Intense Lives

Undefinable. Part One.

2010-12-13T03:24:00.000-08:00

The biggest reason that my postings on this blog have slowed down is because, more and more, it is difficult for me to have some central theme to my musings.

'Why' you may ask 'Do you need a central theme? Why don't you just write about what is going on at any point in time?'

And I guess that that is the million dollar question. As I get older - and I had my 47th birthday last week - I observe the behaviour of other mature members of my human tribe. Their lives, their careers, and their blogs, seem to revolve around one, or for the most two, subjects. If X is a designer she writes about design. If Y is a traveler, she writes about travel. If Z is a parent, he writes about parenting. Some of my friends are more multifaceted than others and, in that case, they tend to have separate blogs for each subject. And separate compartments in their lives for their various interests - family life, career and spirituality all have the place and time.

I have NEVER been deeply interested in just one thing - or in simply writing about one thing in this space. During high school I was passionate about a bunch of subjects, activities, sports and people - all at the same time. I believed in the idea of AND. In my high school matriculating exams I took the language path AND the science path AND the math path (sneaked that last one in after hours since the school would not allow such variety). I was an avid and accomplished sportswoman AND an academic teenager AND deeply involved in extra-curricular and leadership activities.

In school days there were awards for excelling at several things, for being a generalist - in my secret teenage thoughts I was aiming to be a 'Renaissance' woman. But it's now 30 years later, the Renaissance is long gone and specialization is king. In addition to which, as I've gotten older, I have found it increasingly difficult to excel at several things at the same time. The tasks are more complex, the goals are set higher. Parenting is not the same as playing hockey. Planting food sustainably is much more difficult than learning to be fluent in French. And so the word 'mediocrity' pays an occasional visit as a concept which I must look at, think about and deal with.

Yet even though I understand that without specialization it is difficult to become an expert in one particular area, at no point do I think - well, you can't keep being involved and interested in such contradictory activities. I LOVE parenting in a deep and involved way and still homeschool my children and I LOVE the world of planting, farming, food production and I LOVE the United States and Trinidad and Tobago and I LOVE, absolutely LOVE being a fulltime traveler and I LOVE architecture and I LOVE participating in unraveling human behaviour and human emotions. I LOVE... I LOVE.... I LOVE.......

A gypsy farmer? Ha Ha. Not possible. A traveling counselor? Laughable. Unable to answer a simple question such as 'Where do you live?'? Get back to earth woman. These are not things that anyone discourages me from doing - most people have given up on that. But I look around and see that life can become rather complex if the balls you are juggling are of different sizes.

But despite the difficulty in mastering a range of life skills I no longer truly consider getting more specialized. Over the years I have, bit by bit, come to realize that this is part of who I am. It's not forced and it's not a pathology - a sign of delayed maturity or something of that sort. In Ayurveda it relates to the high Vata contribution in my makeup. In Human Design it is part of my being a Projector. In Astrology it's just the way that Sagittarians often are. And even though I don't use any of these organizing models as guiding principles, they underline the idea of self-acceptance. The amazingness of human diversity. The joy that can be found in contrast.

I never sat, as a child, and built Legos or played with dolls for hours. I loved daydreaming, reading, looking at the broadness of the universe. I sat day after day in the top branches of the Pommerac tree with a pile of books, pondering the mysteries of life and fantasizing about being involved in so many of the adventures that were on the page, of learning about everything, about being the kind of witch who delved into all kinds of mysteries, not the specialized Superheroine with one particular skill.

I love the entirety of life. And whenever I try to deny that, to create black and white, firm edges and lines, my inspiration dries up. And I find myself seated, disconnected from the larger universe, and living the zombie life.

So bring it on universe! I'm ready and waiting.

Locavores of Trinidad and Tobago Unite!!

2010-11-20T14:18:00.000-08:00

So!! This is really exciting! There is a conversation going on right now about eating locavore in Trinidad and Tobago and so I decided to post one week's worth of menu possibilities here. As some of you know I did an organic, vegan version of this for a few years at my Sun Eaters Cafe in Trinidad but here's one for omnivores.

