why I

I've been thinking a lot recently about why I keep this blog. I am sure plenty of people out there have the same thought—why write here when all around, all around, are writing too?

Who is listening? What do I have to say that matters enough to present it here?

Who am I to presume so large and so boldly?

I am a single drop, tiny amongst the others,

drop against drop against drop.

Which makes me small and large at once.

Together, we form a body of sweet water which combined, are our drops connected, and separately are our thoughts, dreams, accomplishments and sometimes, our fears.

I am a drop connected. With or without anyone watching,

here in my own pocket of space, I know I am

connected.

No matter how small my thoughts, I am connected.

No matter how small I might feel or afraid, or

empowered or

fine

—like the sea or like sunlight—

I am connected.

Which is why I write. Why I write here.

I write about homeschooling but I am more than a homeschooler. I write about writing, but I am more than a writer. I post photographs but I am more than a photographer. I write about my children but I am more than a mother. I write about my depression but I am

so much more than that.

And I write about the joy.

I should mention that I write about the joy!

I find it.

Am so grateful when it comes.

I write it down, I mark it with a smile.

And, now that I think about it,

I am, in fact, no more than this.

The joy,

the parts that make it

and

the parts that stand beside it.

Even as hard as those parts are.

To these parts and particles, my words bear witness.

So…

Here I am and here

we are.

All our drops connected and separate.

All our tiny particles shining inside.

a new day…

a new day equals:

a talk with a sister—love, kindness, understanding, compassion

an appointment with a doctor

a pact to see someone to talk things through on a regular basis, rain, hail or shine

a big family cuddle on the bed with the children kicking their feet up and laughing

a kiss from my husband. His lips taste of peanut butter

preparing for writers workshop

sun shining

being gently reminded to look for the joy

the kids happily learning, writing reading talking being. Our homeschool land happy and intact

the dog licking himself

the cat scratching at the playroom door

birds calling

asking a friend to hang with my kids while I see the doctor. She saying yes without hesitation

a sleepover tonight with two bouncety kids coming

pizza video night

my kids

my husband

us

a new day equals…

it is morning, the day is in front of me

let's see what it brings?

with the dark waiting

It's been kind of a tough time recently. Things have been happening that are out of my control and which I have struggled with. Actually, I should put that into the present tense. Things are happening that are out of my control and that I am struggling with.

"Struggling with" is one of those understatements you write when when you are no longer a child, when you are an adult and supposed to cope with major stress.

If I was a child I could stamp my feet; I could wail. I could bang my fists really really hard on some surface, or even the soft stomach of my mother while she hugged me. I could yell, "It's not FAIR!" and I could refuse to do anything until the problem went away or until someone sat me on their lap and smoothed the sorrow away.

But I am not a child, so I can't.

I have a picture for my sorrow. It involves a lot of old ugly junk that happened a long time ago. But instead of sorting the junk and finding a good, settled place for it, it got shoved into a cupboard, a spare room if you will. The door was smooshed shut, in the hopes that if it was left long enough, the junk might simply go away. And then new rooms, in fact a whole house, got built around that one room of old, lost junk. Thin walls kept it away from my life, my new house, and I thought I was safe.

The thing is, it only takes a small tap to break these walls down. Or maybe a large-ish tap, or the attempt to fit in new, ugly junk that I didn't create or desire, that busts the room wide open. If you shove enough stuff in—when the walls break, you are completely, utterly overwhelmed.

At the same time, you have to parent. You have to parent and guide and love, with joy and compassion and kindness. You have to have strength to do these things, while the old junk crowds in, saying, "Oi! Remember me? I'm still heeeeeere!!" And the new junk says, "I'm here too! Me! Too! Don't forget me!"

And you have to keep it at arm's length while loving, guiding, teaching, living with your beautiful children, knowing that at night, when your kids are sweetly sleeping, the junk will crawl over you, into you, settle in for the long dark.

