Monthly ArchiveNovember 2005
Life before 2008 03 Nov 2005 05:02 am
Dream a little dream……
I can’t remember a time in my life when my thoughts weren’t constantly active. I was the kid who not only got in trouble for talking or running or moving around too much, but also for sitting there, spaced out before the window, watching frost pattern melt into ripples on the pane, daydreaming. I even associate the smell of new pencil shavings, school glue, and Mr. Clean on waxed floors with the feeling of clear space and time to THINK!
I still do it. When washing dishes, wiping little hienies, making beds, transferring endless loads of laundry…I typically have one thing on the brain: our future house, animals, and farm. I find myself constantly imagining little details…like what our clothesline will look like, how the hills should roll for morning, dewey, walks, how the floorboards should creak, the sound our slippers will make on the hard wood floors, where my home-canned veggies will be stored, the best chicken tractor design, the names of our sheep and alpacas, little pairs of muddy boots lined up by the back door……it’s a BIG dream for me and there are a million things to think about. I’m sure that when the time is finally right, and we are moving ahead, that it will seem to the rest of you that it is all happening very fast. But I will already have turned each step over in my head, ’till it’s like a smooth and well-loved stone, and I know it will all fall into place.
This dream was harder in Florida, where it felt very far away. But here…I see people with it in thier grasp, or actually LIVING it, every day. It’s very close and yet frustratingly out of reach. Actually living in a place where farm land abounds, where there are “four seasons” is a major step towards accomplishing this dream. Sometimes the thoughts of it make it seems almost tangible. Last night it was dangled before me, I did seem to touch it. It wasn’t more than a vapor though and when I realized that, I felt a heart-sick pain that I haven’t had in a very long time.
We have been looking for a house to rent. Preferably with a yard, and an older house that doesn’t have to be big, but with maybe a third bedroom. And not much more than we pay now, or we might as well stay here. Management begs us to anyway; they like us, no matter what the neighbors think! The other day David drove by a place that caught his eye so quickly he almost ran off the road. I know now that it was so attractive, not because we’re so set on a new place to rent, but because this was a house we would buy.
It’s in town, closer than we are now, yet is 5 rolling acres. The back 3 are rolling pasture framed in woods, with an old but still functional hay barn to one side. The generous back yard has a clothesline, the old plot for a large garden, and a few trees. In fact, all of the trees on the property are great climbing trees! They could each have their own! The white farmhouse was built in the 40’s…it still has these beautiful heavy wooden doors with metal knobs. There’s evidence that the woman who lived there loved to garden. I felt tied to the place immediately. I could see without trying, a picket fence between the road and the maples. The hardwood floors restored, the freshly painted plaster walls. It has 3 bedrooms and one spacious bath that would take to a historical restoration well; it’s very modern now. Kitchen-smitchen…it’s too engrained in me to see one as is and not imagine how easily it could be better. There’s a large unfinished basement that is drive-in, with room for two cars besides and a carport outside for compltely covered parking. Room for a basketball hoop at the end of the drive. Neighbors far off, yet this place is in town!
The rent was just barely above what we wanted to pay and since it was an older couple who own it, we thought an offer of a long lease might help bring it down where we needed it. It was his parents house; he grew up there. He doesn’t seem to have much affection for it but I could feel just being in there that I would have loved his parents. There was a kindred spirit essense there.
The kids loved rolling down the hill on thier sides. They jumped on hay bales in the barn and begged for us to move in. David talked inside with them for almost an hour.
I knew when we headed home that we wouldn’t be renting it. I did something I almost never do: cried for hours. They want a very high security deposit because the previous two renters didn’t pay thier last month’s rent. They won’t come down an inch on the payment. Worse, they aren’t interested in any kind of rent-to-own, and won’t allow any painting or improvement on the house in any way. The two cracked windows sit unrepaired, the carpet is disgusting, the panelling is truly hideous. Living in it without any kind of possibility of loving it to health, of eventually owning it, would be too hard.
I saw it for it’s potential and loved it for what it once was. What I wanted it to be again. The owner is going to let it rot, but not before he milks it for whatever it can give him. And then he’ll sell to some blankety-blank developer who will tear it down and put up 10 houses.
Like the mist that is so common here, but new to me, my visions swirled and evaporated from view. Chicken chatter moved to the far distance, fireflies in the field grew dim. I tried to focus on the reassuring words David offered that we’ll find something even better later. That the dream is still alive but the time just isn’t right. When that didn’t exactly stop the flow of tears he did what he does so well….made me laugh. It can be impossible to cry and be sad when he wants to be funny! I’m so glad I get to grow old with that wonderful guy. Laughing through our tears…sometimes that’s almost been a theme in our marriage. I love him!