Breakfast items

Tannia porridge
Omelets with local free range eggs from chickens fed with only local feed
Big big smoothie with frozen bananas, jamun, pineapple, brazil nuts and coconut milk
Fruit salad with local goats' milk yogurt
Scrambled eggs (see above) with local ham (from local pigs)
Sweet potato hash browns with smoked fish (smoked on Karl's branca in Brasso)
Fast Day - as local as you can get. Unsweetened fresh watermelon juices until midday.

Lunch Items

Smoked Chicken piled on grilled yam slices with salad of Katuk leaves and pomerac chow in a lime vinagrette
Callalloo soup with chunks of pumpkin and 4 different ground provisions. Add conch for carnivores
Eddoes souse with shredded chive and chadon bene, grilled eggplant, plantain and pumpkin, pan-fried tilapia
Large arugula/lettuce salad with goats cheese, cherry tomatoes, marinated topi tamboe (guinea arrowroot), sauteed baby leeks, ortanique slices and a light pesto dressing. Side serving of baked redfish.
Yam pie baked with eggs and hill rice milk. Buffalypso steak. Aibeka salad.
Green fig/cucumber salad with lemon juice marinade. Curried vegetables made with local mix of fresh turmeric and other spices. Curried fresh beef. Hill rice.
Fast Day - Cucumber/Morai/Pumpkin/Beet/Carrot/Coconut/Tomato/Patchoi/Chive/Ginger juices or suitable mixes of the above. Fresh herbal teas.

Dinner Items

Loaded pumpkin soup - include ground provisions, mankiller figs, non-endangered crayfish, beef - all cooked and served in separate bowls for optional addition
Sauteed poi in coconut-lemongrass sauce, christophene pie, patchoi salad
Smoked grouper sandwiches on cassava bread. Side cucumber/morai salad.
Pigeon peas soup with side lettuce/tomato salad
Green paw paw/chataigne curry, grated daikon salad, lamb chops
Coconut flesh noodles, stir-fried vegetables (water chestnut, christophene, cabbage and pumpkin) and crispy duck (prepared with local versions of traditional seasonings).
Fast Day - More juices, smoothies, herbal teas.

And we can do ALOT more than this but we have to get farmers on board with carrots, beets and other produce. We have to produce more food in our backyard - especially greens that are not traditionally planted, and we have to start saving and sharing seeds at the end of EVERY rotation of annuals.

I did not include certain seasonal tree crops - breadfruit, mango, avocado - because if we do this in January I don't know how much of these things will be available. Share your ideas and let's do this. Now.

Marathon Sustainability Open House October 2010

2010-09-26T20:38:00.000-07:00

10/4/2010 Hey Folks. Scroll down for an updated version of the weekend schedule. There will probably be some more changes made but not many more. There is no charge for the weekend although donations are welcome and it would be great, but not necessary, if you could let us know when you intend to come and leave. Looking forward to seeing you all.

Schedule

Saturday October 9th.

AM -
8:30 - 10:00 Organic Gardening and Permaculture - Learn the nuts and bolts of planning an organic garden or a sustainable organic farm

10:00 - 12:00 Part 1. Sustainable building. Paper crete workshop and visit to a papercrete structure.

12:00 - 1:30 PM Communal Lunch. Marathon Motel Kitchen.

PM -
1:30 - 4:00 The Human Element of Sustainability - How do human interactions affect our ability to be sustainable? What skills are helpful in dealing with challenges in this area? Come share your experiences in a facilitated discussion at the Made in Marathon Cooperative.

Communal Dinner at the Famous Burro followed by live music

Sunday October 10th

AM -
8:30 - 10:00 Intentional Community, Organic Gardening and Alternative Building - Visit La Loma del Chivo. See how they are planting and building.
10:00 - 11:30 Part 2. Sustainable building. Adobe Construction. Talk with experienced adobe builders on the pros and cons of adobe construction. Check out an adobe building up close.

