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Andy is leaving my lap more often, and venturing out to play even when we are in public spaces. I have been promised, since the beginning, that allowing her to detach herself when ready will provide for a more self confident child, but I was beginning to worry that I may just be supporting her clingy-ness. Today, in a case that is symptomatic of recent events, she played happily in the midst of other tumbling, grabbing children at babs. I sat twenty feet away. And she was fine. Her new found individualism leaves me feeling more confident about our most recent decision to start her in preschool.
We are thrilled with the preschool we have found, which focuses on language learning and provides organic local food to the children. It is a small, house based school that has a wonderful outdoor space and an organic garden. Perhaps the best part is that Andy’s father will be hired as her Spanish teacher and primary care provider. While he is certified in Secondary Education, there are no available jobs within 1 ½ hours of our home, and none of us liked the idea of missing him from 5am-8pm every weekday, or of him being paid to watch someone else’s children while we pay someone to watch ours. So he is going to get certified for early childhood education while he works as Andy’s teacher. He can count his working hours as part of the training, and attend courses one evening a week for 8 months. The preschool is exactly half way between my office and the house, close enough for me to bike to from either direction so that I may continue to nurse. I think it will ease the stress of both my last semester of coursework and the time I spend taking care of our house/garden/food preparation. I am also really excited about how much Andy will grow as she spends time learning not only from other adults, but from other children.
I think the changes to our schedule will also be great for B and I, as I find our relationship thrives the most when we can learn things from one another. We are both interested in Andy’s development but haven’t read a book on child development since before she was born. B’s coursework will allow him to learn about this, and share it with me, just as I will have opportunity to continue to learn interesting things in my courses to share with him. Spending so much time at home together for Andy’s first year has been incredible, but I think that this new arrangement may be remarkably good for us too.
In a bit of a rage, I deleted the paper I had spent the day on. Because it wasn’t what I wanted. I was too messy with it, and going nowhere that I cared to go. Which I suppose, are the words that could sum up my grad school experience in general.
I am a semester shy of finishing my PhD coursework, and feel like I have little to show for it. I have no cohesive sense of what I’ve done, am doing, will do.
Except that I have deleted, am deleting, outlines and paper upstarts – forever unfinished. I could (alright, I do) blame the muddled, un-slept and distracted frame of living that motherhood demands. And perhaps the season, can be blamed a bit too.
There’s something about spring, opening itself, that drives me a little sane and distracted again each year. It reminds me that the things I accept as restorative in the winter- the nettling out of thick ideas, nestled in the deep tucks of down blankets- are sweated and stale by the green standards of springtime. And just the idea of today’s paper, unwritten, leaves me listless. And starting over again.
I began graduate school with the intention of getting a degree that would allow me to teach and inspire others to think for themselves about things that mattered in the world, and I still see that goal as valuable. But it is hard for me to reconcile the research and writing that is required of me with my love of teaching and learning. I am expected to constantly bend my interests to fit the framework of someone else’s, bend them, until I no longer recognize myself in them. I know this is not an uncommon story. But I am seeking the uncommon, and find myself stuck here, bewildered by and continually summoned into the logic of a way of knowing that I have never felt at home in, but need to keep writing into.
A point I should clarify: I do not mean that I place my hope in seeking the obscure, when I say that I would like to seek the uncommon. It seems like this may be the “way out” of the uncommon for many impressive scholars and colleagues, but I seek something distant from this, as I wither and weary from the time devoted to un-applied or un-applicable knowledge. And they must too: it seems to leave so many of them smart but gaunt, with no time to be a part of or understand the practicalities of the living world. I do not know how, or if, they seek to nurture community and relationships or to take part in any great doing. I am bewildered by the constant hypothesizing about politics and ideas that could demand ones action and advocacy, but fails to. And when all the archaic drivel and fluff stands in the way of parenting and loving and friending and teaching well, it is hard for me not to grow bitter about what we’re all doing. Or to try something different and disconnected, anyway, when I can.
