Natural Attachment

Gillian has asked some fellow bloggers to join her in posting about what we are grateful for. So, here I am.

I am grateful…

for the billions of years of sustainability of the Earth.

for countless lives lost, given and taken in the name of Freedom from oppression.
for my Son, who is the reason I have become a Beautiful Butterfly.
for my love, my other half, my partner in this Universe…he keeps me breathing while I am trapped in this body and reminds me that there is more to ‘it’ than ‘just this’.

for rain showers, which sometimes have the ability to conjure up a climactic emotional release that is so great…sometimes, sex is no match for a rain shower.
for joyous smiles on little ones, stained with laughter…or stained with chocolate.
for things that come in their own packages, like oranges and watermelons.

for people who don’t keep track of who bought coffee or lunch last time.
for the power of potential destruction held in a delicate balance between (almost too many) grasshoppers in a field, leaping, crossing paths, but never quite touching.

for those who have given me love, a leg up, a hand out and the ability to just be me (even when it’s at the most inconvenient time).

What are you grateful for?

Here are some snippets from last week.

We took part in some ‘bus stop karate’.

Finally took a picture of the infamous ‘hula hoopers crossing’ sign.

Played with sand.

Played with millet.

Played in sand.

Played with water.

Put on a puppet show.

Played with a red balloon in and around an abandoned, almost post-apocalyptic-esque and defunct public fountain.

Took picture of self.

Took picture of mum (who felt about the way she looked!).

Took picture of mum & dad.

We had a busy week!

I know that I had some strong words to say about our newly reopened coffeeshop. I have more things to say.

I realize that in my intolerance of my resistance of the new and different, I was only resisting resistance, which is a vicious cycle and leads to lots of unpleasant things. Over the week, I have been allowing myself to accept my resistance and see it as just my reaction of a deep love and comfort with what was and a fear of what might be. Now that I have *some* tolerance within me, I have some new thoughts on this coffee conundrum!

I and just about everyone that I have spoken with wants a coffeeshop to be in and succeed in the neighborhood. Most of the neighborhood doesn’t care what it is like, barring that it isn’t Starbucks (or similar chain) or a Crazy Mocha — I have to agree with everyone on this.

Ultimately, I am just upset that The Vault is no longer *my* coffeeshop. The manager is very nice and has a great attitude about the project in her hands, but lacks the funk and cynicism that I like with my coffee…ergo so does the coffeeshop.

I want a non-corporate coffeeshop in the hood, so since it is convenient for me to stop in when I hit the community garden (which is right behind the coffeeshop), I will continue to stop in. However, I won’t *live* there like I once did…I’d rather call Affogato my new home or ‘third place’.

No, I haven’t forgotten how to count…this is the ninth crate of green goodness from our CSA. I totally dropped the ball on taking pictures or posting what we got last week…sorry. Just take my word that it was plentiful and good!

This week’s share had to offer:

Lg. head Lettuce
Lg. bag Carrots
8 Pickling Cucumbers
2 Green Bell Peppers
2 Yellow Wax Peppers? (if you know what those yellow guys are, let me know)
1 Fatty Jalapeño
2 Zucchini Squash
8 Red Potatoes
Sm. bag Green Beans
11 Tomatoes
6 Green Onions
Sm bunch Cilantro
1 Pint of Blueberries**
Bonus:
*Sweet neighbors Sarah & Bill shared some Cherry Tomatoes with Elijah and I as we walked home and sent us home with a Pimento (the reddish looking bell pepper thing in the picture).

**We also ordered a flat (12 pints) of blueberries from our CSA.

***Tonight I picked ten black heirloom tomatoes, two large bunches of basil, one large bunch of sage and one roma tomato from our community garden.

I cut and froze three and a half quarts worth of green beans from this week and last week. I frozen six pints of blueberries and made two dozen blueberry muffins and one and a half dozen blueberry mini-muffins.

I’ve got tons of cukes to try and pickle…with a new recipe. I need to make and freeze tomato/pasta sauce and cut and freeze some squash to add to soup this Winter.

Did I mention that we are flush with yummy veggies right now!

I am always trying to advocate this idea to everyone I meet. I talk about being authentic to yourself and your child. Honoring the authentic needs and abilities of those around you. I’ve mentioned being authentic to my homebirthing clients’ needs. I hope that one day we can all learn this ability and rebuild our ‘tribes’ for the sake of everyone’s wellbeing.