Option 1
Communal lunch then visit to Sally Roberts' farm where heirloom chickens, goats, cows and horses are kept. Sally will chat with you about her goat cheese and processing business.
Option 2
Road trip to Marfa to set up table on Gardening as Installation Art in the Marfa Book Company. Staggered visits to Chinati Open House. Meet with one of the founders of Marfa Farm Stand - a type of farmers' market - and discuss its evolution.

Late PM - Return to Marathon.
8:00 PM Communal Dinner at Marathon Motel

Monday October 11th

AM -
9:00 - 10:30 Session at Alan Haley's farmette.
10:30 - 12:00 Adobe, Papercrete and Strawbale. Which one is better? Visit Eve's Garden - a bed and breakfast in a papercrete building which incorporates an organic cut flower garden. Visit a strawbale building.

Communal Lunch

PM -
1:30 - 3:00 Gardening, Farming and Economics - How much does it cost to develop an organic farm? Can you support yourself financially from your garden? What's does a vertically oriented sustainable garden or farm look like?
3:00 - 4:30 Dream time. What do you dream about regarding sustainability? What gets in the way of taking action to fulfill your dream? What skills do you need? And how can you participate in community in order to get your dreams realized and help others to do the same?

4:30 - 5:00 Closure and goodbyes.

New England Update

2010-07-13T12:46:00.000-07:00

Those damn photos are once again keeping me back from blogging! I see things and think thoughts that I want to share but getting my hands on my computer when a certain 5 year old girl has decided that the machine is hers and hers alone is easier said than done. My photos are slow and stressful to download and so, for now, you will be getting the words without my visual references.

I'm in Portland, Maine. And, as usual, the journey is not about hauling myself and the children to museums, buying souvenirs and roaming the city with a fine-toothed comb in order to get a clear sense of things that are deemed 'important' enough to be mentioned in guide books and on street signs. For us, particularly for me since the children continue to spend long hours online, it is about hanging out with friends, finding the activities and things that we love no matter where we are, and just being. I get as much pleasure standing in line at the regional supermarket chain and hearing a thick Maine accent as I would potentially get viewing the best of the art that the town can offer. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VE2f-dg7qI - for your chance to hear the regional speech. Reminds me of some West Indian accents)

Yesterday we went to the Maine Mall to finally buy a television for the RV and Kwamena's gaming system. And we got to see what the 'average' Portland person looks and sounds like - dark haired, pale and creamy skinned. Yet we also saw more Sudanese than we've ever seen in the US. Efua fits right in here. We were lucky enough to have taken a secondary highway from New Hampshire into Maine when we arrived here a few days ago. Along the route there were little towns with names like Cornish and Standish. Without stretching my imagination too much I could have pretended that I was in the UK without having to buy a plane ticket - but then again I would have crashed the RV into a car driving on the wrong side of the road.

Our sightseeing includes trips to the bank, filling up gas at the gas stations, paying the fare at the tollboth and - a New England tradition for me - speaking to at least one local mechanic. With the stupid little persistent problem I'm having with my engine I seem to find myself visiting a garage in every town. 'New England Mechanics - a guide to engine repair in the Northeast' will be an easy book for me to write.

The inland towns on my way to Portland were lovely and definitely more urban than the rural Vermont that I'd left. Main streets were lined with older buildings, people were sitting in porches and wandering down the road and in the midst of the mix I glimpsed several Goths - or was it Emos? - trapising around in their all-black garb.

With us having spent time in East Norwalk in Connecticut, Boston in Massachusetts, Salisbury Beach, Waterville in rural Vermont, White Lake State Park in New Hampsire, South Portland in Maine and Watch Hill in Rhode Island, I think that we've seen a major cross section of New England. We've shared waves with the heavy makeup skimpy swimsuit teenage crowd in middle Massachussets and the pinochle-playing, chino-wearing Rhode Island summer families. We chilled last night in a tango club on Congress Street in Portland (can't wait to participate in the only global competition that gyrating over-sexed Trinis seem to have) and ate ice-cream on the gorgeous, sedate waterfront in Burlington. Our gullets have been treated with raw Blue-Point oysters fresh from the Connecticut sea, maple flavored creamees in Vermont, Greek pizza in Jamaica Plains, and will soon be dipping into Maine lobster dripping with steaming butter. The children drew the line at eating snails in black bean sauce in a restaurant in NY's Chinatown but I have a feeling Efua will return to the Maine Mall to buy those sauteed and seasoned larvae that she couldn't put down yesterday.

