Celebrations (and the smaller explosions)

Spring is such an explosion of life already, and with our lives tied into the University schedule, it is also the culmination of all classes and arts events - so much to see and do!!  So here is a blurry whirlwind of what the last week or so has held for us...

Eliza had a week of triumph and excitement: she finished a year-long math program that she's been working on, she won second place and a cash prize in an Earthday contest for a bag made of recycled pants, and had her first dance concert with the hiphop class she's been loving since September. Huzzah!!

there she is in the middle!

There was such good energy on stage when her class came out; it was such a fun dance and they all enjoy themselves so much.  It was awesome.

Ani, Eliza and Esme

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It was May Day this week, of course, so down to the farm for a little Beltane celebration.

The girls might not know that May Day isn't something everyone celebrates, but we started a tradition when they were young and you know how those go...doesn't everyone take a honey bath on May Day? We picked some blossoms on our way home from the farm, tossed them in the bathwater, lit some candles, and talked about the things we most love about our bodies as we washed them down with handsful of honey: strong legs, sharp eyes, hard-working feet. Smooth skin and "I don't have a word for this feeling, mama, but I'm feeling..." "Content?" asks Eliza. "Yeah. It feels like a new year."  Ahh, lovely. Time for bed.

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One year ago Dan was working on revisions on his dissertation, his advisor was giving a talk in Sweden, and I was in Jerusalem.  He decided not to walk in the commencement ceremony.  A month ago he told me that he wanted to walk this year.  Never too late for some closure!  Commencement ceremonies are understandably long affairs, and I had some good time to think about how hard he has worked since we moved here - weathering the doubts and frustrations, the pains of a growing brain and his commitment to balancing family with school.  The best advice he received from his advisor along the way (in my opinion) was to keep family a priority.  He told him, you don't want to finish your degree and find that you no longer have a marriage.  Good man. We made it!!

I love ritual and ceremony, and I was so proud to watch my husband pass through this milestone in this public way.  It felt important, even a year later.

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Then there were the slow bits...homeschool learning coop, picnics, reading, writing, living...

Ani and Ari

Ani had another presentation for her geography class at coop.  This time it was Japan, and she rocked the sushi-making (really, this class should be called "Food Around the World" or something - it's always about the food) and threw out facts about Japan along the way. 

It's spring, so it's been raining and the river and creeks are rising higher than I've seen them before.

How high's the water, mama? Six feet high and risin'...

group haircutting project

Warrior Poet's writing class

Someone I don't know well asked me the other day how I was, and without thinking, I answered "busy".  I immediately heard how that sounded - like busy was a burden, a weight.  The busy I am feeling is so much more inspired than that right now. Yes, there are the days where we long for a "Sunday", which in our family is a euphamism for those days when one thing leads to another, which leads to a lovely hum, and we're all happily involved in whatever we're doing - but Spring is all about the small explosions, the unceasing movement and growth, and we're feeling it inside and out.

the bits I missed...

Because of the way we do things here - a certain amount of planning and "scheduling" (to please my need for order) (Dan - stop laughing. I do have a need for order, it's, well, just not the same as your need for order...), and then a willingness to follow a flow where it leads - I find that the record-keeping that other homeschooling families might do, the grades, the checklists and finished curricula, comes more in the form of keeping track of what actually happened around here.  I obsessively write down the conversations, the book titles, the card games and art shows, and it grounds me to have a little evidence of What We Do.  This blog is also a part of that, of course...and so, the bits I missed from this week....

While Eliza had dance rehearsal, Ani and I got out for a short hike in the sunshine, finding animal evidence everywhere - tracks, woodchips - and stopping to soak in the winter beams when they came through the trees.

the kitchen floor is still a preferred place to play

Eliza rescued an abandoned bike that our old neighbor found, and discovered that it fits her perfectly, just when she was longing for a new bike.

Within inches of the doldrums securing their hold on my spirits, we made it out to the community contra dance; it was the best decision I made all week!  We almost didn't go; I was tired, Dan was working, I didn't think I had that kind of energy to expend on being with other people.  It had been a week of feeling let-down and disappointed and I was not handling it very well.

Oxygen (and a string band) to the rescue! It was so lovely, as always...

giving each other the eye, doing the "gypsy"

dancing with a favorite partner

I love that our science study - the periodic table of the elements and sooooo many tangents, like the stories of some of the scientists who discovered elements - has started to crop up in creative play.  Don't know why I'm surprised; it's how the girls often absorb and interact with life.

Dear Einstein - i hear you are a great scientist and you live right next door!  We should get together and talk "science" soon.  Sincerely, M. Curie

more play - not an "assignment"

 We also discovered a game in the closet that I've had for years and thought too dull to get out, but too "new" to toss without giving it a shot.  Turns out it suited Ani's love of putting things in their proper spots, and she talked through and filled in the entire table, with side comments but no help from me.  She's picked up so much from the past month and a half of playing with the elements.

tada!

 And one of my favorite moments of the week, sitting in my big girls' boredom with her for a bit and just being company until the idea to work on the gnome hat she's knitting in coop bubbled to the surface, and then I got to hang out and mend, with her feet in my lap, while we listened to stories of the Old Testament (Jim Weiss), which lead to a search for Bill Cosby's Noah skit online (voom-pah voom-pah voom-pah), a big favorite of mine from childhood.

Finally, there has been a lot of this:

Clementine, Ivy and Bean, biography of Marie Curie, books about extinct animals, old-school Nancy Drew (I think this has finally caught Eliza's imagination enough to pull her far enough into the book that she doesn't want to stop!! She is a notorious one-chapter and leave it kinda girl.)...many hours "lost" in reading...so good.

contra-dancing

It's a magical equation: 

music plus movement plus touch equals so much happiness and healing.

We took our dear friend Esme for her first contra dance on Saturday and made a memory that will last a very long time.  We also brought a classmate of Dan's who is staying with us, and she happily jumped right in and danced the whole evening.

This was only Ani's second time, and my first time with her, and I could not believe her level of comfort and ease and her willingness to dance with so many different people (contra dancing involves dancing not only with one's partner, but also with one's neighbor, and the pairings mix and change with every round of the dance).

With neck-ties for the girls who are dancing the man's part, the girls took turns with each other and with our homeschooled teenage friends who come to the dances.

my blurry, beautiful girl

all three of my family - can you see them?

Ani: it is my great pleasure to dance with someone as beautiful as you, Esme.

 It was so filling watching them dance; their competence and confidence, their joy and grace and huge spirit are so full of YES.  I looked down the line of dancers at one point and saw Ani and a Very Tall Man (named Badger) facing one another and jumping like pogo-sticks while waiting for the caller to begin. Boing boing boing...

Our sadness eased, our crankiness disappeared, our worries temporarily abated, we danced till it was time for bed.