my reality

This morning I read a beautiful post at Earth Mama about how mother's mood influences the whole family. I was nodding my head in agreement until I got to the part about sleep. Then my sardonic shadow self emerged, and would not slink away again until I had written a post myself on the subject. So let me preface this by saying Earth Mama did it much better, much more wisely and nicely, and I wish I could be more like her.

It is so true that Mother's mood influences her family. (And yes, I am more a Mother than a Mama at heart, although I can not convince anyone I should be called that, so am mama by default. When I was little, I hated that my gran called my parents "Daddy and Mother," as I suspected she was taking a swipe at her daughter-in-law, my Mum. But these days I appreciate its dignity and elegance and the respect it seems to suggest.)

Anyway, yes, about moods. Even if I am cheerful, gentle, fully engaged, my family will pick up on any secret gloominess, and it will indeed sour their moods also.

However, I have a slightly different frazzle free plan than the wonderful Earth Mama.

Learn to just cope with sleep deprivation. Last night Rose had a nightmare, the night before she had a nightmare (yeah I'm onto it, she'll be getting one of my devious Quizzes later this morning), and consequently I've been operating on about four hours sleep each night. I've written before about how I am often a better mother when tired (go on, I dare you to brave my archives to find it) but the fact is, I'm a better mother because I'm tired. Because I do the late night talks and the midnight nightmare run and the early waking so I can get my personal work done before Rose needs my attention.

Before I had a child, I was talking with a woman about her holiday weekend plans. Sleep, she said. All her children were going out of town and she was going to sleep. I didn't get it at the time. I do now. And I always keep in my heart the best parenting advice I ever got: you can sleep when they leave home.

Don't stress about diet. Rose ate pure foods when she was little. She has no sweet tooth because I seldom gave her lollies. But just yesterday I bought her a lemonade with her McDonalds (don't faint from gasping in horror - she ordered a chicken wrap.) And I gave her instant noodles for dinner. She still eats well. But I am more relaxed and allow her more treats like a normal kid, and as a consequence she still has a large box of caramels in her bedroom from three weeks ago.

Keep moving. Momentum is the foundation of my mothering. If I was to take a long hot soak in the bath ... well, I shudder to think.

Having said that, the next bit of advice may seem contradictory. That's okay. Tolerating contradictions is another important part of the stress control plan.

Walking is good, sitting is better. We walk too much. It stresses us. Coming home for a good quality sit is the most nerve-relaxing thing of all. And then five minutes later getting up to throw a frisbee around the garden.

Pray constantly. I don't have the time or patience to spend long periods of time on my knees before God. So I chat away to her constantly. I thank her constantly. I pester Christ. I joke with my angel. I tried to think of a pretty metaphor for this, but I only have ten computer minutes left, so let's just say it's the difference between going into another room, picking up the phone, dialling long distance, and sitting for a long comfy chat ... and walking around with one of those cool headsets attached to your ear.

Read lots of wonderful, gentle parenting weblogs. But don't take it too seriously. They have to wash their dishes one plate at a time, just like you.

But the most important tool in my mothering kit is this:

Smile. When I was doing my psychology training, one piece of advice really stuck in my mind, and I found it was the most helpful thing for anyone's recovery. Act as-if. Feeling blue? Pretend you are happy: smile and sing a little song, get up and clean your kitchen or go for a walk to gather flowers. Pretend the world is a good place. Feeling worried? Forget it for a while, just focus on some image of a perfect calm tomorrow. In my mothering, there are times when I'm so frazzled I don't think I'll cope. That's when I put on a fake smile and start talking happy stuff, start laughing, rev myself up, go out to play even though every bone I have is aching. And it always, always works.

When I remember to do it.

But that's just me. What are your best tools for mothering through your own bad moods?

an ex earth mama sings the blues

Yesterday I wrote up our weekly schedule using one of Lesley Austin's beautiful forms, which she kindly supplies for free. I like them not only for their charm but also their simplicity. They are easy to adapt to any style or need.

I also kept my plan simple. If I make it too complex, I am guaranteed to fail. I have a large basket of books I like to use in Rose's education at this time - including a science encylopedia, Beautiful Girlhood, historical biographies, The Story of Mankind, and a large book on art history. These are my inspirations when I decide to go all schooly. I'll allocate an hour for art study, and in that hour simply go to my art book and see what interests us that day.

It is not very efficient. I provide excellent lessons when I've done some preparation - especially when it comes to one of Rose's favourite subjects to study with me, poetry analysis. (Perhaps I need to print off my own "book" of articles and lesson plans on various poems, and add it to the basket!)