I want to make this area one of our several homes - this brings it to four. It would be just right to spend three or four months here a year. All of us gardening from farm to farm and backyard to backyard, the children playing video games with revolving partners and me stepping/pausing/stepping/stepping/pausing to tango music in cozy Maine clubs.

Long live the life of a gypsy!

I want AND not OR - saying goodbye to Washington DC

2010-06-21T00:51:00.000-07:00

We're finally heading north. We got to the Washington DC area more than 2 weeks ago with a tentative plan to stay for one week. But after the first teething pains - and they were pretty uncomfortable - we started to have fun.

During the past ten months we haven't been typical tourists more than a couple of times. We tend to visit places where the sights are unstructured and instead of museums we usually frequent people-meeting locations - playgrounds, coffee shops, libraries, bike stores. But it was different here. The Smithsonian got tired of us because we went there so often. We visited both wings of the National Gallery, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of the American Indian and the Museum of American History. We also hung out at the National Zoo, the College Park Aviation Museum, rented paddle boats in the Tidal Basin, and strolled slowly - in intense DC style humidity - around the White House and the Washington Monument. We parked the RV in the 'primitive' campground at Greenbelt Park, at a friend's house in NE Washington near Rhode Island Ave, and at the parents of another friend close to downtown Silver Spring. We took the Metrorail system, buses, rode our bikes and drove in cars. We went to several parties, many playgrounds and walked or cycled on Sligo Creek trails over and over again. In other words, we ate buffet style and a la carte.

When we first got here my niece, my sister and my parents - who visited from Tobago - were busy with my niece's high school graduation. And we were really feeling like the country mouse who came to town. I repeatedly kept hearing that old tale running in my head. But within 10 days I had already shifted gears. You townspeople certainly know how you keep yourself groomed! So off I went to have my eyebrows shaped and my rough old gardener's feet pedicured for the first time in probably 5 years. They now look like they belong on another body but have accepted that this one will have to do. We were behaving so thoroughly like 'country bumpkin come to town' that when we went to one friend's house we pelted across the driveway, hearts pounding, to escape what sounded like gunshots only to find out that they were just fireworks, a nightly norm during the DC summer.

After many months spent in quiet rural areas the rhythm of the city definitely requires an adjustment. People are so so busy. In New Mexico and rural Texas most of the people we met didn't have cellphones. And the ones that did rarely carried them. But, as many of you know, in places like DC and Miami we could hardly find anyone without a bent head, texting and answering frequent calls. Children have activities back to back so most of my parent friends spend countless hours on the road having to drop and pick up many times in a day. In rural US the parents I hung out with often would have no end point to our interaction except perhaps an early bedtime.

I bring no judgement to these comments. I simply notice that these is a lot of contrast to the experiences that are possible when living with more, or less, population density. Do I have a preference? For sure. I want a life when all things are possible but where little is deemed necessary. I would love to have the magnificent marble columns that you find in the National Gallery available for a visual feast when I want. AND I would also like to be able to wander in such places uncombed, barefooted and with a skip to my step. I want the choice of organic produce that I find in the city. AND I want to be able to have leisurely conversations with my friends while we crunch on the produce at some point in the day. I want a lovely public transit system. AND I want roads that are unaccustomed to motorized vehicles. I want the things that I like about country life AND I want the things that I like about city life.

Unrealistic, you may say. Go for it girl, some of you think. And I say yes to both. As the channeled spirit Abraham says, if you stick with reality then you are rooted like a tree to the spot where you stand and the life you currently live with all its good and all its bad. Personally, I enjoy being the roots, the trunk, the leaves, the flowers and the seed. Give me an AND existence any day.