I'm meant to be sorting my junk right now. But we've just done some maths. We're writing stories. We're about to do our Science unit. The kids want to learn and be and be happy. I haven't time to be sad or sort, and at the same time I know it has to happen.

I'd love the junk to just go away. Or, I'd love to simply accept it, accept that it is there, and say, "Yeah, you're here, so what?"

But it keeps pricking me, keeping me awake at night. It won't let me be. It's saying, "We're not leaving. At some point you've got to face us, dust-ragged and dim as we are. We still have the power to take you down."

I think you're supposed to go to counsellors for this. Go see a pastor, or a buddhist teacher, or a healer, or a doctor with kind eyes. I am trying to find the time and strength to do that.

In the meantime, I will go for a walk this afternoon, with my soulful dog and skipping kids. The sun will shine, and we will go out into it.

With the old and new junk and the dark waiting, and their claim on me like a fist, I will go out in the sun while it is there.

I might see something beautiful along the way, like this:

or this:

to remind me that the dark is not all that I am.

the colours in between…

Every week, we drive about 40 minutes south to a gorgeous little town tucked into the hills where our tennis lessons are held. It's a long way to go, but we love the view and the green opening up in front of us, the tranquility…and the cows. These cows are the reason we became vegetarian, so we have a very soft spot for all of them.

Anyway, the other thing I love about the drive are the talks we have. The view all around, and the long drive seem to open up a glorious, free space for really discussing "life, the universe and everything" (oh, and all the other things in between :-) ).

One week I got to hear about the Spartans, from my son who'd just learned about them in his Usborne Encyclopedia of World History. Another week, we talked about Buddhism and faith. We've been talking about the election a lot, and sometimes we just say what we love about our friends. But last week's conversation was so interesting I had to write it down in my homeschool journal afterwards. And today, it occurred to me that I could post it here too.

So here it is:

On the way to the Sweet Hillside Town Where We Play Tennis, the kids and I saw our regular cows.

We always say, "Hello, cows we won't be eating!" We got talking about how cute they were, and how we didn't like thinking of them ending up as food.

Then the notion of taking a calf away to save its life came up.

I said, "Yeah, but that would be stealing."

"But," said my son, "They steal too; they steal the cow's life, so this wouldn't be as bad."

So began a looooong discussion about the concepts of "good and bad," and "wrong and right."

First we talked about how doing something illegal or "wrong" can seem right in someone's mind.

I told the kids about how people used to use (and probably still do use) animals for testing cosmetics, and how protesters would come and steal the animals to save them. Then I talked about how animals are still used for scientific experiments, to test out new medicines, medical approaches, and machines. Was it "wrong," to do that or was it "right"?

On the one hand, I said, the animals suffer and that doesn't seem right.

My son said, "And there are plenty of people in the world to test things on."

I said, "Yes, but you're not allowed to kill or hurt humans."

My son thought it was really unfair that you were allowed to kill or hurt animals.

So we talked about how, on the other hand, people can now live longer because new medicines and machines etc have been tested to make sure they work, like cancer drugs, and pacemakers in hearts.

After explaining what a pacemaker was, and did, I said, "If I was the one who needed the pacemaker to live, I might be okay with it being animal tested first. But when I think about the animals suffering, the big picture of it, I don't feel okay with it."

We talked about how some things sometimes really don't have a clear answer. Sometimes there is no wrong or right, there's just how you see things and how you feel, and all the grey (and rainbow!) areas between black and white.

It was getting very deep.

So then my son suddenly said, "Yeah. If you put a cow's heart into a person, the cow wouldn't be happy. As for the person; they'd be going around saying, Moo!"

And the conversation got very silly after that!

That was last week's Big Talk. We laughed, got to tennis where our friends were waiting, and had a lovely day.

We're off again in a little while, to drive past 'our' cows to the Sweet Hillside Town we have come to cherish.

I wonder what we'll talk about today?

the people have spoken

So I've had to do a lot of explaining, recently.

