Living Water

We just spent a glorious 3 weeks on vacation together. It's been a while since M has been able to take time off when we are traveling. I think our 2022 bike trip was the last time he was really off from work for a continuous stretch. Our destination was the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, mainly because we have friends there and the provincial park was available and familiar territory as a place to stay. We really made no plans in advance, other than booking an unserviced camping spot. This meant that we had to carefully ration water and electricity as all water had to be hauled in (or as it were, OUT) of the camper and the electricity came from the sun. Mostly we swam in lakes and went to the beach, read books, played cards and built a puzzle. 

It was so quiet at night. Even though many people were staying at this campground, the sites are spread out and sort of separated from each other by dense shrubby forest, so you can't really see anyone else, and people are extremely respectful of quiet hours. We could hear loons and foxes at night. The porcupines in the park were huge! I've actually never seen a live porcupine outside of a zoo and it was funny to come across one waddling through the brush, eating grass and berries. There were a few foxes living near the park and many, many signs warning us not to feed the wildlife. The foxes were not very skittish, sometimes coming right up to your car, so I'm guessing some people have been feeding them. One of the foxes had a very unique coat compared to most red foxes I've seen....this one had brown and black and even some white mixed in with the red. 

One question that came up during the many hours of driving (1,200 miles aka 2,000 km each way!)  was "Why does it feel good to look far?" And you can look far in many directions, across a lake or out to the horizon from the beach. 

The coast in Nova Scotia breathes, drawing wind off the ocean at certain predictable times of the day. The tide in the Bay of Fundy is extreme, dropping 20 or more feet, exposing viscous red mud. When it refills the rivers, it rises as a visible wave moving upstream that people actually ride in small boats for fun. 

I've been swimming almost every day this whole summer, at home it was in a pool, but in Nova Scotia it was what you call wild swimming. Lakes and oceans. The lake we camped at is connected to the ocean, so has a little salinity. This keeps the leeches down, but there are some eels living in it. Now that all my children are pretty competent swimmers, lake swimming is much more fun and relaxing. Our friends have a floating dock in their part of the lake, so you can swim out to it and dive off. One day we all went to the beach and took a surfing lesson, which I was, frankly, terrified to try, but it turned out to be very fun, and felt much less dangerous than I expected. This was partially due to some favorable wave conditions on the day I went. M and Laurel and Marko went back a few days later and the surf was much more challenging. 

Since we didn't have water hookups in our trailer and there were only two showers for the whole campground, I was glad to be in the water so much. We had some debates about whether a lake swim counts as bathing. Certainly ocean swimming and surfing in a rented wetsuit calls for some scrubbing, at least to get the sand out. We noticed that there was a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo sitting near the dock where our friends live, so clearly some consider the lake to be an adequate bathing setting. 

One thing we didn't do was have a campfire. Ironically despite being surrounded by water, the conditions are extremely dry and the fire bans were in full effect, even closing the forest trails to all recreational traffic with a $25,000 fine. Hopefully they will get some rain soon.

While Canadians were universally polite and respectful to us, the news coverage and topics of conversation were often centered around the Trump administration's policies. For the first time I saw widespread pro-Canada flags and signs, and while there was nothing anti-American per se, there was lots of talk of admonishing Americans to do something, as well as a general sense of betrayal.

Beginning Again

I spent most of the summer unpacking and setting up our new house and working on recovering my fitness and strength. The kids have been hanging out with friends, going to the pool a lot, and reading. M has been traveling a ton, working, and running. Max went to an ultimate frisbee camp with his friend and loved it so much. Laurel went to two weeks of CIT camp with the Girl Scouts and also loved it. Marko did not go to a camp but spent a lot of time with his friends and exploring our neighborhood on foot. Many things are going very well for us. 

It's time to launch the new school year! As always, this is a soft start for us, and begins with talking about goals (and yes I count this work as 'school'). I ask the kids what they want to be able to do or know next year at this time, and then we spend a fair amount of time teasing out what it would look like. This year each kid is making a list of books they want to read. We will go Brave Writer style with one book a month, and assign chapters to encourage slow and close reading. I'm hoping to organize book clubs with family and friends for most of the months, to occur virtually as well as in person. There is also a lot of interest in economics so I ordered Kyla Scanlon's book In This Economy, and we will read that together along with her Substack. CrashCourse and Khan academy will also probably occupy a fair amount of our 'school' days. The most exciting thing is that we will be going to Mexico, where we will focus on learning conversational Spanish and Latin American history. Laurel will be using the Help for High School essay writing book from Julie Bogart, and I ordered a book of essays for us to read, Breakfast on Mars and 37 Other Delectable Essays. We are also getting more involved in the Outdoor Serve Guides scouting, which is a great framework for mastering all sorts of practical and civic skills. 

