Natural Attachment

That’s right, a cruise to Bermuda for Unschoolers and their friends and family!

What are you going to do…

…with your tax return next year? William, Elijah and I know what we are going to do with ours. We are going to spend 5 nights on a cruise ship leaving port from the New York Harbor and heading out to Bermuda. We’ll be on this cruise ship surrounded by families, which many have become good friends with us through the internet and in real life. What do all these families have in common with us? They are all Unschooling families; they are all raising free and unschooled children.

What better way to spend time than with us on a family cruise and be able to fully immerse yourself into the daily interactions of families living in harmony with one another and following along with their children’s passions in life. The cruise will have all the usual trappings of  Royal Caribbean cruises, is only for Unschoolers and their friends and family and will have Unschooling conference lectures and discussion panels — all of the lectures/discussions are optional.

We would love it if you could come on this cruise with us. We think it would be a fantastic family vacation and a way for you to learn heaps about how we live our lives.

Here’s the website for the cruise with all pertinent information: http://www.unschoolingontheseas.com
You will need a current Passport for this adventure: http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/get_840.html

And if you’re interested in reading more about Unschooling:
http://www.naturalattachment.com/wordpress/category/education/radical-unschooling-education/ (my blog posts specifically about unschooling)
http://sandradodd.com/seeingit
http://www.borntoexplore.org/unschool/whatis.htm
http://www.borntoexplore.org/unschool/Uncurriculum.htm
http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/unschooling/unschoolingphilosophy.html

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’.

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.

I know, I know, there are already a handful of conference type gatherings for Unschoolers, but what if, year round maybe, there was a magical place set in a rich natural environment where we could all hang out and vacation or hell, why don’t we just all move there?

Zenmomma’s hubby Jon has an Idea.

What do you think? Let him know and add your ideas as well.

Creating Child-friendly Anarchist Space:

HOW TO SUPPORT PARENTS’ & CHILDREN’S PARTICIPATION @ ANARCHIST GATHERINGS

(Suggestions and tips from various parents on the Anarchist Parenting List Serv)

Here are some of the pictures from the Picnic that were taken by Marie. I’ll have more up here soon.

Anarchist Picnic 2008

So, we haven’t been to the community garden since June 13th, right before we left for vacation. I finally got down there tonight at around 8:30 pm. Oh My Gosh…like, all that rain we’ve been havin’…our little measly lot has turn into a jungle of sorts! (No, I really don’t talk like that!)

Tonight (from our plot) I harvested:
1 med. head worth of leaf lettuce
Few bits of bib lettuce
15 radishes
Few sprigs of basil
Few sprigs of sage
1 tiny (about the size of a roma tomato) purple bell pepper — I couldn’t wait for it to get bigger!

From the Community Side I Grabbed:
Few sprigs of Dill
Few sprigs of lemon thyme

On my walk home, I harvested some lavendar from a yard — I doubt they’ll notice!

I apologize that these pictures are so fuzzy, but it was just about dark and camera was having issues, or rather I was having issues — either way, the pictures do not speak the true name of our garden.

This last picture is of our plot with our salad & chives up front, super tall radishes, giant cauliflower and broccoli and wild and sprawling black heirloom tomatoes (at the far end). There are other things in there, but those are the biggest guys right now.

Come join POG, my family and some Hip Mamas this Saturday (July 5th) at the Fourth Annual Anarchist Picnic in Pittsburgh.

Though, as my husband points out, maybe this should be called a ‘basket lunch’ or ‘potluck in the park’, since according to ‘urban legends’,  ‘picnic‘ does have its roots in racism as a slang term for lynching. I haven’t seen where this is true and it’s more possible that the term actually comes from the French ‘pique-nique’.

Either way and however you choose to describe/label this gathering, you should come. It will be fun and as always, please don’t leave the children at home — this is for them too.

We landed back home from vacation yesterday afternoon. We had fun, the tree house cottages are AWESOME and my in-laws are doing well.

Points of Interest During Our Time of Absence:
* Tree House Cottages @ The Maple Tree Camp in Gapland, MD
* The Virginia Living Museum — as Elijah says, “it’s like a museum & a zoo shoved together!”
* The Children’s Museum of Virginia — which wasn’t all that grand in our spoiled eyes!
* Edgar Cayce Day Spa — where we both got massages…in the same room…together!
* The Heritage Centre – yummy eats, groceries and gifts/supplies
* Kid’s Cove @ Mount Trashmore Park — totally awesome place for kiddos to play & “Free Runners” to practice
* Trader Joe’s of Newport News, VA — because, even when DH is away from work, he still has to ‘be there’!

I would recommend that everyone who enjoys the outdoors-life, take a weekend or week to enjoy the tree house cottages in Maryland. They were wonderful and the owner is such a nice lady. Everything is very laid back and flexible. The rates are very reasonable and the cabins rock…actually the whole grounds rock. We found mushrooms, fuzzy caterpillars (that I think glowed in the dark), daddy-long-legged spiders, fireflies, mayapples and the supplies needed to make little gnome homes. E was very helpful with gathering sticks and leaves for daddy and fire making — he was even quite skilled in helping to actually start the fires. He had his pocket knife, but never once got it out to use it…maybe it will come in handy helping me in the garden. William was able to basically perfect fire building in a log burning stove, which is nice, since we will hopefully own one in the future. I found that I can make rather mean chili on a log burning stove!

We managed to make it out to the beach one evening from about 10:30pm until a little after midnight…the ocean really is best at night! But alas, a storm and sleepiness were both rolling in, so we had to make for the hotel. I’d love to try and spend the night at the beach in the future — I can imagine the sleep that I would get!

