, and move on.

Homeschooling is such an individual journey that really no label or definition is right for us. Or…maybe…every label is right?!

So, we are unschoolers, and proud of it. AND, we are life learners. AND method dabblers, curriculum tasters, idea brewers, plan makers, learning lovers, people respecters, rule avoiders, skills learners, open-hearters, skills teachers, heart-on-sleevers, judgement skippers, life livers, mistake makers and belly laughers.

This is who we are, and this is our journey.

And it makes us so happy. It feels right to our very bones.

•

And now…

I think I'll stop thinking

(That is, until I start again!)

my Samoa…

Samoa.

The air. It feels so thick with heat and moisture that for the first few hours after landing I feel like I'm breathing soup. After a while, it feels perfectly normal. I don't get asthma or have to blow my nose once, not for ten days.

The buses. Just the same. Made of wood and without closed windows. Belching brown exhaust as they trundle by. We used to ride them from village to village, and because no-one was allowed to stand, we'd often end up sitting on the laps of strangers, along with the chickens and the bananas and the sleeping babies.

The smell of the bakery. Brings me back to when we'd buy sweet rolls and inhale them. The sweet rolls are yellow and soft and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Just as they used to be. My sister and I eat and sigh and smile with pleasure. Just as we used to do.

The island in the hotel pool. It's still there! But no live tree. At first I think I only imagined there was a real palm tree in the middle, but then I find a postcard. There it is: the pool of my past. With my tree. My island. My little path between the plants. My memories intact.

(We used to go to this hotel as a special treat, for dinner with friends, sometimes a birthday, sometimes a show.

On our last week in Samoa, 30 years ago, we stayed here for a whole week over Christmas.

It was one of the most memorable and magical times of my life.)

The villages. Breadfruit trees and chickens and roosters and chicks. Dogs roaming around. Big pigs and baby pigs, foraging beside the road. People sleeping out the day's heat in the fales (pronounced 'fah-leys'… if you want to know!).

Fales with thatched roofs and corrugated roofs. People selling fish at the side of the road. Kids swimming in village rockpools. Kids waving, waving, waving. Graves everywhere, beside people's houses, decorated with plastic flowers and wreaths. A dog sleeping on a grave.

The smiles. Saying "Talofa" (hello), and "Fa'afetai" (thankyou). Learning/Remembering that most people say, "Malo" instead as a casual greeting, and "Tai Lava" as a casual thankyou. Everything feels easy, like there are no hard paths. Just paths, and everyone walking steadily along them. No need to rush.

My Samoa. My old and my new, mingling. And my kids with their faces and hearts wide open, taking it all in.

some photos...

1

On the first day of our trip to Beautiful Samoa,

we saw this …

just like a postcard…

but of course, better!

2

On the second day,

we lounged around the hotel pool,

a pool I swam in as a child,

which used to have a real live palm tree on an island in its middle

but

doesn't any more.

Where'd my tree go?

The kids

were served smoothies …

and felt like royalty.

We went to the markets,

where women sat mostly on chairs

(not on woven mats like my memory)

and we didn't buy mangos

(like we used to)

but we did buy bananas and taro and starfruit and avocado and

everyone we spoke to smiled.

3

On the third day, we went with an old family friend

to the cave pool I loved

and swam in its clean, clear water

to the back of the cave

where the water

still lit up

with light

when you jumped in.

Then we crossed the mountain pass to

the other side

of the island

where the children of our friend's family's village

took us to

their beach,

where we all swam

and

played

and watched the fish

together.

4

On the fourth day,

we went to Lefaga

(pronounced LefaNGa),

a stunning beach I swam at

often as a child.

And my most favourite rockpool was still there—

amazing how it hadn't moved or disappeared,

even though thirty whole years had passed!

(Because solid rock has a tendency to disappear,

don't you know; it just likes to mess with you that way)

As kids,

my sister and I

would grip onto the rocks at the narrowest end

of this pool

and, when the waves came tumbling in,

we'd be sent

shrieking and laughing into the pool beyond.