See you in New York.

Why this place? Why these people?

2010-05-09T16:05:00.000-07:00

There are many people in the world who spend their entire lives in the same place. They are born amongst others with whom they have much in common and they build their community in stability.

And then there are the nomads....

Those of us who, from birth, always hear a call from afar. Some of us are unable to do much more than read books from other lands or watch films from other shores. And then there are some of us who, no matter what the cost, pull up the anchor (or cut the chain) and set sail with no known destination in mind.

You may have guessed by now that I am one of the latter. When I look back on my life I can see that I spent much of my time learning about other lands. I read voraciously, even hiding in closets so that I could devour my books in peace. I would climb a large tree in my backyard, a pommerac tree for those who are familiar, settle myself into a space between two branches, and sit for hours submerging myself in the lives of others. Forgetting food. Forgetting friends. Forgetting boys, even in puberty.

Did it help that I was born into a family that had flight privileges? Of course. From very early on I was on a plane. Visiting New York, Washington, Miami, Toronto. And as soon as I could manage it, by my late teens, I was on my own to Paris, London, Berlin, Venice. When I look back on it I am so so grateful to my parents for trusting me to get on a flight alone at 18 and make my way to Paris. With full suitcases dragging my Trinidad fashions to train stations in London, airports in Rome, bus stops in Sussex. A bit unbelievable in retrospect to think of a Trinidadian teenager figuring all of this out and having adventure after adventure.

So I guess that when I review my past it is not so strange that I have found myself in one of the most uninhabited parts of the United States with little more than the Milky Way and yucca plants to keep me company. The children and I ride our bikes everywhere in this little town. And sometimes, when we are sitting on the benches on Main Street, visitors passing through will ask in amazement - And what brought you here? And I can make up a story but the truth is that I don't really know.

What made me see an entry in a blog and decide that this was going to be one of my new homes? And what made me come back again and again even after having left? And how come, in this town of about 500 people, we have more connected friends than we do in the whole of crowded South Florida? And went to a wedding yesterday where we knew lots of the people there?

In the nomadic life there are always places that ring true. The favored oasis at which you bring your camel back to graze every few months. For some nomads it's the 'woman in every port' phenomenon. Form a romantic interest, keep the embers glowing, and come back to stoke the fire every once in a while. But for me I think the key is to find places where the priority is not status and appearance. Those places can be fun but, for me, a short visit, is all that I want. I like places, like Marathon, where everyone wore what they wanted to the wedding. There were people dressed to the hilt and others who wore the same clothes that they wear every day - maybe their shirt was ironed for a change. I like people, like the eccentrics who are scattered through this area, for whom pleasure is owning your own time.

My community is best developed where others are so distinctive, so one of a kind, that race, class and gender become almost insignificant in the face of overwhelming individuality. And so far, I have best found these places in the US Southwest desert.

But despite the comfort of community I am sure that one day soon other shores will call. I will unhook the water line, unplug the electricity, start the engine, and go looking for another oasis where the children and I can hang our hats. Where we can find instant family. Where we are so at home that the second time we pull into town we are treated like long-time residents who were sorely missed.

And such is the life of a nomad.

But at least, when things become uncertain, there's always the Murphy St. Raspa Company in neighbouring Alpine where we can go get snow cones. Did I forget to say that life is good! Yes it is.

Things I didn't take pictures of

2010-04-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

First of all I want to thank you. For reading my blog even when there are not a lot of pictures. For bearing with me while I submerge myself in beautiful scenery and gorgeous experiences and have the selfishness to not even take out my camera although I know many of you are dying to see the world in which I travel. For allowing me to be in my life without having to take pictures of it.

And so, as part of my thank you present, I want to still find a way to share my emotions and my mental memories with you, my friends. And so these are some of the things which never made their way into photos.

