“Where is the book in which the teacher can read about what teaching is? The children themselves are this book. We should not learn to teach out of any book other than the one lying open before us and consisting of the children themselves. In order to read in this book, however, we need the widest possible interest in each individual child, and nothing must divert us from this.”
- Rudolf Stiener, Human Values in Education

“Every parent’s question: ‘What are the firm boundaries this situation calls for, and how will my child find freedom within these boundaries?’ …
“It is through our inner attitude that we show our love. It’s not what we do, it’s who we are in the doing of the things, that speaks to our child.”
- Sharifa Oppenheimer, Heaven on Earth; A Handbook for Parents of Young Children

Chewing on this.

Today was rough. It was pack up and haul it out day. We loaded up a storage cube here in Portland with everything we still own (minus some things that didn’t fit that was a bummer for me.) I admit I had a tearful runaway bride moment: “CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF!”

See, I do so love Portland. The people, the vibe, the houses, the MAX… but its time to take that next step and I know it, deep down. It’s that inner knowledge that propels me onward in trust despite my lack of of a calculated plan.

My day got a whole lot better when the following conversation transpired with my emotionally intelligent 4 year old:

Ethan: “How many days til we move again?”

Me: “The day after tomorrow. How are you feeling?”

Ethan: “Sad…”

Me: “I thought you said you were excited?”

Ethan: “Okay, it’s like this: you have to be in the mood for it. Like when you don’t think you are in the mood for a grilled cheese sandwich but once you start eating it, you get used to it and you like it. That’s like moving. You get used to it and you like it.”

BRILLIANT. Thank you, Ethan, for once again imparting your wisdom on your silly mama.

Here are pics of us enjoying some Oregon favs in the last 2 weeks… it’s a long slideshow so bare with me

Enjoys long walks in the woods… gardens… long wood tables… a fireplace…

I’ve read almost THREE (well, really 4 but one is mostly pictures ) books in the last week or so, (I guess that’s what happens when my knitting is packed away? lol) and they’ve been so wonderful for my soul.

From Heaven on Earth; A Handbook for Parents of Young Children, I continue my journey through homeschooling and parenting my favorite little people in the whole world. Sometimes this book creates in me a feeling of, I don’t know, maybe discouragement. The daily life and home structure described seem so simple and yet so unattainable in a world of media, playdates, financial responsibilities, suburbs, etc. But it also gives me something to aspire to, and in the very least, ideas I can put into practice or tuck in my pocket. You never know when they’ll come in handy.

From Little House on a Small Planet, I have again gained inspiration and ideas. My thoughts have certainly been provoked by the idea of never borrowing on a loan you can’t pay back in 7 years (like a mortgage) or living with less square footage than you might *think* you need. Good stuff!

From Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, Thich Nhat Hanh has reminded me about vulnerability, being a peace-maker, restoring relationships. All very appropriate right now as I work out some relational tensions that weigh heavy on my heart. He also reiterates the need for practicing mindfulness, a long post I’d best save for another day.

And lastly, and perhaps my most fun read right now, is A Natural Sense of Wonder. I didn’t think I would love reading this book as much as I do, but its memoir-like account of a father who tries to reconnect his children with the natural world through the seasons is really well-written (he is an english teacher, after all) and charming.

I particularly liked reading about his “affairs” of home searching in his twenties, a tale he accounts as a metaphor for dating relationships. He moved a lot when the kids were young and he and his wife were working and finishing school – all over the country and taking jobs in all kinds of industries it seems. He writes of their desire for some romantic, old-world charm farm with natural land and an abundance of outdoor “wild” play space for his children. I can’t help but find this story incredibly timely for me, as I’ve been dreaming about eventually finding The Place and happily making it Home.