My sister and I did it again,

this time

with my son between us.

Our laughter mingled with the echo of my laughter from long

ago…

and it was beautiful.

Stay tuned… more photos and memories coming soon!

home

We are back!

BACK. Like, flown safely there and safely home. Like, returned—transformed, delighted, sunsoaked and exhausted.

We flew and landed and drove and saw and swam and ferried and drove and swam and ate and slept and saw and talked and laughed and laughed and

spread my father's ashes somewhere indescribably beautiful

and

swam and drove and ferried and saw and ate and slept and talked and swam and laughed and laughed

and

flew back.

Safe and sound.

Now I'm home, and I feel like I left another home behind—our old friends' welcome was so warm and so incredible. The whole country is so warm and so incredible.

(And I now realise I never said the name of where we were going! What was I thinking?! It's beautiful SAMOA.)

I'm so glad we went.

And I am so glad to be back too.

I love being home. I love seeing our dog, our cat, the crazy-tall grass in the back yard. I love that it's summer holidays. I love that I am going to make lentil bolognese for dinner. I love that I now get to share all our adventures on this sweet blogspace of mine.

There will be a LOT of photos coming up! I can't wait to share them.

Welcome back me; hello to everyone and anyone reading my words. Can you see me waving and my big, big, smile?

about the journey

Okay. Yesterday was unbelievable.

We had to get up before the sun yesterday—to get to Sydney in time for the Lego League tournament. My son groaned his way down the stairs, took his pillow and snoozed in the car—but it didn't take long before excitement kicked in.

Because this was going to be a BIG day.

The opening ceremony was at 8 am. Which is, like, crazy early! But the place was already jumping.

There were over 50 teams. Costumes, hats, posters, banners were on display.

(The kids' banner. Funny thing was, the officials misspelt the name,

so the whole day we were Project Becuphalus. And no-one could pronounce the name. Hysterical)

One team was wearing morph suits. I didn't know what a morph suit was until yesterday. But basically it's an all over body suit, all black, and it literally looks like you have no face. Spoooooky! They were one of our team's favourites.

faceless dudes

Music blared, and kids pulsed nervous energy. People made opening type announcements, and they even got an Important Diplomat from Denmark to give a speech. Big stuff!

Then came the challenges, which came back to back to back.

(get it? back to back to back… ? sorry!)

First was the kids' Research Presentation. It involved a funny skit (imagine a Rapper Pancreas being interviewed, and you start to get the picture) then two little scientists with lab coats and clip-boards presenting the project solution. The kids rocked it.

Then they zipped off to present their robot, which could do many, many snazzy things, like…well, really awesome things that only the kids can explain! I didn't get to see this part, because as the competition deepened, pretty much only the coach could go into the interview rooms. And he had to stay SILENT and STILL. It was up to the kids entirely.

The third challenge was teamwork. You know that saying, that Homeschoolers aren't socialised? They don't know how to work together? Because they're always cloistered away in their homes, mostly stuck at desks, not another peer in sight?

Pishposh, I say! (I've always wanted to say that, and now I have, it sounds ridiculous!) As a team, the kids had to work out how to be an echidna (and in a later call-back, design a logo for next year), in two minutes. No pressure! The kids nailed it.

NEXT came the robot competition. Now, this was big and public. It was in a huge theatre, tables on the stage, everyone watching.

The kids' robot had to complete all these challenges, like release a lego syringe, cart lego figures from place to place, repair a lego bone, and stint a lego heart, all in two and a half minutes. That's less time than you spend brushing your teeth!

And they had to do it while competing with another team on a board right next to them, with people cheering, commentators commenting, music blaring, people crowding in to watch. Again, the kids blew us away.

Suddenly, they were doing well. And not just your regular, hey, the robot didn't go crazy and crash into every single obstacle on the board. Or, hey, no-one fainted from nerves. Or bonus, no-one threw up on a judge. But WELL.

Like, kind of winning.

