Personal Favorite for 2009

Here's my favorite post from 2009.

It's a good thing to think about in January when everyone is a bit sluggish after the holidays. Do you have room in your day for some slow time?

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Slow Time

There were things we did that worked so well, we returned to them fall after fall. With the turning of the days and nights, like birds migrating to their winter resting places, we came back to a place we had carved for ourselves in the great effort to learn. One of these things was our reading period.

In the mornings, the boys had a simple breakfast which they prepared of cereal, fruit, breads, and a hot drink. Then they settled down in a comfortable spot and read for at least an hour. I used this time to read my Bible, pray over my life, and organize the day in my head. I did not do any housework. I did not make any phone calls. In fact, we did not answer the phone at all during this time. We did not anxiously attend to school lessons or jobs where we had fallen behind. None of that existed for us during this morning hour. It was a time set apart, a slow time.

Slow time because the sun slowly rose up above the trees. Slow because we didn't have to live fast, at least not for this little while. Slow because it didn't matter, in this space, how efficient we were. We could just be.

The boys read books that they had picked out. Then sometimes, as they grew older, they read books we had picked out together and an occasional book that I assigned. They read real books -- classics -- timeless stories. They watched as Huckleberry Finn floated down the Mississippi. They saw Laura Ingalls dance to Pa's fiddle in the middle of the empty prairie before the people filled it. They sailed with Captain Jack, brave commander, to faraway seas. They watched as All Creatures Great and Small found a place of help in time of need. They discovered the tomb of King Tut in the depths of Egypt with Howard Carter. They went there and back again with Bilbo Baggins. They discovered the terrible truth with Hamlet and watched him find the courage to act. As they read, they learned about life, love, and truth.

We all learned together. We imagined ourselves in the places we had read. We studied the landscape, ate the food, heard the music. We read the great books -- long, and slow.

I confess that I did work to make it happen. When they were very young, I read to them every day. This gave them a warm feeling associated with reading time. It was special, something to anticipate and to relish. We made regular jaunts to the library where they were allowed to check out any books that seemed appropriate for them. I deliberately created sections of the house that were attractive reading nooks, full of books and big stuffed chairs and couches; warm reading lamps and convenient side tables; places where they could pile their books and things and relax. I never, ever scolded them for spilled drinks or messes that happened when they read or piles of books left behind, although I did occasionally try to help us plan for reading areas that would clean up easily and for ways to prevent accidents. I often played classical music very softly while they read, and I sometimes allowed them to have an extra treat during the reading hour.

This became my sons' favorite time of the day. Now, after moving on to adult lives, they still recall it. They tell me that one of the best things homeschooling gave to them was the time to read books. Each of them read 100 books of literary merit, many of them classics, in high school alone. It's a treasure to them now. And to me.

Hard as this is to believe, it's the truth: in spite of all the benefits, I did not properly esteem our reading time. I did not, while we were homeschooling, understand just how important it was. But now, if I could select just one element of the day to put down on a schedule, this would be the one.

Have a reading hour. Keep it fun. Keep it sacred. Keep it slow.

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Copyright August 2009 by Cassandra Frear.

Best of 2009

I've been waiting to re-post this until the right moment.

This is the right moment.

Chrissy's poignant post last week about feeling burned out confirmed my sense that this is it.

Are you feeling burned out? Does it seem as though you can never get on top of it all? Do you feel inadequate? Do you wonder why others seem to be able to do this easily and naturally while you are struggling to get through the week?

You're not alone.

I've felt that way. Often. What I finally realized is that it didn't mean I was inadequate. Homeschooling can make us feel that way because of the high demands and lack of positive feedback and isolation. The feeling of being overwhelmed will occur at low points throughout the year, and it's perfectly normal to experience it.

Maybe you have tried a lot of the things you've read on Apple Pie this month. Maybe none of them have helped. Maybe you just feel flat.

That's right. Flat.

For you, I am sharing the best (and most popular) post from 2009. In your honor. For you I suggest a weekend where you do only things that you enjoy, where you take a complete break from it all. Do things that bring you joy. Not things for school. Not things for the children. Not things that have been bothering you because they aren't done. Just do things that you enjoy doing. Play. Sleep. Treat yourself. Maybe you need more than a weekend. Maybe you even need to get a sitter once a week and just take a break, get out of the house, pamper yourself a bit.

After that, you can get back to solving problems.

It won't fix everything. I know that. But in time, this awful feeling you have will diminish. Just hang in there, and know that every time things don't go as you expected, you can learn a bit more about how you can do better.

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Rest

When my mama sit down, it's like the whole world be resting.

- from a poem by a second grade-student,

quoted in Word Painting by Rebecca McClanahan

It's been a long year. But you have rested a little while, and there are tasks calling. You might, just possibly, gain a bit of leverage by starting to work now, filling your sacks of heavy sand and beginning the line of a wall along the river of next year's demands. The river will rise. We all know it. Not next week, but maybe in a month, certainly in December with the storms of busyness over the holidays, and likely in the spring with all of its expectations.

But now, at this moment, your world is calm. The house rests, because you, Mama, are resting. Didn't you know that? That your family can't really rest, not sink deep into comfort like a downy pillow on a rainy afternoon, unless you are resting, too? Your body at rest, and your mind at rest, and your heart at rest, cast a blessing of rest over your small world. It breathes when you rest, and smiles while it breathes like a child sleeping through a happy dream.

Rest a little longer than you need to. Still that nervous tick which makes you get up to clean the closet, or order the books, or put away shoes left out in the hall. Instead, when you awake each morning this week, notice the dance of green leaves outside your window, the small sounds of your children over breakfast, the rope of muscle cascading down your husband's forearm, the warmth of a chuckle deep in his throat, and the feel of your bare feet on the floor. Savor your first cup like you have all the time of a lifetime. Let the flavor of your fresh fruit charge your senses. Listen to the music around you. Can you feel it? This is the sweetness of home.

Drink in the moment. Your children will never be this age again. One day, they will have forgotten what they were. But you can remember it, and wrap it about you in years to come, if you dare to stop moving and notice it now.

Soon, it will be time to work. Soon, the year will come bustling in with its heavy load of packages for you to open and organize. But no one knocks at your door on this day. The packages have not yet arrived. You do not have to work, not yet.

Most of the advantage you could gain by resting is found here, in the last week or two of summer break, if you know how to use it. The biggest problem you face is not a tired mind or a tired body, but a tired heart. Raising a family is not just a physical battle. Your heart is probably more weary than you know. You may have rested your body, caught up on some sleep, done a few things for family fun, even taken a trip or two. But your heart – how is it? Have you been quiet long enough lately to see what’s there?

What does it show you? What are you longing for? Take some time for it. Nourish the secret places of your soul with stillness, with beauty, with music, with words, with joyful things. Make some personal changes, if you need to. Perhaps you should find a sitter for your children, in order to have some time for yourself.

Often we move out to do more as soon as we begin to feel better. Often, it’s too soon. Rest, instead, just a day -- or a week -- longer. You’ll be glad you did.

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Copyright July 2009 by Cassandra Frear