Here the writer retells their house hunt:

My wife and I imagine our kids growing up in some high valley, their spirits fostered by the creases of ragged mountains, their bodies strengthened by exploring spines of nearby ridges, and their thirst slaked by some cascading stream. This reverie calls us away to some land on Sinking Creek with a barn and twenty acres of organic hay, but it’s too pricey for us. Here’s one in the Catawba Valley, on a feeder stream, but it looks a little small, and is that a … confederate flag at the neighbor’s house? We are a little like Goldilocks: this one is too big, this one is too small, still looking for the place that is just right.
Perhaps my desire is stirred by the very writers I’m drawn to: Muir in the Sierras, Abbey in the Arches, Lopez in the Arctic, and Thoreau in the Walden Woods. They’ve each carved out their niche in a place I am seeking mine, but they are a monastic bunch (except for Abbey), eloquent on the need for wild places but silent on the subject of raising children. Besides, we can’t all move there and enjoy it too.

As we are now 1.5 weeks from M-Day, we are doing the usual: cleaning out rooms, packing up, craigslisting furniture, trying to see enough people to say goodbye. We are also doing a “Greatest Hits” of the Portland area and soaking in the Pac NW while we can. We aren’t too overwhelmed with the packing process: We’ve moved *just* twice in the last 6 years, but since one of them was a cross-country move, and the second was just a year ago, it has helped us travel light (well, that and being broke ). Our bought-used items fill up two small bedrooms and a small living room, with very little need for extra storage. IF we had a 3 bedroom plus garage, we’d likely NEED a 3 bedroom plus garage, lol, but we’ve been blessed with “just enough bread for today” – in times like these, we’re grateful we have less sh** to ship.

More soon…

I’m up after a loooooong nights sleep (guess I needed it!) still sitting in the dark in my room while Verity sleeps. She needed it too. You see, when she was trying to explore the possibility of biting my nipple yesterday, I had to pop her off and react to the pain to convince her to not try that again. She got wigged out. For about 5 hours she cried and wailed and started to nurse but then remembered my reaction and pushed me away. We laid in bed at midnight, her wailing, tired and hungry, while I just tried to coo at her and pray for her. Finally she fell asleep and so did I. When she woke up through the night, she nursed like a champ. She just needed a little sleep to ease the pain and confusion.

It works that way for us adults, too. The random thoughts and fears that my fatigue surfaces is often long forgotten when I wake up in the morning. Mercies are new.

I’m not enjoying the start of this year, I must admit. It’s put so much on my plate that I am really missing the simplicity of our days – doing some lessons, play, crafts, baking bread and working a few hours when Ethan goes to bed. The predictability and daily rhythm we were beginning to achieve at the end of last year has be upset by the upheavals that planning and moving creates.

An impending move away from Portland weighs on my mind. Part of me wants more time. I want to watch the tulips come up in all my familiar places. I want to sit outside working during the summer while Ethan and Verity and Caleb and Malachi play in the dirt and kiddie pool and get toasty. I want to crunch the leaves when we go trick-or-treating at familiar neighbors. I find such healing in the changing of seasons (something Florida did not offer me) and I hope that our “next place” will feel like home, and quickly! I am determined to put myself “out there” when we move. Ethan wants to know who our neighbors will be, and dog gone it we will bake them something and go introduce ourselves. We’ve already contacted a church we’d like to check out and are searching for home school groups, counselors, etc etc that we will have to find to keep ourselves from being “new” and isolated.

I tell myself it will be just a couple of years. I will look forward to seasons changing in a different area of America. It’s not that big of a change. Serenity tells me to accept, but my stubborn and fearful heart constantly quivers about starting over. Being present with my concerns helps, but sometimes I crave a distraction. Simply NOT thinking about it is a lofty goal

More work has come in this week, which helps. Work reminds me that life is still happening in the margins of all these big plans. Having something to focus on, and finish, is it’s own meditation.

The family and I took a break yesterday and went to see “The Princess and the Frog” – was way cute to see a Disney fairy tale set in New Orleans and the bayous (where my families are from and mostly still reside). While I am not a fan of Disney (at all!), it was nice to just go be entertained by a Cajun musical with Ethan while we split some popcorn. He loved it. I threw up the popcorn later but all in all it was a good outing. (My body was just pissed that I ate so much junk.)