The dried out carcass of a dead deer at the side of a desert highway. In a flash I imagined the vultures and other scavengers picking out the insides and not even bothering to eat the skin.
The Texas wildflowers. More and more and more of them, all colors, all shapes, all sizes until I reached the mountains that would bring me to Marathon and they only occasionally showed their solitary heads to at least give us a little tease.
The river walk in San Antonio. The shade of the many many large trees lining the paved riverside pathways and growing very very strong and tall into the sky despite the hundreds of chattering tourists.
The completely still black and red snake in the marshes of central Texas.
The mulberries on the big mulberry tree and swashed underfoot which we all kept eating, and eating, and eating till our mouths were stained with juice.
The indescribable feeling of expansion as I crested a hill and saw the expansive plateau ahead of the high Texas desert.

These moments are not retrievable. They are here for a flash and then gone forever. Thank you so much for sharing in my journey - even when I don't take out my camera.

Your friend,
Gillian

Natural Learning - Loving It

2010-03-19T17:41:00.000-07:00

It's difficult to put a label on things to do with parenting. There are so many decisions to be made every day, so many things to be taken care of that once you put a label on your lifestyle you can usually find some area in which you don't conform to the label. Natural learning, sometimes known as unschooling, is a lot like that. It's hard to find two unschoolers who do things the same way. But in general the philosophy encompasses certain ideas:
Children do not need to be given motivation to learn. The drive to learn, in an undamaged child, comes as naturally as the drive to breathe or the drive to eat. In the most unstimulating of circumstances most children will find a way to engage with the situation and use it to play (a powerful form of learning) or to manipulate the situation in some way. However they don't usually want to learn things that are irrelevant to their lives and interests or that are not built on something that they already understand.

Parents (and/or other involved adults) are responsible for responding to a child's desire to learn specific skills or to focus on specific interests. For example, Efua is very into fashion. As a result it has been important for me to find ways to support her interest. I have bought fashion designing dolls' kits, purchased a second-hand sewing machine for her to use with my help, given her free reign of online fashion games and supported her interest in watching television shows with fashion themes.

When the children decided they wanted to earn some income through modeling/advertising work I helped to organize their comps (the pictures above were taken by my friend in Miami Beach Amada - a model and fashion photographer www.amadaegan.com), organized for agents, got them where they needed to go to audition and to work. I kept their exposure fun and productive and tried to keep my mouth shut with any criticism based on my own likes and dislikes.

Basic skills, such as reading/writing/mathematics/map reading/etc. are best learned as supportive mechanisms for a child pursuing a broader interest. In other words these skills are a means to an end unless a child shows personal interest in any of these topics. Kwamena has learned lots of mathematics skills through playing video games - percentages, velocity, multiplication, ratios and more. In addition, through these games, he has developed a through grasp of map reading, a fairly good understanding of western history, some familiarity with strategy, team building and breaking skills. I have noticed that because he has learned new information in practical situations (if you call reading maps to direct a tauren - a bull like creature that walks on two legs - through an imaginary land a practical situation), applying these skills to real life situations is very easy for him. When we began our cross-country odyssey last year it was not difficult for Kwamena to read complex Rand McNally maps even though he had never used these kind of detailed highway maps before.

The challenging part about natural learning is that because it is not compartmentalized and therefore children are often learning multiple skills at once, it may take them a while before they can demonstrate their mastery of any one of these skills. I equate it to bringing up a child with two or three languages at once. Usually what happens is that the child takes a little longer to talk. But once they start talking they are functioning at a level of mastery with each language that is mind-blowing.

I look at Efua sometimes. She is very competent on the computer and is learning how to type, read, spell and navigate her way through lots of information at the same time. Leave her alone and she is goggling Naruto, Barbie, Bratz, Beyonce and lots more words that have relevance to her. But quiz her about the spelling of these words and she seems incapable of knowing where the letters are on the keyboard. I don't quiz her, usually it's other relatives who don't have the pleasure of watching how her learning is unfolding day after day, minute after minute and who question her progress. I don't need to quiz her because I get a very close look at the development of her intellect, her analytical skills, her negotiation power and her understanding of the subtleties of life. And while she learns these things she is simultaneously deciding which tools best serve her.