This robot and the two kids running it, and the team standing beside them cheering it on, flew to the top of the ladder. Suddenly they had other teams crowding to see them compete, coming up to say hello, and congratulating them. Suddenly, they were this mysterious thing—CONTENDERS.

Should I cut a long story short? I might, because—you know—I've got a plane to catch!

They won.

First they won a poster award (which the kids promptly gave to their team-mate who'd spent an entire day making the poster).

Then, they WON the National Robot Challenge. The National Robot Challenge! Which went down to the wire, with play off after play off 'til the last, nail-biting, 2.5 minute final against a Melbourne team. It felt exactly like we were standing inside the movie Karate Kid. (The original of course, 'cos that is just the best).

the final playoff

(And after that final, our kids and the Melbourne team sat together and chatted through the entire closing ceremony. Instant friends.)

And then…

they won the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.

Which means the whole thing. All the challenges (which were first judged separately at a State level) judged together: the robot performance, teamwork, robot design, and research presentation.

They won the whole thing.

There was jumping. There was incredulity. There was almost fainting (but no throwing up). There was a TROPHY.

(or should I say, there were trophies?)

And now they get to fly overseas, to compete at an international tournament, in either Scandinavia or the US (they get to choose). They will represent Australia. NUTS!!!

NUTS.

Afterwards… after we'd peeled ourselves off the roof and hugged and taken photos and said our farewells and begun the drive home, I got to thinking. As I do. I got to ruminating as I drove, as my son was caught in his own thoughts, as the rain began to come down and the night deepened.

This is what I took away from the day:

These kids were amazing. Amazing in how they worked together. How it wasn't always fun or easy, but they saw it out. How they went so hard, for a whole day (TEN straight hours), totally going for it.

And going for it wasn't about going for a win. It was about meeting the challenges head on, doing their best, being awesome friends, laughing (a LOT), getting incredibly excited, eating a lot of sugar, and then, somewhere along the journey, finding that the quality of their work was being recognised.

To me, the tournament was the icing on an amazing cake. (And I love cake, so it's going to be my analogy for the rest of this post!)

Winning the tournament, was a candle on that icing. A big candle sure, involving future fund-raising and major international travel, but not the cake.

The cake was this:

My boy and his friends having a blast, a truly happy day, from the beginning—well before any prizes were being won—all the way to the end.

The cake was my boy spending the day with people he cherishes, seeing something out to its completion, having an adventure, and being IN THE MOMENT.

The cake was taking the journey with an open heart and finding as much joy in it as possible.

Which is beautiful. It is all you can hope for.

And now…

well, we have a plane to catch!

Showing and Telling

It's Show and Tell time today!

My girl has been sewing dragons.

Her first was yellow, stitched all by herself! Here he is:

His name is Sunpatch. Yummy, no?

The next dragon (which is almost finished!)

is red.

The new model has a movable head and tail.

It even has an eye patch! An eye patch, which lifts up.

And has little, carefully sewn-on feet.

It's gorgeous.

I can't wait for you to meet her, or him.

My boy has been reading about the world.

Specifically, he's been reading The Book of General Ignorance cover to cover.

He's read about topics such as "What colour was the sky in ancient Greece?" and

"What do dolphins drink?"

Every answer is not what you'd expect!

He is captivated.

We went to our local library this morning

to pick up books for our trip.

There was a new display on the wall.

We love it when they change the wall display. Of course I pore over every detail.

This display had cats and bells! It was lovely.

Then,

I ran the second last Writers Workshop for the year.

We talked about adjectives and I sang the praises of the Thesaurus

and I had the kids imagine how they'd feel after a pie fight and then

we all decided that a pie fight on the very last workshop would be AWESOME

and there was a LOT of cheering.

But then we came to our senses and decided we'd have a water fight instead.

And a pie eating party.

I love Writers Workshop…

And my girl brought her dragon

to meet her friends

and to play with her friends' soft and cuddly companions

Isn't it beautiful, where we do writer's workshop?

We are lucky, lucky, lucky.

