Looks like we are finding a sort of inhale-exhale rhythm to our life as unschoolers. Of course, now that I've said that everything will change immediately.
Very early on my path toward where I am now, I read a Waldorf Book that talked a lot about life having a natural rhythm. This had a profound impact on me and I fully embraced that concept. Not to get into it but the author spoke about how before technology the rhythms of our lives were more closely aligned with the earth's. Even the way and time we did laundry, prepared meals etc.
Of course, a domestic goddess I Am Not. (I am in the thick of making peace with that.) So though the idea of an ebb and flow of life sat well with me, and the ideology of our lives being more integrated with nature's clock seemed very logical to me, I found that I tried and failed at creating (read: forcing) the kind of rhythms the author talked about in the book in my own day to day experience.
Once I let it go, however, I was able to see that my life did in fact have it's own predictable patterns, routines, ways of being. Maybe I didn't do laundry every Tuesday and bake pies every Thursday, but I did go to mommy group every Monday, hang out with friends every Friday, and we went to supermarket on Saturdays. Things like that. Then I went back to teaching part time when Ryan was one and it wasn't long before I realized that that was just Not going to work for me to leave my babies in other hands when they were still so young. So they soon came with! And for three years, they came with me to play-group thrice a week. And we had yet another - albeit externally driven - rhythm to our lives.
This September, when we jumped back into this way of life - this one in which we were untethered to the calendar or clock (huzzah!!) - I had a feeling we would find ourselves in our own natural in/out, go/stop, high-energy/low-energy ebb and flow in our hours, days, weeks. Even though we weren't actively looking for it, I knew we'd find it. And find it we did! Eureka!!
Over the last month to six weeks, we have expanded into alternating inhale-, exhale- weeks. That is to say a week full - i mean chockoblock - of activity; putting miles and miles on the car going from one adventure to the other, followed by a week of quiet, mostly in or close-to-home activities. I can't tell yet if I'm driving that or the kids or all three of us. But I do find that most Monday mornings after busy week, busy weekend, we are all three moving slowly and feeling low-key. And that soft, quiet atmosphere kind of eases into the days (and nights) that follow; settling over our bodies and even the furniture like a soft blanket and then - poof! - like magic, the next week we all get charged up and ready to go again. Suddenly the air is crackling, lots of things are calling to us, and we trying to find wiggle room to fit more things in.
Saying these things and re-reading them makes me smile. It fills me with gratitude and joy; knowing this is our life.
And yes, it may change. If it does, it doesn't matter... as long as we are happy. Here are some of the pix from our fun and beautiful sights from today.
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