First I had to explain, a few months ago, that we now had a new Prime Minister without having had an election.

That involved explaining what a Prime Minister was, how they were not called a President, and how they are different from a King. I had to explain how we are governed not by one person, but by a majority political party. Then I explained that the Prime Minister was the leader of this party and that at any time, the party could choose to change who their leader was.

That was tiring!

Then came the election. Which was two days ago. In the last month I've had to explain what an election was. How you had to vote not for a Prime Minister, but for a party. Clear enough, but then I had to explain that you did actually have vote for a person, someone from the party of your choice who represents your area.

Because, I explained, we live in a certain electoral area called C********* ("But Mum, we don't live in C*********! We live in 'Pretty Coastal Town near Sydney'! So confusing!). Ah, yes, I said, We do live in 'Pretty Coastal Town near Sydney,' but we also live in the area called C********* which we never think of, or identify with, unless it's Election Day. (So it's kind of a wasted name, if you ask me, and maybe they should have not spent so much time giving it a lovely name like C********* and just called it "Zone X." Or something.)

Anyway, I said, you have to vote for the person from the party of your choice who represents your area. And then, if more people from one party are voted in than another, their party is the winner.

Right? Right.

I thought I was doing pretty well. I think some of it went Weeeeeeee all the way over my little ones' heads, but some of it got in. And at least I was following it enough to go out there like a grown-up and vote my little heart out. One of the cooler moments was when my girl asked me on Election Day, "Mum, do you like voting?" and I got to say, "Yes, it makes me feel like I have a little bit of a say in how the country is run." (Aw, that's sweet, yes?)

But now we've got this thing called a Hung Parliament. At least I think we do. The numbers aren't all in, but so far it sounds like we've got about the same number of one major party as the next. There's no clear winner. This hasn't happened since World War Two, they say.

So now I think the Independent politicians and Smaller Political Parties are going to be wooed by the two Big Parties to align themselves with one Party or Other. This is called the "Two Party Preferred" system, and that will decide who runs this country for the next 2-3 years. At least I think it will.

My head hurts!

So, I've been trying to explain it. I've talked about the smaller parties, and named as many ones as I can: the Greens, the Democrats, the Socialists, the Family First party, the Sex Party (What?!? said my kids), the Party for Non-Custodial Parents, and the Shooters' Party (which I'm not sure still exists. The kids said, "Who are they?" and I had to fudge who I thought they were. Probably totally misrepresented the poor dears).

Plus there's all the other parties I can't remember, or have never heard of. (I don't read the whole ballot paper! I mostly put my numbers here, here, and here).

Anyway. Maybe I was tired from all the explaining. Maybe I just have never been big on Politics (find it a little slimy, all the jockeying for popularity, the petty bickering, and the lying), so have bleeped out anything to do with Politics for the most part. But as I was explaining all this Stuff to my kids, I suddenly realised I didn't even know section/side of Parliament we were voting for. I knew there were two sections, but I suddenly didn't know their names, or which side was involved in this election.

I realised I barely knew my Parliament at all. After all this time together…we were strangers!

So I said to my husband, "I think there's a Senate, right? But what's the other one called?"

And my husband, who's American and doesn't get to vote here, said, "Um, well in America there's a Senate, and a House of Representatives."

And I said, "Yeah, ok. I think maybe it's called the House of Representatives here too, but I don't know which lot we're voting for! I don't think I ever learned that! Or I learned it and forgot…How is it that I don't know this?"

And my son, who'd been walking along listening (and has been paying attention this whole time to the whole Election Business), shook his head and said:

"Mum, you should have been homeschooled."

Don't you think?

the rubberiness of schedules

Um, remember how I said my son was following a timetable? And he was starting around 9 and working until around 12? And he was doing maths, then english, then Science on Mondays and History on Wednesdays, and so forth?

