Lazarus' fourth birthday, Labor Day, was the last our last day of summer. We spent some lovely time at the beach - Seahurst on Puget Sound. It was windier than usual, and there were quite the little waves coming in. What a beautiful day! Just about dark the wind shifted dramatically; strong winds blew in from the Cascades, bringing with them our first wildfire smoke of the summer - with terrible breezy flappings and nasty particulates. Then, the following morning we were back to school.
This is a transition I dread each year. I have lived in the North my whole adult life, aside from two exceptional years in Alabama. The summers here have such long, glorious days with so much sun, and despite various weather patterns in different parts of the continent, the fall and winter are characterized by such rushing in of darkness, and grey, grey, grey in the heavens. Clearly I am solar powered and as the summer heat is rarely oppressive, I mostly feel Autumn as a time that my batteries go weak and I must power through. Winter, though, can be exciting. In late December the light starts getting longer, and it is like a weight is taken off. And if there is snow... Then I am very happy again.
I spend so much small, quiet expectation looking toward Summer. It is the time of freedom, of something different on the calendar, of adventure, and of course, of pleasant weather. Fall is the return of the drudgery of routine, of predictability, and of commitment. It is the time of being imprisoned in so many small ways.
Our first week back was predicted to be one of the warmest weeks this summer, so I had mentally planned on our weekend afterward to either 1) make a quick camping trip out to Lake Crescent or 2) take the kids to the beach as much as possible and finish up a long-standing project: filling our sandbox. [This involves multiple runs to Lowe's, pushing 500 lbs at a time on a rolling cart, loading it across the small car carefully, and then borrowing our neighbor's wheelbarrow to move it to the sand box.] But instead, more and more smoke rolled in. I couldn't even go outdoors to hang laundry. I sat inside with zero motivation and watched the kids jump on furniture and zoned out while they watched way too much stuff on YouTube with an annoying sexist/unkind background to it. I couldn't muster the brain to figure out what indoor projects could/should be done or even clean up the basics. I sat in my own haze, feeling antsy, and feeling sad that the fires had taken our last warm weather from us.
Finally, yesterday, we started to get some rain, and our particulate matter had gone down enough that it was okay for people without asthma and such to be outside, and I went for a long walk to stretch my wings. (It still smelled a little smoky, and there was clearly still plenty of haze, but for the first time, I could actually see all the way to the SeaTac control tower about five miles distant. Previously, I could not even see to the bottom of our hill.) I was musing on how our culture is all about being productive and seizing the moment, and how I was instead going to be comfortable with the fact that I had no energy or happiness in doing that during the smoke season. I was intending to be ok with accomplishing little.
I thought about it some more, though, and realized I had accomplished a few things with big impact. I started lessons with a new student family. I launched our new year of online group classes, and the first meetings felt good. I reached out to friends when things weren't going well (like when the toddlers, whom I'd left watering the garden, instead flooded the studio and ruined some electronics.) And I realized that what I was *doing* for Anne's education was not working.
See, I had this idea that we would just cover the basics with a curriculum I loved and then she was free to be a kid the rest of the time. And it has contributed greatly to the friction in our home. I've debated sending her to brick and mortar school, which would not make it better, but it would make someone else the bad guy. But the more I thought about it, why did we even need a bad guy?
The truth is, people are born to learn and enjoy learning, and what Anne needs is merely a little guidance and assistance in directing her curiosity in helpful directions and then resources to learn deeply what interests her. Some call this, when done well "unschooling", but that label has gotten a bad rap from those who misunderstand it or have seen it done badly. I like the phrase "natural learning." I am a person full of questions, and when I want to know something, I look it up online, I watch a video, a read a book, or I ask someone. And because I care about the answer, it becomes a part of me, rather than "required knowledge" that gets tacked on. In just the last few days, for example, I had some questions about child sleep, about the anthropology of hunter-gathers, about how to make play dough, about SIPS, about the genetic relationship between crocodilians and dinosaurs, and about cream of tartar, and I went out and learned what I wanted to know. I have known all along my job with Anne is really to facilitate her learning process so she can live a life of learning and curiosity. Checking off the "we did school today" box because she and I nearly killed each other while making it through a beautifully designed phonics lesson where she learned something against her will was not heading toward the end goal. Suddenly, "school" is feeling fun, and less oppressive. We are swinging into a routine which is pleasant, and I am trying to come to grips with the Fall weather and darkness, and remembering that Spring is only six months away.