Natural Learning cannot be confined to what we traditionally define as education. My children are watching me all the time. And their understanding of logic is not only coming from games, books, and movies, but it is also coming from the behaviour of others around them - especially me. If I do something that does not make sense I am subjected to a level of questioning that would make a trial lawyer proud. My children are not fooled by an adult attempt to bend the rules when it is convenient for the adult. Even if they say nothing about it, they do not indulge exceptions or have any belief that moral lessons are restricted to fictional characters in books. The live humans around them are their biggest source for 'compare and contrast', one of their favorite games.

Add the tight quarters of an RV and all of us are having lessons in human interaction that are priceless. If I feel grumpy I don't get to go to another room and close the door, or go into the bathtub and sit for an hour with candles and music. I have to deal with the feelings, take responsibility for them and either make a choice to react (which I do sometimes and apologize profusely afterwards) or to handle my feelings, sit with them and watch them dissipate. When the children are having a disagreement there is nowhere to escape. They have to very rapidly access skills that keep the situation under control. What I think we are all learning is how to grapple with emotions, how to share our activities and yet respect the boundaries that the other person puts up. I am so impressed by how well these two small-sized people take the massive feelings that they sometimes experience and find ways to stay in charge.

Within the environment of what is sometimes known as Radical Unschooling, there is a lot of choice given to children around what they eat. This was one of the hardest areas for me to relinquish tight control. How could a formerly raw-foodist, organic-shop-owning, vegetarian for most of my lifetime woman allow her children to eat food with coloring? But I also knew that when I went from a restricted diet to a 'whatever you want to eat' college lifestyle that I gained lots of weight and struggled for years to find the internal discipline to eat in a way that was relevant for my bodily needs. I have relaxed and I try to have lots of different types of foods around. And the children are learning. And they are very thin. And they almost never get sick. And they don't overeat. Last year our Halloween Candy lasted for almost 3 months. One time I remember Efua going to the supermarket with me and choosing out all kinds of different foods - different textures, different tastes, different colors, etc. She came home and proceeded to eat for about 2 hours - small amounts of varying foods one after the other. Not a lot of anything but a little bit of everything. Isn't that learning? And isn't that learning about the kind of stuff that plagues us the most in life after we have forgotten the quadratic equations (which I loved and which I will support them to learn when they are eager to do so) and the conjugation of verbs (they both have perfect grammar without ever having had a formalized class on the topic and Kwamena can point out any error that others make). Isn't it our weight, our health, our relationships, our ability to make authentic choices that challenge us the most?

I am confident that my children will learn amazing practical skills. I am not worried about their future reading ability, their understanding of the world of numbers or their handwriting skills. Their ability to live competently in the world will inevitably include those things but has already gone way beyond. Their Japanese has improved a lot from watching anime movies and singing their theme songs, their understanding of geography goes without saying, their manipulation of unfamiliar technology leaves me speechless. The lessons that are sometimes more subtle to pull out are the ones about authenticity, honesty, respect for oneself, and the ability to follow one's passion. I consider myself superbly blessed to be able to be by their side while they learn these lessons and figure out how to make them apply to their lives.

There is a lot more to be said. But, as usual, I have had a long and stimulating day with my children and many others and am ready to sit, just sit, and contemplate in silence for a moment. So glad to have you along on the journey.

Thank You

2010-03-01T18:41:00.000-08:00

There are always so many things to be grateful for. And noticing these amazing things can really help us to shift into our 'now.' Here are some of mine in this now.

1) I am thrilled to have access to my friend's beautiful villa in a Florida coastal town. This weekend the children and I reveled in the quiet, the expansive space, the gorgeous surroundings, and the ability to focus with few distractions.
2) Hooking up with my lovely Hotep-friend Wendell from Trinidad. Of all the people with whom to cross paths I must say that he is one of the most positive and uplifting. And to think he is also hanging out in South Florida these days.
3) Getting to savour the children's company. Just bringing consciousness to this way of being by posting about it the other day has definitely worked. Gazing at them, kissing them whenever I can, gently guiding them through worldly activities and being so lucky to hang out with them most of the day, most days.
4) Expansion, expansion, expansion. I am growing so fast these days. Not on the outside - actually doing the opposite since I've been juicing and detoxing at a rate. But mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The discomfort is sometimes intense - not as intense as giving birth but definitely not always something that feels like a walk in the park. Still. I would not trade growth for anything.
And finally
5) Music. Sometimes I don't listen to anything for months. But right now it's Miten, Joni Mitchell, Snatam Kaur and Charlotte Church. What nourishment!