Speaking of eating – oh my – this has been a pleasant moment or two to my days. I haven’t been able to pick up the knitting so reading is my next best escape. I’ve devoured some amazing books on nutrition and cooking. I don’t even know where to begin about that but yeah- let’s just say that I can’t wait til we move (there’s that word again!) and get settled in so I can start cooking my little heart out.

Now that I’m thinking of food, my tummy rumbling is reminding me that I haven’t had my tea and eggs yet. Must go!

More details soon, as plans shape up…

This song has been in my mind all day. My heart is burdened, but I know He is holding those I love who are mourning very, VERY close.

I hope this brings them comfort:

When I give a whistle, here me shout!

Phew, does any one else feel like the compression in their brain is reaching the “red” territory and sirens are going off with weird “Lost” voice WARNING alarms??? Or — is that just me?

For now, I don’t know how to catch up this blog and it’s readers because I am still not at liberty to reveal the details of the journey I am on. In fact, I won’t be “in the clear” to do so for several months! Kinda agonizing for me to not get this out there for processing, actually — but I’m trying to see it as a lessons in keeping some things private

Suffice it to say, we have lots of decisions to make. I am having to learn all kinds of stuff right now, like a crash course in the grown-up-world (which I have in many ways been too stuck on “survive” to take part in for many years!) Arg, again, I would like to say more about that but trust me, the time will come.

I can feel myself being propelled forward by necessity and desire, yet at the same time that Still Small Voice and many wise friends/family remind me to take this slooooowwwwwwww. I can’t even describe what mixture of feelings and thoughts run through me in the course of a single day lately. I am burdened for they heavy, heart-breaking circumstances happening in the lives of people I love right now. I am struggling to stay present in my own life, (work, homeschooling, marriage, cooking, laundry) while at the same time doing the very real and necessary steps of future planning. As a plan unfolds before me, I feel at first relieved that it is there and then quickly that relief is replaced by the uncertainty of still more unanswered details. (You can relate, heh, Maw Maw?!)

Staying present is SUCH a practice in surrender — and I for one SUCK. AT. IT. Choice is at once liberating and a weighty responsibility — which must make me sound like such a preteen, lol, but it’s true.

Will my family flow gracefully into this next chapter? What hiccups will interrupt our song? What fallen trees will litter our road? Can we “let go and let God”? Can we trust that He is holding on to our loved ones during a time when we are helpless to be of any practical service to them?

Oh, I am just not cut out for life on earth!

And now I am going to spout off words to let off mental steam (tip me over and pour me OUT!):

settling, creditors, SEP, liability, CD, HSA, taxes, jobs, unemployment extension, wagon, reliability, mileage, towing, u-haul, Upstate, budget, giving, saving, credit score, lease, waiting, goals, waldorfing, masters degree, FAFSA, 2 hour yoga class from which EVERYTHING HURTS, fermented, bulk buying clubs, homeschool group let downs, postpartum, mental health, new mexico, job loss, unusable ankle, recovery, counseling, identity, homesteading, solar powered, first time homebuyers programs, dreads, new city, new friends, new neighbors, new church, new farms, new home, new yard, new chickens, new beds, new life — old habits?, JESUS!, decisions, liver and egg yolks.

The path I am on has recently taken quite a turn. Or maybe I just see it up ahead, but haven’t ACTUALLY changed course yet. Perhaps I’ve been on whatever trail this has been for so long that I have to keep rubbing my eyes as I approach the upcoming crossroads. Is that a mirage I see?!

These are some findings:

Life is very peculiar. There is so much to be suffered. So much heartache and confusion. Especially since moving to Portland, I have realized just how essential community is to overall mental and emotional health. There are times, seasons even, where being out here has felt poignantly lonely. But for the most part, we have found relationships of support, investment, respect, generosity and love. For that I am so grateful. For SO many things I have found on our most recent leg of the “path” here in Portland: I am grateful.