Well…

I've decided the beautiful thing about making any sort of schedule is that you can then relax and ignore it completely! Yes, that's my take on it.

We've had such a lovely week.

On Monday, my husband cancelled a class to be home with us. So while I rested, the kids got to spend their morning riding bikes with their dad, along the ocean bike path, in the sun. When they got home, yes, my son did maths, but instead of then writing in his journal and doing Science, he began researching for his new chosen project—a lapbook on Greek and Roman myths— and made his first mini-book. He was so happy.

Then my son made up such a silly story playing with his sister that he had to go write it down. He couldn't stop writing when it was time for band practice, so he brought it along, and wrote it while his friends waited for him to play soccer (which they all play just before band). When the very silly story was done, the band kids crowded around while my son's friend read it out, and everyone roared with laughter.

Tuesday, the kids learned about Carl Friedrich Gauss, the Prince of Mathematicians. Naturally, my boy didn't touch his maths workbook. And then he suggested reading through the Science by Email newsletters I've been getting through the kids' subscription to an Australian Science Club.

The kids read about solar radiation, did little quizzes and got excited about some experiments. But it was time for tennis lessons, so our academic day was done. Or was it?—we still managed to fit in a really deep ethical discussion about "right" and "wrong," while driving the rolling, cow-speckled hills to the tennis court. As you do!

Wednesdays are my boy's History days, but instead he played Man Bites Dog with his Nana. Stories had to be shown, cuddles had. Then we went out to lunch and spent a happy hour or two in the book store. My son found a new Asterix book which he bought with his pocket money and promptly devoured. Then it was time to play an hour of soccer before music lessons. And to read and read and read some more.

As for Thursday. What did we do today? My son read until 10, a book called The Puzzle Ring by Kate Forsyth. It's a wonderful book—you get to visit Scotland, and time travel with the characters back to the 16th Century and the days of Mary Queen of Scots. And fight evil fairy queens to boot. Awesome.

Then my boy leisurely strolled down for breakfast. In the meantime, I had made a maths Bingo game for my girl and I to play, matching subtraction sentences and numbers. My son just had to play that with us. Workbook, shmurkbook.

Afterwards, my boy continued writing a new, also-very-silly story about a goblin named Frank who likes to eat tourists.

And then we had to go to Homeschool Group to play tennis with 15 other free-to-be, joy-filled, laughing children…

So, as I was saying:

The schedule had no chance this week. There was just too much life learning to do!

wings

credit

On Monday, my girl was doing a little maths tutorial where she learned a trick for adding the numbers 1 to 9. The lesson mentioned in passing a man named Gauss who'd come up with a nifty way of adding number series. Then the tutorial asked, Now you know how to add from 1 - 9, can you add all the numbers from 1 to 100?

No way! said my girl.

Well, I said, maybe? Like, if we do this, and then that, and then this, maybe we could…?

And then we asked my son. He said, Of course! You just add this to that over and over. See?

Well, of course.

So then I was browsing a link to a maths site yesterday morning and there was a lesson on adding number series. It spoke of a man called Carl Friedrich Gauss. (Serendipity, I love you)

I've since done some reading on him. His other name? The Prince of Mathematicians.

When he was a child, Gauss figured out in seconds how to quickly add all the numbers from 1 to 100. He went on to become a mathematician and scientist, and in his time was considered one of the most important mathematicians since the Greek philosophers.

On this site, the tutor showed exactly how Gauss had done it. So I had to show the kids. Together, we saw how it was done and it was very clever.

My son's theory on Monday was almost right, which was pretty cool. Maybe he's got a future in mathematical prodigy-ing? That is, if he isn't too busy being a historian, artist, drummer, writer and inventor. Maybe he'll fit it all in.

As for me, when I couldn't sleep last night, lying awake at the magical hour of 4 o'clock, I found myself adding from 6 to 83, and number series like 3, 6, 9, all the way to 99.

It was incredibly satisfying. It felt like I'd been given Maths Wings.