THE DAILY GROOVE ~ by Scott Noelle
www.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove

:: Rethinking Sociality ::

We humans are social animals, and for the vast
majority of humanity’s time on Earth, human societies
took the form of *tribes*.

Modern civilization has undermined our innate
sociality in many ways. For example, the “virtue” of
self-sacrifice for the collective good defies our
natural pleasure orientation.

In a healthy tribal society, where everyone is
emotionally *attuned* with everyone else, individual
and collective pleasure go hand in hand, for there is
more pleasure to be had when one’s choices serve both
oneself *and* the collective.

But in our society, with its complexity, alienation,
and legacy of “dominator” values, it takes an
extraordinary kind of consciousness for one to
re-create that interpersonal attunement in a way that
actually feels good.

Think about the things you say and do in order to “be
social” — especially around your children and other
parents. Do you ever sacrifice your authenticity to
appear “good” or “nice”?

You may notice that being socially appropriate (i.e.,
doing/saying the “right” thing) frequently requires
you to be INauthentic.

For example, in certain parenting situations you may
feel social pressure to *control* your child when
you’d rather be relaxed and accepting.

Quite often the real purpose of “being social” is
to protect others from their own small-mindedness.
Such is the case when mothers are pressured to
avoid nursing in public.

So being authentic — even when it seems “anti-social”
– may actually be *more* social, because it creates
opportunities for others to question their limiting
beliefs.

When you honor Who You Really Are — *and* you
look beyond others’ disempowering beliefs to honor
Who THEY Really Are — you contribute to the greater
good of society.

Today, whenever you choose authenticity over
conventional sociality, decide that you *are* being
social… They just don’t know it yet!

http://dailygroove.net/sociality

Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

I apologize now for anyone who reads my blog…I need to vent, fuss and spew on about my experience today.

So, our local coffeeshop (The Vault), which we absolutely adored and lived at about 4 to 6 days a week closed its doors back in early May. We were devastated, but we also saw it coming.

Skip forward to about a month ago.

We were walking by and saw someone inside painting and whatnot. We knocked and then preceded to have like a 3 hour tour and visit with the new manager. We shared ideas, tips and lots of suggestions. She was nice, friendly and full of excitement for the project in her hands.

After walking away from this conversation and adding it to half a dozen or so visits and phone calls, there are many things I have been able to infer and assume about this whole operation. Now, I can only affirm a couple of these statements I’m about to say, but this is just how I perceive things:

• Manager is not a Pittsburgher and knows not who Pittsburghers are.
• Manager has no knowledge of coffee or ‘real’ coffeeshop culture…she specifically used the term, ‘third place’ — such a Starbucks word…hubby vouches for this as he put time in with ‘The Devil’ (Starbucks)
• Manager knows nothing about Brighton Heights or what her neighbors want. Several neighbors have expressed this feeling to me personally.
• Manager appears to think that the average income in our neighborhood is about $40K more than it is…lots of talk about business people and suits and wanting to attract their business…what about all the Blue-Collar Workers who live here and who will be her regulars — you know, the ones paying the bills?
• Manager ‘wants everybody to feel comfortable here’…I hear this as, ’she wants people who don’t appreciate funky neighborhood coffeeshops, to feel comfortable buying coffee from a place where my dread-locked-head-with-free-child-in-tow ass won’t feel comfortable sitting around for too long’.
• Manager is so nice and I feel so bad for her. Me thinks she has no ‘real’ grasp of what the issues were with the shop in its previous life. Me thinks the owners/investors are not being completely truthful and open with her.

First, the shop looks nothing like it did before. Everything is repainted and practically sterile. No longer is there hip and fun music playing overhead, but drab ‘yuppie-jazz’ playing in the background. It looks and feels so impersonal it hurts, really. I don’t feel comfortable there and it lacks everything that I enjoyed about it.

