Full disclosure: I am still (stuck) in transition. It’s been almost five years of homeschooling and now it’s all in past tense. I miss the boys, their pitter patter around the house and the whole bouquet of adventures collectively known as learning at home. Rainy days make it a bit more evident. Maybe it’s the strong smell of wet sagebrush. Or the Saskatoon leaves turning.
Yes, it is fall, and the house is silent. A different reality for me, and a much bigger space that I find myself in. It’s not an empty nest, really, but a half-day empty nest. For the last two years it’s been Sasha and I; and the dog, of course. And lots of music; early morning guitar and afternoon piano.
If light could be song, this morning’s bright appearance was a symphony, loud and overwhelming. The green is exploding everywhere, soft and decidedly stubborn, hijacking the desert’s brownish, dry demeanour for a few weeks from now.
That is the feeling of plenty that awaits on the side of the trail every morning. That the dog jumps in the creek and then runs up the hill with all her might only helps with the fine touches.
Today is the mouse, yesterday her uphill playing took us to a patch of newly blossomed shooting stars. I lingered more over the flowers than I do over the mouse, which is where our interests part ways. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Mouse gone, friend gone home too, we follow the trail towards ours. Above us, the resident hawk flies above a magpie. There’s air tumbles, black and white feathers swooping under the wide-winged brown hunter, then above, stumbling in a desperate attempt to escape. The high-speed pursuit is enveloped in sunshine so bright it hurts my eyes. I’ll never know who prevailed. So it is. There’s as much mystery to life as there is clarity.
‘Mom, should I leave the dandelion patch standing? They are so pretty…’ Yes please, thanks for asking. Half of the yard will be, for now, bumblebee and butterfly playground. I can hear the sun laughing.
I do not need a bird though. The where and how have to be figured out and though thjis qualifies as a homeschooling experience alright, I cannot show up for meetings, on Skype or otherwise, with a bird on my shoulder. I am no pirate, though the shoulder-loving bird thinks otherwise.
My family and I went to Victoria for a few days. It was quite a treat. The breath of early spring was present in purple crocus patches, red tulips and yellow daffodils spread along sidewalks, even a cherry tree shyly showing its tiny pink blossoms much to the delight of passersby in the heart of the harbour.
We need to fail. Not to be failures, but fail at. Dot dot dot. Failing at (fill in the gap) defines the very thing that happens occasionally (yes it does, to everyone, whether we admit it openly or not, or at all), but failing at does not define a person. It should not, unless we let it do that. Sadly, it does sometimes, because some of us learn to define our worthiness through our deeds. Being a parent gives me the freedom to say that parents a behind that one, most of the time anyway.