Life also contains so much joy, surprises, and sweet, simple moments of surrender and worship. What a trip!

And now, change is on the horizon. Life and decisions and freedom, too.

I have a vision of our family a few years from now: homesteading a little urban bungalow somewhere; me- getting slightly better at being energetic and patient as a work-at-home, homeschooling mom; Chris graduating – and more importantly, finding his passion; our children enjoying life and learning and play; our home a place of solace and rest balanced with joy and production, with our hens in the backyard, most of our property covered in food producing gardens, Ethan and Verity’s paintings scattered across the walls. The vision rocks me to sleep at night and soothes the hardest of times. I believe it is a gift from God to catch for yourself a vision for the future and feel even slightly hopeful about life not ALWAYS being how it is now

Very exciting.

Curious about Urban Homesteading? Here’s a great article. Gives me chills just reading it!

In the meantime, enjoy some recent snapshots of our family… there is never a dull moment:

“I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

‘We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,’
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.”
- Oliver Herford, I Heard a Bird Sing

Ethan and Caleb gaze at the flames from their handmade beeswax candles

Verity’s Christmas present: blocks cut and sanded by dada, polished with beeswax and emollients by Ethan and mama

Ethan snapped this picture of me knitting Chris a hat in church on Sunday

Despite that I managed to blow up a blender today and send homemade carrot babyfood and glass flying all over the kitchen, (while my 4 year old bolted towards the living room screaming like a lobster in a pot of boiling water… ohhhh, the chaos that is my life at times…):

I am listening now to Sting’s introspective Christmas album (thank you, Maw Maw) and sipping my holiday tonic tea blend and, what can I say? All is well.

Peace, grace, tranquility and surrender: find them. Keep them close.

Brace yourself for a long post written by a lunatic who can’t sleep at 4:30 am.

I’ve been thinking this week about a particular conversation I had with some new sweet friends. They observed how odd it is to them that since moving to the Portland area they actually watch MORE TV, eat MORE fast food, and do more things out of convenience than they ever did in less progressive residences held previously. We talked about how in Portland, getting grass fed beef or raw milk from a local farmer isn’t such a novelty – in some circles its mainstream culture! Homeschooling, having all natural toys, example after example of how living in such a way is not special here, which challenges you, as a transplanted Portlander, to figure out what the real constructs of your value system is; do you do what you do because its trendy, because it sets you apart, etc — OR — do you do what you do because you value the earth and its inhabitants, you value nutrition and health, you value freedom and richness of educational options, so on?

In this conversation, some one remarked about how “living simply” is actually very complicated. You have to adjust to a whole new way of doing things. For us, living simply by having no car means we never have to worry when the Check Engine light is on. We never have to worry when we hear a funny sound. We don’t shell out $200 or more in gas and insurance each month. HOWEVER, living with no car is far from simple. Even in Portland.

To live without a car, for example, I must leave my house a full hour ahead of time to get to Ethan’s ice skating lessons. What would otherwise be a 10 minute drive, tops, becomes an Olympic endeavor to strap the baby on my back, brace the cold, often RUN out the door dragging Ethan along beside me to catch the MAX (only to, more often than not, barely miss it while waiting for the light to cross the street – thus being 15 minutes late despite my best efforts to leave an HOUR ahead of time.) Same thing goes for home school meetups, church on Sunday morning and other church functions through out the week. Outings, errands, and just plain ol’ shootin-the-breeze ventures will almost invariably FLOP without careful planning and purpose. Something like going all the way to Trader Joe’s for a more affordable load of groceries, but forgetting to get flea medicine for the cat at the pet store next door to Trader Joe’s is a tremendous oversight! You get all the way home and realize what you forgot to do and you might as well kiss your time goodbye because nothing is worth the 2 hour round trip again!