I read two books this summer that had a big impact on me. The first one was Stolen Focus by Johan Hari, which gets into the systemic reasons we all seem to be struggling with attention span these days. The second one was the Five Resets by Aditi Nerukar, which was a basic self-help sort of book, not particularly revelatory, but extremely well organized, at least to my brain. I paged through it in one sitting at the library, then took it home and took notes. I'm just hungry for a little direction right now, I guess. Anyway, I've noticed my attention slipping the last few years. Many of my peers complain about this as well, but  often attribute it to perimenopause or middle age or stress. Many people talk about their kids struggling with attention. My own kids complain about it. We try to exercise and take magnesium supplements or avoid sugar or meditate. But I wondered if it could be the rewiring of my brain in response to notifications on my phone. I deleted Facebook and Instagram, turned off all app notifications, set my phone to dim/sleep mode between 7pm and 7am and blocked Reddit. Now I'm trying out monotasking. I stopped listening to podcasts or audiobooks while I cook or clean. I stopped reading while I eat. And this is going to sound kind of weird, but I stopped thinking while I walk, especially if I was taking a walk because I felt stressed or angry. Instead I started saying a mantra, Yes, yes, thank you, thank you. It astonished me how quickly this simple phrase made me feel better, how disruptive a mantra is to anger or hurt. It's Buddhism 101. But I can feel my attention shifting, my memory improving. Exercising personal control is not the solution exactly. Tech companies, like all corporations, need to be held more accountable for the impact they have on people's health and well being. Lots of money can be made while still putting people first. But personal self control is a lever we can pull right now to reclaim a small part of our brains that have been altered by our environment. 

So I guess I'm also going to bring some mindfulness into homeschooling. Slow things down and lean into deep mastery. Provide lots of opportunities for rest or quiet minds in between work to allow things to simmer and gel. Get off the FOMO train and stop worrying that we're going to fall behind those who say they are doing more. I'm all in on accountability and helping us discern when we truly understand something or know how to do something. Assessment is key for this. But we will have to work on our attention to make this a reality.

Another homeschool year in the books!

I have submitted papers, dotted the i's and crossed the t's for another homeschool year, although I guess technically I homeschooled two and a half kids, instead of three. Max enrolled in a cyber school halfway through the year, and it ended up being a very good experience for all of us. You aren't really totally off the hook as a parent with cyber school, because the kid is still in your house and under your care all day. But it did relieve me of most instructional duties and all curricular decisions.

Laurel and Marko did their usual portfolio routine, where we basically stop school in April and spend a month or more gathering work, reflecting, revisiting unfinished projects...often finishing them with less angst (which is sort of a trick of mine, because they feel like school is over, but I know this part is really integral to their education). This year was complicated somewhat by moving into a new house right in the middle of it, which we did slowly over a month and a half, with very little rhyme or reason other than setting up beds and the kitchen in the new house first. This seemed like a brilliant first step, but actually resulted in us losing interest in the rest of our possessions, because it felt like we had everything we needed. For everything else, we packed a few boxes and threw them in our car every time we were in that end of town. The boxes were pure chaos by the end. Nonetheless, it got done, and hopefully this is the last move for a good, long while. 

Despite the moving chaos, our evaluations with the Dandelion Project were delightful, reflective and rejuvenating. Rock climbing team finished up this week, PALS co-op is done until September, and Laurel is pausing her horse and voice lessons for most of the summer. The older kids are figuring out public transportation from here, and we have discovered our new neighborhood has a public library, weekly farmers' market, extensive woodsy trail system and a public swimming pool. Plus a basketball court which is a block away (far enough that you can't hear the sound of the basketball, but close enough that the kids actually go there all the time and meet up with neighborhood kids and play together). 