Of course, the first week I attempt a proper schedule in this new home is a week in which we expect to be so busy, there was little space for me to arrange lessons. And even as I wrote them down, I knew despite its simplicity that the schedule was doomed. It always is.

We are daughters of the wind.

I believe strongly that children these days don't have high enough expectations placed on them. I believe this attitude of "everyone is a winner" has led to a generation of employees who don't strive in their jobs, who move around too much, and who don't honour their work but live for the weekend. Employers complain about it often. Children these days aren't taught to strive towards a goal ... and then towards a harder goal ... strengthening them and giving them courage, stamina, and genuine confidence in their ability (rather than just a shallow confidence that they are successful despite having done anything of real merit.)

This is why I want to give my child a thorough and disciplined education.

There are just two problems. Firstly, mein Gott! but the child learns so much when left alone. She gets all excited about geology CD-Roms. She spends hours on Google Earth. She endlessly builds things. Her self-motivation (for things she enjoys) is enormous. More than mine!

Secondly, we are both groundless and drifty. Nettles at The Magick Teapot Chronicles wrote a wonderful post about this - about not being an Earth Mama. As I began reading, I felt all prickly and a little sad for her, because I of course am an Earth Mama and I love it. By the end I realised I was not an Earth Mama at all, and I felt deeply grateful that she had shared her insight so I could understand my own self better.

I bake and I clean and I sew ... although I'm glad Rose is doing more of the baking lately, and I really can't be bothered sewing much these days ... and I wear long dresses and long hair and I make fairies, gnomes, and stories. I write poetry and I homeschool my child. Perfect qualifications for Earth Mamahood. But like Nettles, I am infact an Air Mama.

(If only it had the same ring to it!)

Oh, and washed through with water too. Which perhaps makes me a Mama of the Coast, an Edge Mama.

A Mama of The Elsewhere.

Yes.

I love this. I don't want to change from this. I just want to figure out the costs and benefits for Rose's growing up and learning stuff.

And now I can also see that sometimes high expectations in education can be replaced by inspiration, enthusiasm, and encouragement. Less teaching towards a goal and more engagement with my child in the journey of discovering all the different goals there are.

While still making sure she can write an essay, of course.

So you. What kind of mama are you. Are you stable and calm and enriching and patient like an Earth Mama? Are you magical and whimsical and suddenly wise like an Air Mama? Or are you shadowed, with wry humour and warm arms and ghost stories and safety in the night, like a Cave Mother? I would love to know.

in my garden

My favourite flowers are peonies. They take me softly beyond words; I can not explain to you why I love them, or how much so. I can only say that if I was a flower, I would be a nasturtium, or an orange and brown carnation ... but I would wish to be a peony.




As Christmas draws near, I find myself stalled. I have neither bought a single gift,nor begun making any. I have no plans organised beyond a vague, "oh how lovely it would be to bake apple pie and gingerbread (despite it being summer.)" Christmas is my favourite time of year - for I love traditions, but this is the only bout of traditionalism my family ever had when I was growing up, so the only time I feel childlike nostalgia. I have attempted to bring more tradition into my own little family, without much success for various reasons. But Christmas I try to make amazing.

At Serendipity, they are planning an Anne of Green Gables Christmas. At least I think they are: I can never load that site fully. How I would love to do something similar! I would think it heavenly to make a cornucopia instead of stocking, and plum puffs (we have actually made these in the past) and gift Rose a porcelain Anne doll, a dress with puffed sleeves, and other beautiful girly things.

Things like the soft light from a peony's heart.




Rose never did like LM Montgomery's books, but she enjoys the tv series which we have collected (except the travesty of the last one, which I won't have in my house.) And so she loves the idea of various Anne crafts and activities for the holiday season. But she would not be seen in public in an ornate dress, and it would be unkind to get her a porcelain doll which she simply would not enjoy! However, I do have a secret feminine idea which she will surely love ...

Friends and I have recently been discussing the more difficult aspects of homeschooling. Upon reflection, I would have to say it is this aspect which causes my heart the most trouble. I wish to make my life's atmosphere soft and gentle and old-fashioned like the peony. This is not really what an active and growing girl needs. I admit I struggle when it comes to encouraging sports, outdoor adventure, and the like. Rose would get better at school.

And still, I will not let her go. And she will not let me send her. We are organic here, and do not like the chemical fertilizer they use in schools.

today, with tree roses and tom bombadil

This was our morning ...