Or get this- going to the post office or finding a place to fax something. Oh my gosh. I can’t tell you how inconvenient it is along our common routes to do these things. A month ago I was set to fax a simple letter to my student loans lender in order to get my deferment processed, and you’d think in this day and age I could manage to get that accomplished in a MONTH but no, I haven’t. With two little kids, no vehicle, a job, homeschooling, and the bazillion things on my mind, finding a location to fax something has just not managed to stay in the forefront of my planning.

This is one reason that we are talking about owning a vehicle again, after 2+ years without. Also, the need we have for community while being so far from family is a pretty steep and crucial one — and the not having a car thing has been making it really difficult to participate in community. Hopping on the bike’s used to be a more viable option from our slightly closer-in locale, but a few miles out and an extra child and things get slightly more complicated – just enough to put that straw on the camels back. I feel like we’ve missed out on so much and have so few opportunities to get to know people in a church we’ve been going to for 2 years now. I can hardly ever make it to my favorite yoga studio, either, and I get free classes so – sheesh, what a bummer, right? I just can’t afford to lose the 2 hour bus ride round trip (when you have to take into account wait times) to a place that is less than 10 minutes away by car. But I digress…

There are other things, like eating organic and sustainable foods from local sources, that takes a large amount of intentionality despite that the efforts are in part fueled by the desire to live more simply. This week I took an hour or two comparing my organic produce buying options: this involved literally looking up the items on the produce bin that is delivered every 2 weeks to a cumbersome spreadsheet published by a distributor of large quantity/bulk produce from organic and NW growers, figuring out the unit price for each apple or pound of carrots, so I can effectively cost compare the options and make the right choice. When I order from Azure Standard or other food buying clubs, it takes time to figure out the savings involved in getting a 50 pound bag of rice verses a 5 pound bag of rice, deciding what we really need now and what we can wait on, yada yada yada. Like I said – these things can be complicated!

But what is interesting is that, of course, you do grow to see the extra hour it takes to get some where or the time spent planning bulk food buying as part of every day life. Some one from church a few weeks ago made the following comment to us: “I think about you guys sometimes and I always figure that for every 5 things I am doing each day, you guys can probably only get to like 2… which really makes me think about those extra 3 things my family does and whether or not we really need to do them!”

It’s true! We get a lot less done. lol No but really – sometimes getting to a place in life where things are simple and less dramatic takes concerted effort and — sometimes — blood, sweat and tears.

This aspect of my life lately has weighed on me as we discuss making some major changes. Not quite content with the way thing are going for us in Portland, this week we all but officially announced (that’s how sure we were) that we were moving to North Carolina as early as this Spring.

Yep, back up and read that again. We were practically CERTAIN we were leaving Portland. (And Chris is still sleeping – so he is still CERTAIN. But when he wakes up I’ll fill him in on the change of plans. )

Eventually relocating is still a possibility – actually it is pretty much inevitable. The combination of slightly pricier housing, lack of job market, and distance from family makes Portland a place that works for NOW, but not for EVER. Too bad too, because we love the city – its been a boot camp, a training ground, for so many lifestyle changes we wanted to make. It’s also been where we began recovery, started healing our marriage, had a baby, plugged into a home school group, so on and so forth. And if this week of research and planning has taught me anything, its that there ARE cities in the East that could suit us nicely. Carrboro, NC, for one.

However, our personal situation is, in some ways, quite unprepared to relocate. We have had something major to “do” for so long that staying put and dealing with everything that is catching up to us has been the very LAST thing we want to do. If we weren’t moving we were graduating or having a baby or something every year, something to press on, something to drive us forward to the next big crazy thing – sadly sometimes used as a nice distraction from the here and now.

The present is not something easy to sit in. Yoga reminds me of that. We set out with certain values and intentions and when the cast of characters and scenes becomes boring, tense, uncomfortable, frightening or disappointing, it is oh-so-tempting to place something before ourselves to reach for, to hope for, to work towards, to change things all up a bit.

(Briefly, this is also a theme of my homeschooling life right now. Reading about Steiner’s philosophies on the role of “inner work” – very good stuff and I’ll write more about that soon!)

