I spend a lot of time thinking about what my children might write in their memoirs. I think far more about their memoirs than I ever think about writing my own. on my bad days (which is actually when I think about this particular topic the most) opening sentences go something like this:
"my mother's anxiety rocked our household the way a storm rocks a ship at sea. squalls sprung up on an otherwise clear horizon anytime we might potentially be late for something or she had to drive us somewhere farther than the end of our driveway..."
"my mother kept us out of school (under the guise of "homeschooling") to feed her own ego. since she had once made some disparaging remarks in public about the public school system, her pride forced us to stay un-enrolled and under-socialized for years. I never could figure out why exactly she felt so strongly about keeping us out of school when she certainly did not feel strongly about doing anything to educate us herself. her pride must have been a very strong pull indeed since it kept us away from the free childcare that would have saved her sanity and creative energy in so many ways..."
"our house was never occupied by only our family. my mother was incapable of letting a spare bedroom stay empty. when I was born we lived in a group home with six teenagers of varying degrees of mental capacity and emotional stability. I can remember my bedroom door being blocked by furniture at night "just in case." after the group home we served as a foster family and respite care for kids who needed a home. there was always someone coming or leaving, and no one was ever really sure who would show up for supper on any given night. my mother called it her ministry, but to me if felt like her own selfish need for company."
"my mother's wanderlust dogged our family's every life decision. her inability to stay still mixed with my father's passion for farming and homesteading pulled our family's root system up out of the soil over and over again. every time I felt settled enough to call a place home, my mother would be possessed by the restlessness that never really left her, and off she would go on a wild tear about how fun it would be to live in a treehouse in austraila for a while. and my father, in his patient love for her, would put a jar on top of the refrigerator and start dropping in loose change to start a savings fund to fulfill her latest dream."
(for the record, these are almost all shameful exaggerations. there is no way jamin was old enough to remember that we moved furniture to block his door. and it was only for one night. and I have no desire to live in austrailia. yet.)
on good days, I can rewrite those very same passages in my head to sound something like this:
"my mother (god bless her patient and kind soul) was a champion at making the best of her own faults. she knew she was the only one in our household that ever cared if we left the house (let alone were on time for anything), so she nudged us into action with dance parties in the kitchen, the basic moves of which involved shedding our pajamas and wiggling into our clothes for the day. she found a way to make the best of situations that I am sure drove her crazy, and the musical education we got in the meantime is absolutely priceless."
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| our chickens lay green eggs. pirate approved. |
"we were homeschooled for most of my childhood. my parents evaluated and re-evaluated that life choice over and over I know, carefully taking our preferences into account before making a decision that was best for our family. my mother especially worked tirelessly to set up co-operative groups where we met with other families on a regular basis and connected with people whose lives were both similar and different from our own. the education we received working with my parents on our homestead has proven invaluable to me time and time again. and the books--my house was filled with books of all kinds and someone was always willing to talk about what they were reading with us. I never saw my mother without a book on her bedside table which made me in turn value the notion of reading both for pleasure and for information. I am thankful for the lifestyle that "schooling" at home provided my family in my early years. I am thankful for my parents willingness to know my temperament and learning style well enough to know that homeschool was the best choice for me."
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| not sure what eric is doing. in this photo and most other times as well. |
"our house was a hive of activity in a way that was comforting and exciting to me. there was always someone dropping by or staying over, everyone from foster placements to long-term roommates to kids from camp visiting for a few weeks. there was always someone new around to tell stories or work in the garden or cook something different for supper. my parents were careful to value our private space in our home and to guard our family time, creating plenty of space in our schedules and lives for simple every day adventures for the four of us. but I am thankful for the open door policy that the house I grew up in had. it broadened my ideas of "community" and "neighbor" into the whole world."
"my mother had a case of wanderlust bad enough to make her pace in the kitchen sometimes. I often think about the balance my parents challenged themselves to maintain: my father was a farmer who wanted to stay still long enough to see fruit trees bear, and my mother never felt there was time enough to do all the things she wanted to do in all the places she wanted to go. they both made sacrifices to keep our family balanced somewhere in the middle. and the adventures we had when we did hit the road--that's what this book is REALLY all about. roots and wings, the balanced life my parents offered me."
now IF either of my children should live to tell the tales of their childhood, I feel certain neither of these extremes will ever make it into print. and the odds are fairly good that the things that feel so very huge to me right now are not even memories my children will hold on to. lord knows I am liable to change my mind before I even finish typing this sentence about what a good day or a bad day even looks like around here. the messy and the beautiful can run awfully close together it seems.
but the part I am learning a little more every day is how much of that decision (which parts are messy, which parts are beautiful) is really all in our heads. sometimes the living it feels horribly messy, but the looking back on it feels breath-takingly beautiful. finding the balance of it all is part of the wabi-sabi, I suppose.
and that is the lesson I hope I am teaching my children: it really doesn't matter what happens or even what we choose. all of life, every bit of it has the potential to be messy and beautiful all at the same time. the way we tell our memoirs is way more important than what actually happens in the story.
even though I hear austrailia can be really nice this time of year...
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| http://momastery.com/carry-on-warrior |
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