And right now, I can’t. The last month of the semester does not seem to be a time that I can live or act on any separatist dreams. So I lament for a minute, before sinking again into blankets and starting over, tap-tapping the keyboard, in unfortunate indifference to spring.
I’ve decide to provide a monthly review for family and friends who decide to follow this blog and are interested in the actual goings-on in our life, rather than my less practical musings. I have divided our month into categories, and provided the highlights. This means that you can not complain that I never get to the stuff of it in this journal.
life with a little one:
i) Andjoli and I still do not sleep for more than two-hour windows. I am resigned to this. B sleeps six to eight hours but often still looks less rested than I. We all need (and take too few) naps.
ii) teeth hurt- both for her, and for anyone who gets too close to her mouth.
iii) Andjoli is slightly obsessed with the cat, Ossel. She gets the jitters when she is in close proximity.
iv)The little lady made it through RSV, and is now breathing again like a normal person. It is amazing what a blessing a steady breath is.
v) She has grown out of everything she used to wear this month- diapers, diaper covers, pants, boots. I’ve done my best to hand make or alter new clothes to fit her. My favorite creation is four pairs of recycled wool longies, balaclavas from her old (now too small) hats, and new booties. perhaps I’ll post pictures for anyone who cares.
outside:
i) I have yet to complete my winter sowing. I have all of these containers saved, but haven’t found time to actually get my hands dirty.
ii) some of the early bulbs that are in our front yard are poking their green heads up. spring buds are bulging on the trees and bushes.
iii) all of the fruit trees have been pruned. or butchered. I’m not sure how, exactly, to express what it was that i did to them.
iv) we have not winter mulched or prepared the beds. this spring smell is making me anxious.
v) we have too much green matter and not enough brown matter in our compost from the winter, and as it warms, it is looking more pitiful and soggy . . we need to track down some leaves or waste wood chips to remedy our compost slop.
inside:
i) we spend more time here than we should when it is dreary outside. I look forward to having a more hardy little person next winter so that I can drag her out in weather like this.
ii) B finished laying the wood floor in the addition, and we are deciding if we should just go ahead and stain it and forget about sanding it. We’d prefer a more natural look over an even look anyway, and since we are using an osmo non-toxic stain/sealant rather than polyurethane I don’t think it needs to be perfectly level . . .
iii) the front cap to our juicer cracked. They will replace it, but mailing replacements takes time, and I currently don’t know what to do with myself in the kitchen. How do you, for instance, make flour, nut butters, sauces and juice? I did not realize my dependence on the machine before this.
iv) having a laundry room upstairs is exceptional.
creation:
i) I have started this journal, which I suppose counts as “writing,” but I’m not writing well enough or consistently enough to satisfy my desire. I’d like to get something publication ready. hopefully I’ll have something positive to say about that in future monthly reviews.
ii) We have been limited to creating functional things: wool diaper covers, lullabies, breads, sauces and juices from ugly organics (local waste produce that is slightly too unattractive to sell or eat fresh), etc. there has been no painting, no real music, no poetry- no simple extravagance. this must change.
my perpetual schooling:
i) no I am not finished. stop asking.
ii) A proposal for my second master’s thesis is due March 1st. It was not accomplished by the last day in February.
iii) I’m looking for impressive literature from authors who use their writing as a forum for dissent. Suggestions? (This does not need to be limited to the US, but does need to be available in English or French)
iv) We should deflect: B is finished with school! That might be old news to some of you, but all the same, you should congratulate him.
work:
i) I prepared this month to start teaching a short intensive course at the University on Food and Industry. Starts March 8th. Should be exciting.
ii) B is learning about translation software and getting his name out in the translation world, and he is also hosting weekly neighborhood Spanish classes in our home.
iii) We are both considering summer work, but our criteria makes it difficult: we want to work in a place we believe in, where we can learn useful skills and support useful growth. We do not want this work to take the place or time of the rich and rewarding experience of being part of a family and a community, nor do we want it to strip us of the time necessary to create and self reflect as individuals. Because of these standards, it currently looks like we may not be working, or, I should say, we may be working on things we love and not making much of an income.
