Rattlesnaking Along

I saw my first rattlesnake this weekend. Our family found a baby one, not quite a foot long, frozen in the middle of a fire road we were walking along. It was determined to pretend it was a stick and just stay there stiff and hopefully invisible. We gave it wide berth and tip-toed around behind it to continue on down the road and when we came back, it has disappeared into the safety of the grass or the rocks or wherever it is that a baby rattler runs when they are scared and done pretending they are a stick.

Its so interesting to live in a place with one venomous like this. Its a serious thing, and a real thing but I know panic doesn't help. Its tempting to be paranoid or fearful of the trails and the grass. I keep reminding myself that all things have their place and that this snake is fearful of me too. I am trying to teach the boys a respectful wonder of the animal. To learn to responsibly identify them, to know their use and value and to stay calm and gentle in their presence. Not that we are getting a lot of practice....we mostly see little fence lizards and harmless gopher snakes, but I practice the ideas with them.

Two of my boys are quite worried about snakes. One of them waffles between obsessed and fearful and the other is terrified and culturing the beginnings of a phobia. The other two are fascinated and oblivious.

Growing up, I was never super fond of them but felt they were kind of spooky, I'm sure partly influenced by my Papa's active terror of them. I never saw him run and scream, but I saw him blanch a few times and I never saw him touch one, or willingly be near a snake. The things we see rub off on us.

I am scared of bats myself....figure that one out. And leaches. And dead animals. Those three things don't make me scream, but they'll make me leave the room or avoid a creek or take a different route. I want to understand fear, feel it and learn that its just my body telling me that this thing makes me nervous, not necessarily actually saving my life. Tough to learn to master my own squeamishness and teach my boys that they can too. Little icks can destroy wonder and calm and our own larger understanding of the place of all things. Hoping this rattler is only my first brush. May there be more, may there be bats, may there be leaches....may I stand in the presence of the things that make me quake and learn to be still and brave and wise and come out whole.

A Little Bit Mennonite

I'm making a collage of the pieces of myself right now...(Pinterest!!!) and one of the pieces that went in first was a Mennonite visual. My horse and buggy self is about my roots, simplicity, feeling useful  and maybe most of all belonging with other people. I am determined to build community here in California...but also, here in my mid-thirties, here in motherhood and here in the middle of the 2000's .... to surround myself with other women who are willing to work shoulder to shoulder, laugh together, cry together and help  mother each other's children.

 I am meeting interesting people out here and I am slowly piecing together a mental patchwork quilt of who in my acquaintance looks like the type who would be up for impromptu picnics, late night emergency calls from the bathroom and random canning adventures. I crave connection and can't even tell you how deeply it feeds me to have real soul like that in my life and yet...and yet.... I'm lazy. Super lazy. I don't want to be the organizer. I'm tired, I'm overwhelmed, I'm not "together," I'm super great at following. I'm also just scared. I'm intimidated by other people, I feel inhibited, I worry about all the choices, I'm uselessly perfectionistic about my plans, and I worry that reaching out might be more painful than staying here alone, in my shell. I mean, seriously, I know way better. I know how great it is to reach out, even if you're received warmly 1/4 of the time. Its always worth it. Its way great.

I am considering leading a little book study for women....a small group, a group not freaked out by Bible-y things but not too uptight either. Willing to really get into the meat of issues and talk about the rabbit trails and the puzzles and the weirdness. I bought a book, I even got as far as floating the idea to the proposed women. Then I froze with my paws in the air and have just twitched my nose for about three months. So much scarey!!!! Yipes!

I am also interested in having a super random and stand-alone women's night where we do things together, practical, solid things we can touch with our hands and see finished at the end of the night. Simple sewing, canning, photo transfer projects, medicinal tinctures, natural dye work, maybe even brave stuff like simple welding. I want to work with tools and creation and messes and things that tip over and splash and look scary. I want women to take turns coming up with ideas and leading project nights...sometimes something they love to do and want to share, sometimes something they need help with and want to share the burden and sometimes something they have always wanted to try and never felt brave enough. I have no idea how to do that and I haven't posted any bills or nailed down particulars but I'm dreaming. In my dreams this group meets (on my rotation) in our garage, right off of the garden in the backyard....on a summer night  and there is golden light shining out of the windows and lots of laughter and maybe a little wine.

Today, there was no wine, but there was a very big mug of hot herbal tea and a very short chat with a couple of new friends about the overwhelm. There were hugs and smiles and understanding looks and there was even a self-care assignment which led me to the bathtub for a long, hot soak, reflecting on the ways I feel isolated and need connection and want a community. The things I need and ought to look to, and the ways in which I can be a little Amish and pull some of their simplicity, capability, warmth and peace into my friendships. I am after all, a little bit Mennonite in my soul, thank you Mama, farming roots, Ma Ingalls, and Stutsmanville Chapel (my home church which was truly a Mennonite congregation once upon a time), its part of who I am.

Brave, Rainy Days

It was clear the minute our feet touched our own yard that rain was in order. The strawberries had wilted away to floppy little copies of themselves and the hanging basket by the back door was mostly yellow and crunchy. I was so relieved yesterday evening when it started to sprinkled and bluster.