We were a bit disappointed with the children’s museum…or maybe we were just disappointed that it wasn’t as grand as our children’s museum. Either way, it’s a huge space, with lots of ‘dead space’ that could be used for exciting exhibits. Most of the exhibits seemed to be old, not well kept and plenty of things were broken.

The living museum was really cool. I would like to see Pennsylvania try to do something similar. I’d like to go back either without E or when he’s more willing to let me go at a slower pace to ‘enjoy’ it more — read, I really wanted to dawdle and he wanted to run through it fast. Very neat, none the less.

William and I enjoyed our massages from the Edgar Cayce spa. It wasn’t as grand as I had hoped, but it was a neat place, friendly staff and awesome grounds. I think I just needed more than one hour of massage…can a buy a year of it?

The in-laws enjoyed seeing us and spending time with the kiddo. They’re doing well in VAbeach. Their house is very nice and suits them well. They both are enjoying the environment and community. My MIL still (not so secretly) pines for us to move out there… While being near the beach does have it’s perks, being in VAbeach, isn’t my idea of ‘the beach’. Not to mention that we couldn’t afford to live anywhere that we’d find suitable for us there. Besides, we are quite happy in the ‘burgh…actually, I find that I feel more at home here than I ever did back in Oklahoma — I think that has more to do with the fact that I am completely free to be ‘me’ everywhere I am and not just around small circles, in hidden corners.

So, now we are back and getting back to our life…not that vacation isn’t our life too, but it’s nice to be home, in my own bed and not expected to do anything for anyone else — outside of the normal daily expectations…never-mind!

Our community garden now has a fence with a lock…not exactly sure how I am supposed to be gardening with a locked fence and no email detailing this new development, but I am sure that I will get to the bottom of this in a day or so.

Tomorrow is CSA number three for us (fourth of the season, but we missed last week because of vacation) and I am so excited about it! I can’t wait to see what awesome green goodness awaits us.

Well, before I go to bed, I want to leave you with a little bit of teenage-wisdom, which can be found here.

Goodnite.

So I wanted to share an observation with you readers. I have really noticed a difference in the flow of playdates, groups and other events that involve many children…the differences between these events populated by a large majority of subculture (punks, Anarchist, etc.) parents versus those populated by more mainstream parents. The differences that I point out become even stronger the bigger the group of people involved.

Scene One: The Subculture Gathering…

• Lots of children all ages scattered to all four corners and intermingled with adults of all ages. Not every adult present is a parent, but has the capacity to act like one for a couple hours.
• You might not know where your child is, but you know where at least 12 other children are and at least 12 other adults around you know where your child is.
• Children have no issue grabbing the nearest adult to get help with food, drinks, games or going to the bathroom. They trust that person will help or will grab the closest person who can. It doesn’t have to be that child’s parent…it doesn’t matter.
• An often random sampling of adults, will unconsciously rotate in organizing group games for the kids, without being asked to…well, a kid might ask them to, but there isn’t a sign up sheet.
• You don’t hear much of, if any crying upon arriving or leaving.
• Squabbles between kids are handled by kids and whichever adult is closest…no one has to worry in these situations that the involved adult will make your child feel insignificant or physically harm them, even if they are the kid who did just hit so&so for no reason. Chances are, you won’t even know anything happened unless your kid is hurt and then like magic you are reunited with your child.
• Somehow everyone knows which kids are vegan without asking.
• You aren’t shocked when you see so&so’s baby being passed around to you and you magically know exactly where so&so is when her baby starts trying to nurse on you, even if you haven’t actually seen her up until that point.
• It reminds me of a village.

Scene Two: The Mainstream Gathering…

• Someone is crying when you get there and someone is crying when you leave, regardless of who they are or who their parents are.
• There are usually several children clinging to their parents, while their parents try desperately to have a conversation with another adult.
• At least 6 times in an hour you will hear, “mommy, so&so isn’t playing right/hit me/etc”…it doesn’t matter if your child never does this, but here s/he will.
• You are pretty much solely responsible for your child, because after all, I have my own to take care of.
• You will probably be looked at with suspect if one child hits another and you don’t send the hitter to ‘time out’/give a firm talking to/etc…whatever ‘your’ group expects of it’s members, but rather you try to work it all out peacefully.
• No one will know what your child can and can not eat, even if they have asked you a billion times.
• Games and such are usually preplanned and someone is assigned the duty of making sure they happen…because flying by the seat of your pants with kids is dangerous and chaotic!
• Babies aren’t usually passed around to give a mama a break and if so, she’s not likely to leave baby out of her sight.
• Children must seek out their own parents for help with food, drinks and bathroom needs, because they don’t usually feel comfortable with ’strangers’.
• You sort of have this feeling of needing to hover over your child…for no real reason, other than everyone else is doing it with their children.
• Adults that are present who aren’t parents might often be overheard saying, “why don’t you go find your mum/dad and see if they can help you/play with you/etc.”
• It seems a lot like a forced friendship to me and not at all like a village.

Now, before you go yelling at me and telling me that’s not the way it is with your group, I didn’t say always and in every group and at every activity. Not every group are like these examples. I happen to belong to a fantastic example of Scene One and have been a member of Scene Two many times…I have to say that while I have made many friends from Scene Two…they were really Scene One and didn’t realize it.

Oh, and it appears easier for Scene Two to integrate into Scene One, but not so for the reverse.

What about you, have you been on both sides of the fence and can report a noticeable difference? Have you been part of one of these groups and had the exact opposite experience? Did I leave out any major characteristics and differences?