Cups of tea and Christmas conversation with our breakfast. The weeks are shrinking and still I have nothing done. We sighed over an auburn-haired American Doll (with her very own dog just like ours) but could not find much hope of transporting an order to New Zealand.





Lessons involved researching traffic lights, unravelling the myths, designing alternatives. Just a small schooltime at the moment. I envy better homeschoolers, but we are so lulled by the peace and the windswept space of this new home, we can not quite discipline ourselves just yet.

Tradesmen came, tradesmen went. We headed out for lunch. Over the grassy hill - our hair and my long skirt threaded through with damp wind; across the meadow, and the dog ran free; through the deep pine grove ...




We bought lunch from the neighbourhood bakehouse and ate it at a park. Rose chatted to a family with several sweet, shy children who were enchanted by the dog. I gazed west at a hill that reminded me of the hobbits running bare across soft green mounds after Tom rescued them from ghosts, and it made me smile, and think of the summer afternoons Rose and I read The Fellowship of the Ring and memorised its songs.




One day I will find a way through the woods to that hill and go wandering high-up there.

And then we walked home, my bag full of bananas and strawberries and leftover chocolate cake and lavender for making soap. Through the pine grove; barefoot across the meadow, swallowing wind; down the hill to our valley home. This place was once all forest, Rose tells me. Now the wind possesses it and the land lies still, surrendered.




I came home with flowers and feeling like, here, in this beautiful place, I can finally truly breathe. (Rose too - her allergy is clearing, and we can really tell the difference.)




The afternoon will be one of gift-making, old-book-reading, dreaming over maps of lost wilderness, and many more sweet cups of tea.

out of water and white couches

She is scooting around the house again, trailing wind from bare ankles, with her hair unravelling as she goes and goes. I don't quite know who she is for real inside, and nor does she, but I hope I have enough courage and unconditional love to help her find out over the years. And I thank God she will not ever, no matter what, change herself to please me.




She is my muse, with her wrinkled cargo pants and her love of speed. And before that, her antique pinafores that she wore so peacefully. And next, who knows?

I see her and wish I could be more like me.





Her hat came off yesterday, falling into the lake. I saw this and could imagine her worry, and I wanted to shout out, just let it go, but she was too far away.

(What concerns have I seeded in her, that she will take away with her as time grows, too far from my belated reassurance?)




He rescued it. They stood on their rafts, balanced there with the sails just floating, like two magicians it seemed from the shore. He twisted that two dollar hat to get the water out, and then put it safe in his pocket.

He risked balance to rescue her hat for her.

My heart stood still for one beautiful moment. Please Mother, let there always be in her life people who will do little kindnesses like that for my girl, when she is standing on the water, all the way out there, and needs to worry about more important things. Let there be people who will care about her small concerns.




She did not watch me today as I moved furniture. I grew closer to myself in stacks of old poetry books and other country cottage things. I took away the colour, muted my living room. She said nothing. She had a schematic to draw. And her world right now is how she wants it - wind, and water, and a place to ride, and the beach just over the hill. She assumes I will sort my world to suit me too.

She trusts me to do that. After all these years, she knows I will rearrange my very bones to be sure she gets what she needs. But she also reminds me sometimes, through the things she says, or the way she does not say anything, that as a grown up I'm responsible for placing my boundaries.

It's up to me to say, no beach today, if I need shade.

Children assume adults have the strength to do this. They take whatever we give them with the understanding there is enough. I love that perfect trust.




And she grows. She sails away more and more, exploring her own expanding sense of enough. And she learns that she can lose her hat and make the decision to let it drown or fish it up.

(And she learns sometimes there are people who will go into the water for her, and carry her hat back to shore. It's not just mamas who do that.)

I take down rainbow scarves and remove the stereo, and she puts my nesting in her pocket, with her silence, easing my small concerns. So I can concentrate on becoming, slowly, through furnishings, my self.

one wild day

I stand on the shore, watching her skim the lake. She is a wind child, like her mama, although seeking speed rather than sacred poetry from her sky. She has the same instinct for the vagarious rim, the wild.

I never would have thought I'd be happy to see my lovely daughter windsurfing. But it just felt so right for her, I could not stop smiling. And to see her tutored by a kind, sensible man - so important for a girl, giving her balance, and also with no fear of the spiteful insecurities women tutors often display with her. Men seem less disturbed by a little girl who is an enthusiastic and fast learner.

She glides away through the rain. Under my umbrella, I see no dreams - the moment is too perfect to stretch it, although my heart is sure we will be here again, and again, raising different kinds of sails to the wind.