The only downside was that in the night we were totally startled awake by the loud cracking of a splitting tree. The next door neighbors have a massive, massive white pine that stands taller than our house and although it appears healthy it would utterly destroy our home if it suddenly fell some stormy night. I think A and I both harbor somewhat obsessive fear about the idea although we try to dwell on it or be ridiculous. You can't go chopping down any tree near anything in the neighborhood.
A's subconscious mind was on red alert apparently because, out of a dead sleep he catapulted both of us out of bed at the sound of the tree splitting. Triple Axel Wake Up was a pretty hilarious move when we discovered that it wasn't The Big Pine after all, and then sad after all when we realized it totally destroyed my sister Lockbox's boyfriend's back windshield since his car was parked on the curb in front of our house.

After that excitement, its been a pretty simple day. We have been catching up mail duty, writing notes, addressing cards, coloring pictures to mail out, thinking of cousins we'd like to send messages too....that sort of thing. The postman has a whole stack of correspondence to collect from our front box.

We also made gak slime from Borax, water and Elmer's Glue....and read extra stories. This afternoon I am hoping to drop off our official registration for Homeschool Co-op since its that time of year again and maybe if I'm lucky the curricula I ordered with be delivered. I feel really nervous about trying a curricula for the first time ever this year. I am very concerned that our learning at home not become dry, burdensome and blandy "school-y" in style. I really prefer to do, see ourselves, live, flex and have firsthand learning. I'm a mixture of Unschooling, Montessori and Charlotte Mason if you know anything about educational philosophy. I did some soul searching over the summer and decided that I really would love a neat schedule for what to do every day, all plotted out for me so that I have to do minimal planning and can focus on tweaking and teaching. That's the whole point of curriculum. Enter my exploration of the idea of buying one. If I have to pick I think I'm mostly Charlotte Mason by allegiance so I did some scoping online and purchased Living Books curriculum to try out. Stepping out. Trying new things. Reminding myself that I am the mistress of my choices and I can choose to try things and to quit if it doesn't work.

I love feeling that I can brave and make bold, even uncertain choices and learn from them while not being bound to my learning on the go. Are you trying any new, brave things right now?

Good People Are Cold People

Winter has been grueling this year. I have always been a person who has said that I love the change of seasons but I have to say that if I am truthful, I think that's my Northern Michigan roots speaking out of pride. I think in my head that good, salt of the earth, energetic, humble, country girls who grew up in the ice and snow should take a certain amount of pride in the grueling grind of winter, in the flagging spirits of those around them and their own contrasting stubborn appreciation for the beauty of ice crystals and falling snow. I feel like a wiener admitting it but I long for sunshine and warm and green, green, green and I hold no special place in my heart for chunks of ice and falling snow.

It was 62 degrees outside today and I felt positively giddy, the last of the snow seemed like a silly joke and I really feel like I am going to make it. I rolled the windows down as we drove errands, hunted up the first crocus in the woods around the corner and felt like singing a Julie Andrews anthem. I love that we have made it to the other side, warm weather is actually going to start happening now, slowly but surely.

I also ordered a SAD light to mount over our computer keyboard for sunning outselves during the last few cold and dreary days. It is time to be honest. I don't think I am a cold weather person. This year, I told my husband after years of insisting that I could never live in a warm climate, "I think I love green and sunshine more than I love four seasons." We can always visit snow and ice. I can make ice cubes. Those I love will always live in chilly places. I just feel like I need the green and the warmth and the hope of sunshine. Maybe we won't be moving to California tomorrow, (I have a friend who lives in mortal fear of her friends moving away to warmer places.) but I'm open to it. After The Bahamas I decided that I totally could even live in a place that was tropical which seems like a silly admission but took a fair bit of vulnerability and guts.  I was raised to believe that strong, good people love the cold.

The notion of "should" is really powerful. I think I feel a lot of cultural/familial pressure to be attached to cold weather and feel personal pride in my toleration of it. But that's not the same thing as actually loving it. Truthfully, for who I am it seems like a kind of insanity to keep insisting on living in the land of the chilly. I get depressed and dry skinned and weepy, lethargic and drab and filled with ennui and try to hide it under a mask of should-laden Arctic identity connected to a vague notion of strength of character. Having my sister Lucy here has been emboldening. She's gotten so brave about her own love of warm and it took me a while to unravel the fact that I'm cut out of the same cloth. Its scary to admit it out loud but I think I'm a sunshine girl. I like warm. I like grass that never goes grey brown. I like flowers all year. I like water, not dry places. I like being able to open the windows whenever I want to. I like maple syrup but I don't have to actually make it myself. I like snowmen but don't find them essential to life. I can snow shovel if I have to but I'd really rather weed. I am from Michigan but my ancestors are from all kinds of other places and I'm me, not any of them. I love being able to be comfortably outdoors all year round and I love being honest.

The good people are not the cold people and the tough people and the deprived people and the people who live in more traditional ways but the people who live honestly, the people who give their bodies the things they need to be healthy, the people who are willing to try new things and those who live authentically even in the presence of "shoulds" galore.

What climate is really "you?" Where would you live if you had nothing to lose and all your dreams could come true?