Today we’ll get on with life. I might take a little break from thinking and dreaming and just “do the next thing” for at least a few hours. I have a play date with a friend and a trip to the natural foods store. There’s more than enough work to be done. Tomorrow might be better for dreaming.
Life before 2008 02 Nov 2005 05:20 am
2000…..a good vintage?
Snuggling amongst pillows, sunshine, and little boys this morning, the following was heard:
Wheaton: Dad? Why do I love my ole-gah? (his well-worn and loved blankie)
Dad: Well, when you were a baby, it was in your crib and you liked how soft it was.
W: “Oh Yeah…I liked to smell it and rub it on my face.”
Dad:”Yeah…you smell it while you suck your fingers.”
W: “Only back then, it didn’t have a smell. Now, it’s YUMMY!”
Dad: “Like a fine wine with a fragrant bouquet…..
By the way… if Wheaton EVER asks you smell a corner of his ole-gah, and every spot has a different scent no matter how many times I wash it, RUN! 
Life before 2008 01 Nov 2005 08:19 am
John Holt quote:
We can sum up very quickly what people need to teach their own
children. First of all, they have to like them, enjoy their company,
their physical presence, their energy, foolishness, and passion. They
have to enjoy all their talk and questions, and enjoy equally trying
to answer those questions. They have to think of their children as
friends, indeed very close friends, have to feel happier when they are
near and miss them when they are away. They have to trust them as
people, respect their fragile dignity, treat them with courtesy, take
them seriously. They have to feel in their own hearts some of their
children’s wonder, curiosity, and excitement about the world. But that
is about all that parents need.
Life before 2008 01 Nov 2005 05:45 am
From the nooks and crannies of my days.
In school……we’ve changed things a bit. Doing a bit more of what we call “A Living Education”. Things were getting to be a bit too much “school at home”. Workbooks, timed drills, bland and boring. Institutionalized learning does very little to excite a life-long passion! So we’ve shaken things up with bird watching (project feeder watch with Cornell U), tea time with poetry, long walks through the woods, fun math books full of puzzles, riddles, and tricks, and reading, reading, reading. They are excitedly learning about the American Revolution and maybe more excitedly, awaiting the chance to see the movies Dreamer, Harry Potter, and Chicken Little.
Saturday brought the final soccer game with a big party-lunch at Los Amigos with our…. amigos :-). Way fun. We dashed home to bake quickly a Fall Streusel Cake and then off to the Reformation Day Party with our church.
What an awesome time!!! The Whites have the perfect property for such a thing: a few acres that back up to woods and others’ fields, with mountain views in the distance and lots of hardwoods all around dropping picture-perfect leaves and acorns. They had a huge bonfire (it was very cold that day!), a pig roasting on a bbq, games like apple bobbing from trees, vintage dancing, vintage music played by costumed musicians, potluck side dishes and desserts, archery, sack races, and a huge “war” by the children with a miriad of wooden swords and shields all over the rolling hills. At one point, all my conversation halted as I was struck by the view of the hills. The sun was setting behind us, making the mountains in the distance the most beautiful layered color I think I’ve ever seen. One layer was red-violet, the other auburn, orange, yellow, and green in the foreground. The sky was a dusky blue, light at the bottom and intense at top. I was struck speechless as I marveled that we get to LIVE HERE. I wondered what the mountains and trees would look like when the colors started to change…would they still be various shades of dusty blue? I got my answer: it all depends on the light. There are a million shades of color right now.
Two sparrows just landed on our porch rail. Sparrows are pretty basic birds but until Project Feeder Watch I probably couldn’t have identified them, let alone male or female. We had one of each after the female scoped it out first. Male sparrows are fatter and have a little black beard. They are very stern looking, while thier little women look busy.
I’ve been reading a great book. It’s called The Last Child In the Woods.
It’s more than just an encouragement to get your kids outside. It goes into why that is so important for brain and intellectual and emotional development. It goes into why this is so difficult to achieve in our techno society and the subtle ways it’s undermined. The natural world in many ways is disappearing….not just in a “save the rain forest” way but in a daily, interactive, and whole way. Genetic Engineering, deforestation, and even the uber-controlled exposure we give our kids by always taking them to a created park or ball field rather than a true pocket of wilderness to dream and explore without us hovering over thier shoulders. The NDD part of the title was a selling-gimick, totally unnecessary and annoying but it has proven to be an adequate conversation starter.
My own kids are in the woods today. A smallish section behind our apartment, that leads to a haven they call “The Sandy Pit”. David spent much of Sunday afternoon back there playing with them and we plan to get them walkie talkies for safety purposes. It has radically changed the stress level in our days and affected our next-home search. There is tea time to be had today, violin lesson, books to be read, pictures to be created, a riddle to be solved.
Onward.