I miss:

• the humor
• the wit
• the anger
• the charm
• the horrible (in a ‘good’ way) paint colors
• the never completely clean women’s restroom
• the comfy well worn-in old bank furniture
• the inappropriate or objectionable toys and ugly dolls for sale
• the fun signs posted everywhere that made me smile or smirk
• the guys behind the counter who knew how to make a drink, make it right and pretty…the guys who knew how to have a conversation
• the snarky and jaded attitudes…full of love and understanding underneath
• the ability to spread ourselves out across the front bench seat and be comfortable and left alone
• the long afternoons spent pouring over crossword puzzles with the gang

Now it’s just too nice, too clean, too un-coffeeshop. It no longer feels like home, like my ‘third place’. It sort of feels like a combination of ‘nice’ dentist office waiting room+ middle class ‘Direct Buy’ living room. It has celery green faux paint finish on the walls and Lilac/Lavender walls in the bathroom with frilly curtains. Seriously. I’m a grown-ass woman and I was grieving the loss and then the tragedy before me…I cried, while my son made dominoes fall down in neat patterns on the ‘dry-brushed’ paint finished coffee table. I am pathetic and stubborn.

Once I got over the eyesore of the cold decor, I put ‘em to the test. Triple Soy, Extra Dry, Cappuccino. You know, like a ‘real’ drink. Now, I’ll be up front; I am a horribly huge coffee snob. I am difficult and particular. In just about every coffeeshop that I have been a regular at, I have ended up making my own drink on more than four dozen occasions. It’s not necessarily something that I am proud of, but it happens and it happens to just be how I am. Maybe William and I should have taken the new manager’s offer for us to train the new staff seriously. The drink was made by a friendly gentleman, who took care to ask me lots of questions about my drink and preferences. He did make me something that was drinkable…not comforting, not smooth, not soothing, not sexy (yes, espresso can be sexy), not pretty and just where do they find coffee with dirt in it (excessive grounds at the bottom of my cup)? I know, it’s their first day and they will have to learn these things, but it’s still depressing for me.

I left there with $14.71 less in my pocket. I left there with the idea floating around in my head that maybe it’s worth more paying $4.00 round trip bus fare and another $20-$25 to go and hang out at Affogato instead of walking the half mile to The Vault.

Maybe I am just being too unfair and too judgmental of this whole experience. Maybe I should lighten up. Maybe we can’t all be happy. Maybe things will change drastically in the near future and I can resume a comfortable corner perch in my own neighborhood. Until then, I will try to stop grieving the loss of my beloved coffeeshop.

I know, enough with the melodrama already.

After placing more thought into this new ‘project’, I will be just posting whatever and whenever it comes to me. There might end up being a method/form to it or it might be just as scatterbrained as I am! The only thing that I know for sure is that I will probably keep posts to one, maybe two, per month. My only apology for this month is that I don’t have pictures to share

This post is for Ren’s August Blog Carnival.

A Day in the Life of a Radical Unschooling Family - August 4th, 2008.

Today I was greeted by the Sunshine streaming in and Elijah standing in our bedroom doorway with an odd/goofy expression on his face. It’s 11:30 am and it’s morning around here. I’m up to feed the cats, make breakfast, pack lunch for hubby (who will be off to work shortly) and leave Elijah snuggling in bed with Daddy.

Halfway through breakfast being done…

E: I’m starving. Aren’t you going to feed me?
M: Um, I think you are capable of feeding yourself, but I am making food for you to eat.
E: What’s on my plate? (looking slightly suspicious of the harsh brown on his plate — first one he’s ever eaten!)
M: It’s a hash brown…a fried potato cake or patty thing.
E: I love potatoes…and apples and kiwis and…tofu scrambler again?
M: Would you prefer something else?
E: No, this will fill my tummy

After food is consumed and Daddy is hugged off to work, we settle in at the computer for about 2 hours and play various online computer games. Today we were big on puzzle type games where you had to move things in the right order to make the right things happen and so on.

There was more food to be had…always learning…always moving…always hungry!

I checked emails and read over some unschooling discussion forums in my office, while Elijah built various obstacle courses with his Kapla blocks and wooden marble run blocks across the hall in his room. I could also hear him playing with his Leapster some. I was done once Elijah came and announced that he wanted to see the Sun!

We chugged a bottle of water together and ran around the front yard and played various games with a couple balls. We examined how many tomatoes were growing on our plants in the front and ate some broccoli right off the stalk! We talked about why our grass was turning brown and what we could or could not do about it. We reexamined the squirrel nest that had been blown/fallen out of one of our White Pine trees last week. Elijah was fascinated that squirrels would use plastic bags for nesting material. We were thirsty again and decided to go back inside.