"So what's it like, homeschooling?" asks the man working beside me. I look at Rose out there windsurfing, and I remember the picnic we took with friends this morning, our children running about in the rain as we talked about promises and programmes beneath a tree. And I think of how Rose has danced in competitions, and rowed to islands, and cuddled tiger and lion cubs, and sailed through sunsets, and been on television, and walked the back corridors of museums, supermarkets, art galleries, and sat in on university lectures, and visited a fire station, and ridden horses, and been to cultural performances, and danced around a maypole, and explored caves, and attended concerts, and ...

"Fun," I said. "Always so interesting and fun."

"What about socialisation?" he asked, of course.

"I won't lie," I told him. "There have been some long, lonely times. But when you find community, it is wonderful."

What I did not tell him (for how many adults can understand such a thing?) is that today at the lake was so much better than any playdate. Time spent dealing with adults, having real conversations - being seen for who she is, being appreciated. This is what we treasure most for Rose. Other children as playmates are beloved. But with adults, Rose can truly be herself.

As for me, I struggle with those picnics, those playdates. I don't know how to be with women. Give me pony-tailed, barefoot men in the rain, on the shore. They ask my advice about life decisions. They tell me nice things about my child. I am blessed to be too short, too round, too old to be suspected of flirting. I can simply have conversations without discomfort or pretence. I can truly be myself.

And the wind curled around us, bringing warm rain.

upon hearing a gospel, a grace

mama she wraps around me
a blanket of hills and stars

and mama she sends her son in
to kiss me goodnight

lamplike, beloved
and smiling all wild

he kisses my face and
he kisses my heart

while mama she sings a lullaby
to make her world spin round

this week in earthsong school

Rose had some ideas.

We are making calendars for family Christmas presents. Inspired by this, Rose said it would be fun to revisit something we did with our homeschool a couple of years ago - learning based on "today in history" (along with maths and stuff of course). I thought it was a great idea because it suits our naturally undisciplined ebullient style of learning.

So I have made some monthly calendar pages and we will turn a large art diary into a timeline record ... a line of boxes, one for each day of the month (or as many days as we are at home to do this work) filled with things like short essays or creative writing or artwork based on the special events of that day.




We have missed our history timeline this past year, but when we brought it out of its box we found it rather creased. We decided to redo it - but Rose thought a "tree of history" might be more visually interesting. She was right. We have completed only two sections so far, but very much look forward to the tree growing.

It has been interesting to see what things we have removed from the record with the benefit of experience - some thing were just clutter - and what things sparked our imaginations all over again. (The Sweet Track is now on our England itinerary!)




(Speaking of history, we are also planning to do a comprehensive study of the English Civil War, as we are reading The Children of the New Forest at the moment. (Weird book. The eight year old talks like a toddler.) This time period used to be my absolute obsession when I was a teenager, even before I learned that Oliver Cromwell was my ancestor. I have been waiting impatiently for years to study it with Rose.)

Yesterday she had a hankering for lemon coconut slice. So she searched for the recipe on the internet, wrote it out, changed it a little, and baked a delicious slice that is almost as sweet as her.




She is going to start working on this series of science badges. Already she has devised a training programme for her dog towards one of the badges. They are meant for high school, but seem easy enough for much younger children to do.

I'm sure Rose will enjoy them. That is, if she ever finds time away from using the flight simulator on Google Earth.

No, she is not allowed to become a pilot when she grows up!

an interview

I was interviewed at Homeschooling Is Freedom ... er, some time ago actually! What with moving and all, I completely forgot about it!

at the turning of the week

Here in the valley, as the wind washes through, we have been making stars.




The colour gets all over us; what laughter would look like, I'm sure, if it radiated through the skin instead of sound.




They are for the smallest room. The throne room, if you know what I mean, which is why we laughed (in the way of geeks) as we put on its door a chart of English kings and queens.




It is the only room in the house that has soft pink walls. I wonder what they were thinking when they painted it.




The wind is a dreamy constant. It rains sometimes, turning the night sky white. The days are full of birdsong. And the wind goes on, stirring lemonwood trees and shadows and me.

We have been offering light.




For the lord of light, who still has me by the throat, the heart, the smallest most inward bone. No matter what I say. No matter what they say. I thought wryly, so he has not let go. But then I understood, he never had, from the very start, long long before I ever knew; before I ever breathed.





We are decorating calendars, making books, and growing a tree of time. As I look around me I see a boat on my table, undone dishes, baskets of stories and music ...

This is home.