My son is feeling the reprocussions of this not-so-pretty habit of mine. He asked me today to please stop changing things in his room and listed the various ways I have moved his furniture since we moved here nearly 10 months ago, lol. It’s true. The 10 x 10 room hardly gives me space enough to home school in and my discontent with supplying my child with a cramped basement room gives me cause to creatively unleash myself on its layout every few weeks. Poor kid!

As I continued to mull over this cross-country move, I finally just prayed for some direction. I laid in bed tonight and felt like the whole decision was confusing, not peaceful – not even very exciting. While coughing up a lung and unable to sleep, my restless mind churned the facets of our situation over and over until suddenly things began to get clear.

My roommate commented last night that for them, it is apparent that the two families are outgrowing the space. As much as I want to put a positive spin on everything regarding our community house (which I SO do that, constantly), I’d have to agree on some level. We set out to live amongst another family – to be in an intentional community. It pains me to realize how far we have strayed from those original goals – how we have kept to our corners, for no particular reason or starting point, exactly. I think the minute you replace “community” with “roommate” and see the home as simply a place to keep your privacy and split bills, it so easily becomes a situation where space feels limited and more and more of the home becomes “yours” or “theirs” instead of “ours”. Oh how I wanted this to be a place where my home schooling could thrive, where we broke bread together, where we all had a stocking on the fireplace and felt equally a part of something really special! I think for us, we really wanted something intimate and surrogate – something that had a lot of sharing of lives within the home, not just sharing the home. Maybe we can get back on track, if that is what both families want and need to do. Community living will always be something I want to embrace, regardless of the ideal space, ideal lifestyle similarities, etc etc. I guess if we all waited around for ideal, community would never really happen, would it?

This is yet one more great example of how this simple living thing is also very complicated and intentional! Community doesn’t just happen- it requires careful planning, lots of thought and prayer and talking and on and on. Real relationships must be nourished or else you turn around and the whole purpose has been lost. I know a few people going through divorces right now and I think the same thing. It takes a lot of work and time to cultivate the fertile soil on which a garden can flourish, (to make an analogy to gardening… hey, cut me some slack, I’ve been up since 4am!)

So here we are: where we never thought we would be. With the loss of Chris’ job we are forced to start filing bankruptcy while making plans for him to start school for his Masters. When I look at some of the facts of our situation, I feel pretty disheartened. Mainly because we tried to be diligent for so long – we always worked hard, we always paid our bills, somehow or another. It’s hard not to feel ashamed of how dismal things have become financially, but at the same time we are doing much better and more thoughtful and frugal things with our money than we ever have before. And while I don’t necessarily love this phase of our lives, one I might call “Recalibrating”, I do like the people we are, or at least who we are becoming. I like that our family loves each other, that we discourse about things that bother us rather than push them under the rug, that we band together when the going gets tough. Another wise friend told me a few weeks ago that these are the years we will likely be looking back on with much endearment in the future. How hard we struggled will be seen through rose colored glasses in light of the sweetness of all those good times we had while living on lentils

So here I am, over 2,000 words and 2 hours later (6am). The baby is up and growling. Chris is hitting the snooze on his alarm because he wants to get 5 more minutes of sleep. I suppose this is where the “in conclusion” part comes in… for those of you still reading!

In conclusion: I think we need to stay put. I think we need to deal with the bankruptcy, deal with the co-housing, deal with the vehicle, deal with the loneliness of not having as much of a community base. There are so many things to deal with – no more distractions. No more putting one foot in the next phase before we’ve completed the one we’re in.

The simple life we crave, one rich in quality time with each other and as few bills as possible, is – I am learning – not something we will come by in one new move, in one new house, in one new book, in one new baby, one new arrangement of a tiny bedroom, etc. We have to study produce spreadsheets, miss lots of buses, try out lots of living situations, deal with our debt, be content with smaller quarters, and face our giants squarely.

Deep breath. Now “publish”.