Elijah needed a snack and I was hungry too…

E: I want another hash brown.
M: Oh, no. We ate the last ones during breakfast.
E: Why didn’t you buy more…you knew I’d LOVE them!
M: I’m not sure. Do you know what you want instead?
E: I still want potatoes.
M: I have some waffle cut fries I can bake for you.
E: Sure.
M: You know what you want with them?
E: …just surprise me.

We looked up the unschooling conference cruise for next year again and Elijah wanted to watch the video again! He’s totally enamored by the idea that there’s going to be a never ending spread of fruit 24/7! I think he cares more about the fruit than the idea of getting to meet and run free with other free kids and their families. We also played a couple more online games.

Around 8:30 pm I decided that doing that load of laundry was a good idea. Elijah wanted to watch the Thomas The Tank Engine movie while I did laundry and made dinner. I brought him something to eat about 1/2 an hour through the movie, which made him extremely happy. I got laundry done and food cooked and eaten.

After the movie was over, Elijah went back to alternating between tweaking the things he built earlier and playing his Leapster. I wrote in my journal and wrote some more for my book. I read a few blogs and by this time Elijah was asking me to read the next chapter in Wind in the Willows to him.

Daddy came home from work around midnight and he was hugged and sent to bed — not to sleep; he’s still up working away on music or reading blogs right now at almost 2:30 am! I read to Elijah and he was asleep by 12:30am.

Well,  I guess that’s a pretty ‘normal’ day. We didn’t do anything really fun or exciting, but that will happen tomorrow when we go by the community garden and check out the reopening of our favorite coffeeshop…hope it ends up still being our favorite!

I blogged a little bit ago about my son and the television. For those of you who have been wondering how we were doing on this front, I thought that I would share an update. After a few rough days (about a week) I am happy to say that we are pretty much back to normal. Elijah has not asked for his t.v. nor has be complained about anything regarding television. He has started to watch t.v. with us again if we are watching something that he’s interested in (Mythbusters, Anthony Bourdain, How It’s Made, Ninja Warrior, etc.) and he and I have watched a few movies together.

The other evening I was doing laundry. Since our laundry is in the basement, I tend to watch t.v. down in the finished part of the basement (our ‘den’) while waiting for loads to finish and whatnot. Elijah was down there asking me questions about this and that and asked me what I was doing. I asked him if he wanted to help me find something to watch on t.v. and he simply replied that he was too busy with other stuff!

I don’t think we really have an issue anymore and I fully believe that this momentary inner struggle with personal limits and experiementing with moderation is over. I asked Elijah if he wanted his t.v. back in his room and he wasn’t interested in it now.

Our ‘new obsession’ is online games! We spend at least a couple hours a day playing really awesome online games. I will have to post some links to some of our favorite online games and game sites.

I’ve mentioned unschooling and food on here before, but I came across a podcast about just this and I wanted to pass it on. I know the concept of unschooling food and not limiting food with children, might be a new idea to many coming to unschooling. Obviously, unschooling food is part of radical unschooling, whole life unschooling or life learning (whatever you might want to call it) and not just a part of [academic] unschooling.

If it’s not already apparent, let me explain to you that we are radical unschoolers and are not only following our son’s lead when it comes to filling up his educational cup, but we are following his lead in his life and respecting his voice and guiding and encouraging him to listen to his own body and to find his own passions.

Over at her blog, Sarah has put out a few podcasts about unschooling and I want to link to the one on unschooling food here.

A day in the life of…

I want to start having regular postings about our days. I know many people out there who are interested in unschooling and want to know ‘how it works’ and ‘what it looks like’ on a daily basis. So, I am going to attempt to grab days at random and days that seem to showcase ‘what it is’ to unschool.

I think it’s important to know that unschooling looks very different in every unschooling home. While you are waiting for me to start posting about our days, please visit some of the blogs on the right that I have listed, so that you can find snippets of other families’ daily lives and grand adventures.

I haven’t quite decided just how I am going to go about doing this. I’m not sure whether or not I want to journal the lucky days, as in: at 10am we woke up and did such and such until this happened at noon and so on and so on. Or I could showcase bits of days that are good examples of ‘unschooling moments’…not that every moment isn’t unschooling, but I think you know what I mean. I’m not sure just how bored I want readers to be! I feel like if I only present moments from a day, then readers who are new to or contemplating unschooling might think thats all there is or that there isn’t down time and moments of ‘nothing’ and ‘free play’. We’ll see how things develop here and change over time.