Tomorrow,

my boy does his FIRST Lego League Tournament

with his team,

"Project Bucephalus."

They've been preparing for this for three months,

designing robots, completing all sorts of challenges,

learning to work as a team,

creating a presentation,

coming up with solutions,

designing posters and banners,

working working working.

They have been amazing

(as have the helper grownups involved!).

Tomorrow is the culmination of all that.

There's a fairly large competitive aspect to tomorrow's tournament

which my boy

isn't so sure about…

but to my mind, that is the smallest part of the journey.

In my mind, the challenges have all been

met

and my boy and his team-mates

should be proud.

And then

on Sunday,

we're off on our trip Down Memory Lane,

Into the Wide Blue Yonder,

Up Up and Away,

which means I have to post this,

as the last, sweet part

of my

Show and Tell.

Isn't it beautiful?

Desire this pure

My girl said the other day, "I hate maths; I'd never want to do it the way [brotherboy] does."

"Ah," I said, "that's because you are afraid of it."

"Yes!" she said.

"One day," I said, "you'll want to do it. Really! For some reason—who knows what? Then your desire to do maths will be greater than your fear, and then you'll return to it."

My girl thought this might one day, possibly, maybe (though she has her doubts!) be true.

I believe it will be true. I have no doubt.

I've thought about this conversation a lot recently, as I've been dealing head-on with my fear of flying.

The conversation made me think about my sense of calm, which I have in so many situations; my faith that good things will happen when you give/live/breathe good things and are true to yourself, and my belief that fear can be overcome, when your desire is greater than the thing you fear.

I thought about how steady I am, in this calm, this faith and this belief.

And I was filled with a sense of peace.

Then…I read this quote, in The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho:

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.

And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

("God" being a deeply personal term and exploration—the name (or others like it)

meaning so many incredible things to so many people.)

And I was filled with a sense of light.

Then…I met with my naturopath.

She suggested I take some wonderful homeopathic drops and we talked. Every time I spoke of my fear, I began to cry. Not in terror or misery, but simply leaking. So she guided me to breathe out my anxiety as she helped to release it. And in that moment, I saw my fear coming out, quite clearly, as a ribbon of blueblack colour, leaving my body.

And I was filled with a

sense of transformation.

In this past week I have been calmed, transformed, and filled with light.

And…my fear has been steadily streaming out. My anxiety uncurling, unfurling and dissipating like ink in water.

And I realised that my fear of flight is tiny.

It is tiny when compared to this:

my desire

• to return to the place I lived in as a child

(thirty years literally almost to the day after we left).

• to stand by the sea as we spread my dad's ashes

(ten years to the day after he passed away).

• to stand by the sea with my mother, my sister, my children and husband and nieces, and old, old family friends beside me.

• to walk to the markets and buy mangoes from the women sitting on the woven palm mats.

• to listen to the birds arguing in the fig trees as they settle in for the night.

• to visit a rockpool we went to many times. A rockpool that had a CAVE—you'd swim into its dark centre and jump from the rocks into the cold water below. And as you hit, the water would come alive with blue irridescent light. Like fireworks and fireflies. Your very own.

• to see my sister happy and centred, realising the dream of closure she has held onto for ten years.

• to hang out with my mother for a whole week!

• to see my kids utterly delighted about going on such an Epic Adventure.

• to be with people I love. Love so much. Love to my brim and overflowing.

Fear doesn't stand a chance with desire

this big

or this pure.

Oh,

and one more thing…

:)

My daughter found a friend for me today, who will be riding with us (and all our other furry companions!) on the plane across the sea.

Our little friend was raising money for the Leukemia Foundation. She is the colour of lavender, which is the herb of calm.

Her name is Little Bear.

As my children held her on the car ride home, I said,

"Did you know, that right now, she is filling up

with your loving kindness?

Which means when she rides in my lap on the plane,

I will be holding your loving kindness too."

And that made us all smile!

Sending love and gratitude to all of you,

you who read my words, and who also fill me with loving kindness!

Thank you.