Going out like a lion

Well, March is about done. Here's what we've been up to:

Networking
The girls and I have been getting together with a bunch of fellow unschoolers, kids ranging in age from 2 to 17. It's been fun, educational, and fascinating, and we've met some terrific kids (and their terrific moms). It's very cool to see the wide range of interests -- not to mention clothing and hair styles -- unschoolers have. They all seem to have one thing in common, though: their openness to new people of all ages, new topics of conversation, and getting out and doing new things. A couple of the girls are going to the unschooler summer camp that MJ (Marjie) is planning to attend; they might all ride down to Oregon on the train together.

Other social outings
We've had some great times lately with friends from the past. Patti, an old indexing buddy of mine, had us over last weekend for dinner, conversation, and video games. Her 12yo son, Noah, and their rather large kitty kept us company. The weekend before that, we got together with Frank's former boat partner, Jerry, his wife, and their four grown sons. One of the guys is into drawing, and when he found out MJ has written a fantasy novel, he had her write out descriptions of some of her characters so he can draw them up for her. We can't wait to see what he comes up with. He was also intrigued by the green vampire cats Chloe dreamed up.

Miscellany
The MR2 had to go in for repairs (cracked exhaust manifold). Frank got our home network set up (the other kind of networking), plus ran cable TV to the girls' rooms, so we are totally wired now. I've been procrastinating doing the taxes. (It takes a lot of time to do procrastinating right, you know!) The neighbor kids practically live at our house. And, of course, we've been getting Chloe ready for Summerhill. We've filed all her paperwork, paid her bill (gulp), and made all of our travel arrangements. This weekend, we'll try to get fired up about doing her packing. Less than 3 weeks til we leave.

Family notes
Chiara is coming to England to see Chloe and me!!!!
Jerry should be back in NC in May, gets leave in June!!!!
Colin is 11 days old!!!!

Book recommendation
If you're curious about unschooling and want to read a lovely little book that shows what it's all about, try Parenting a Free Child by Rue Kream. It's set up in question-and-answer style, so it's easy to read in short bursts. I think Rue really captured the way unschooling can transform your family relationships and lifestyle for the very much better.

Acknowledgement

From an essay by Richard B. Anderson, who lectures in Environmental Studies at UC Santa Barbara:

"At the heart of the modern age is a core of grief.

"At some level, we’re aware that something terrible is happening, that we humans are laying waste to our natural inheritance. A great sorrow arises as we witness the changes in the atmosphere, the waste of resources and the consequent pollution, the ongoing deforestation and destruction of fisheries, the rapidly spreading deserts and the mass extinction of species."

Read the rest of it here:
http://www.grizzlegritz.com/worldisdyingbr.html

Jerry update

For those of you who can't monitor the comments as easily as I can, here's what Judy had to say today about Jerry:

The ship is on its way home with stops in Italy & Greece! Jerry should be back in NC around May 7. Yeah!

Needless to say, there is much happiness in the Maier and Lewis clans today.

We're going to see if he ends up any place in Italy where he and Chiara could get together for a visit.

On free time and frivolity

A friend told me recently that she has learned a lot from me about having a life outside of work. This surprised me somewhat, since when I am working I get quite involved in work. But I am aware that, by and large, my life is focused on the Right Things: family, friends, fun. The three F's.

Still, perhaps because I am back at work, with so many hours and brain cells occupied with databases and servers and Help topics, this has led me to some thinking about how I want to spend my precious hours away from work.

It's hard to resist the vaguely Puritanical attitude that every minute of my free time must be “spent” well. Those minutes are in such short supply, after all! They should be filled with the right activities, meaningful activities that nurture my soul or stimulate my brain or give me a few checkmarks to put on my to-do list.

Blech. I’m becoming convinced that the only thing I “should” do is resist that attitude. Free time is only free if -– like Audrey’s princess in Roman Holiday -– I do “just whatever I want” for a while.

A recent entry in How to Save the World lamented the disappearance of playtime. In it, Dave Pollard maintains that one key difference between play and work is the absence of an objective. Under that definition, many activities of today’s kids -– video games in particular -– don’t qualify, because the kids are trying to win or achieve some other concrete goal.

I see it differently. To me, the key difference between play and work is the absence of requirement. If I allow requirements to infect my free time, the cost is extremely high: the loss of spontaneity, frivolity, indulgence. A life lacking those qualities ... well, is it life at all?

As we've had our adventures over the years, many people -– from coworkers to family members to the guy at the SCUBA store -– have said admiring/envious things but in tones that made it clear that they can’t imagine doing anything similar. If pressed, any one of them might have mentioned financial concerns, job security, house payments, and so on (just before heading out to their new Lexus). But I think what really stops people from taking off the way we do is the frivolity of it all. It is hard for them to understand, let alone contemplate personally, that we can choose –- quite deliberately -– frivolity over convention, spontaneity over security, and indulgence over service.

The really interesting thing is, these apparently foolish choices of ours have led us to a life of complete dedication to our kids, an understanding that the moment is what matters, and the realization that our family bonds represent the only security that is possible. Even without the lessons we learned from Katrina and Rita and Wilma -– that jobs and possessions and daily routines can disappear from one day to the next, and that even our shaky faith that our government will provide for us in times of crisis may be misplaced -– we know this to be true when we talk to friends and neighbors who’ve been RIF’d or reorg’d or outsourced out of their jobs, when we attend the funeral of a woman younger than Frank, and especially when we look at a picture of our infant daughters -– taken only yesterday, I swear! -– and compare it to the young women who live with us now.

Life must be lived NOW, not someday. And the joyous, playful exploration of not only our free time but our relationships and the world is the only objective that matters.