I am really excited to be setting up space in our house, we have more rooms than ever. Every kid has their own bedroom, and we have two extra rooms in the basement. Lots of space for projects and hanging out. In many ways, things are going very well for us. 

In less pleasant news, I have been pretty sick this entire year, and have landed in a frustrating liminal space between learning what is wrong and being across the threshold where you treat it. Watch and wait, is what the doctors call it, and it's an actual treatment plan for my diagnosis of smoldering multiple myeloma. Blood tests every 12 weeks, look for trends. The good news is that it may not progress very quickly or at all. The bad news is that it's anyone's guess if you are in that no-worries category or if you have the kind that gnaws your bones to shreds and breaks your kidneys before anything shows up in your bloodwork. I would very much like to avoid the horror of pathologic fractures, thank you very much. In the meantime, I at least got an iron infusion, which did seem to lift the fatigue somewhat, as I had some significant iron deficiency alongside the plasma cell stuff. And yes, I'm getting a second opinion, and forcing myself to go on daily walks and eating lots of anti-inflammatory foods. It seems that if I make it through 2-5 years of no disease progression, I don't have to worry about it too much. I'm honestly pretty cranky about the whole thing, but what can you do, life is strikes and gutters. 

On the schedule for this summer, hopefully a return trip to Nova Scotia to visit friends, Laurel is going to 2 weeks of CIT camp, Max is doing an ultimate frisbee daycamp, Mark is running a race in West Virginia and Marko is playing lots of basketball. I hope to be at the pool a lot, and work in the garden. 

A Deep Dive Into the Sea

Middle School is a delightful time to homeschool. The tweens and young teens in our circle are still very playful and active in the woods and at the playground. They love board games, video games, role playing games, and icebreaker games. They are learning how to cook and take care of younger children and are reasonably trustworthy to go off on their own. 

My middle schooler (currently in the sixth-ish grade) is very independent and ready to stretch his wings. I can trust him to take the bus and arrive at his intended destination. If something goes awry, he is comfortable admitting mistakes and asking others for help. I can send him to the grocery store or other little errands. He works hard at the climbing gym, helps to babysit his cousin every week, and loves going on playdates and sleepovers.

As for studies, middle school, in my opinion, should be all about solidifying your basic math skills, developing literacy and critical thinking skills, starting to write more, and exploring all the different ways there are to learn. This exploration is really fun if you can find an interest to deep dive into. For us, it's been marine biology. I can't remember when this interest began to take hold, but we went on a whale watching tour this summer and that's definitely when he started asking to do more things. We also listened to some of Rachel Carson's books, which contain amazing lyrical descriptions of sea life (highly recommend!) and are very soothing for falling to sleep.  For now he is working on a Harbor and Sprout interdisciplinary unit called Oceanography, a marine biology Coursera, an Outschool class that features two sea creatures a week in a live zoom lecture, and an online watercolor class where he is going to learn to paint realistic pictures of whales. He attended a Smithsonian homeschool lecture on marine life (a scientist was showing how they collect samples of coral to study it) and has checked out a lot of encyclopedia-type books from the library. We watch a lot of nature documentaries. There are frequently relevant articles in the National Geographic magazine subscription we receive. Recently there was a lab in his sister's high school biology course that had to do with population fluctuation. Having a partner made sense for this lab, so he stepped up to join her. There was a card game that modeled population changes, questions to answer in writing and a final project in which they designed a presentation for the imaginary city council of a coastal town. We have been to the zoo and the museum, where exhibits expand on his knowledge of the topic in new and interesting ways.

I don't know if he will actually become a marine biologist, or if this interest will fade in time. But for now, it's an excellent hook. Whereas in elementary I would have been satisfied to watch, read, visit museums, and play, the middle school level is a time to try out different ways of learning and to practice demonstrating what you have learned and what you can do. He now knows that he definitely prefers the kind of class where there is a live lecture from a knowledgeable expert. He has also learned that he can make it through a Coursera or Khan Academy course, but that he probably needs to develop some new study or test taking skills to pass the tests. 

Here are a few potential things to do next...

-Read Playground by Richard Powers and discuss with mom and dad

-Investigate summer camp options, like Sea Camp in Galveston that my cousin recommended

-Go whale watching again! We're hoping to visit Nova Scotia again and there are lots of opportunities for marine life viewing there

-Read some poems or classic literature about the sea