Savouring

2010-02-24T23:34:00.000-08:00

It's such a beautiful thing to get to really really enjoy our children's company. One at a time or all together. Because we travel a lot and in our travels see loads of different households, and because I have been hanging out with families for decades, long before I began having children myself, I know that it's all too common for most parents to only have those moments when our children are asleep.

Many of us are familiar with that lingering moment, when the child's eyes are closed in deep sleep, of experiencing love flooding our bodies. But few of us get the chance while our children are awake to have the same thing happen. We are often so busy just trying to get basic needs met that lingering is the furthest thing away from our priorities.

Imagine starting our to do list with that every day.
Number One. Linger at least once every couple of hours.

It's not as though we don't have the time. Those long, drawn out moments take minutes. Or even seconds. But for most of us it's not something with which we had much experience in our own childhoods. How many times did you have an adult just sit with you and gaze with wonder at your face while you were awake?

So try it out. Start a new habit. See what's blocking progress. For me part of the issue seems to be that I almost always have both children in the same physical space with me and it seems to be much more natural for it to happen if I have undivided time with one of them alone. Granted, it's not impossible with two. Just feels a little harder.

I'm going to keep this in my consciousness a bit more. And I'll report on progress. Meanwhile, it's the middle of the night and they both are sleeping. Let me go and do what parents deserve and adore my life companions a bit.

Good Night

Instead of cussing I'm appreciating

2010-02-24T03:17:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling to use all kinds of obscenities. Wachovia, my main bank, is triggering a lot of 3 year old tantrum-like behaviour with some of the 'sneaky' things they are doing to push me into overdraft. So instead of calling their service line and lashing out at a powerless and unsuspecting human hologram, I think that a better use of my time is to make a little appreciation list.

I am really grateful for so many things right now. But top on my list is:
The existence of beaches. And South Beach in particular. I am loving the soft sand. The sound of the waves at 6 AM. The seagulls circling around and around in the morning and eating the Portuguese Man o War jellyfish. The sunrise. The coolness of the water. I LOVE the beach.

I also am loving:
Seeing Kwamena unravelling all the pressure to present a false face to the adult world and instead becoming more authentic every day.
My lovely yahoo groups.
The internet.
The internet.
Apple/Carrot Juice
An empty stomach.
Financially independent friends who provide some really important inspiration.
The friendly woman at the birth certificate office.
Efua's specificity and persistence.
All the options of places for us to sleep/stay
My lovely RV
Snatam Kaur
Going to sleep when I'm collapsing with tiredness
Lightly steamed broccoli with butter
Forgiveness
Percy Jackson books
Writing
Touching base with Wendell, a friend from Trinidad
Daydreaming of hanging out in Brasso Seco with Kelly and Carl
Tying up loose ends

What do you appreciate right now?

Shifting to Presence

2010-02-01T04:29:00.000-08:00

All of us have disconnected moments. So it's probably helpful get aware of what takes you away, and brings you back to being present. I have noticed that, for me, living in a little space can sometime shoot me quickly out of clarity. I feel that this is a gift. In such contracted surroundings, with so few possessions it has become clearer what brings joy, what doesn't and what needs to be worked on.

I love to connect with the natural world. To watch birds dive and tumble. To listen to the waves break. And best of all, to feel the elements - wind, sun, rain, anything - touch my cheek.

Last week I had the thrill of going to John MacArthur State Park in West Palm Beach. I adore that park. And the visit did not disappoint. Still the same estuary teeming with animal life. Still the sand dunes covered in healthy vegetation. And still the wild wind and water with no development on the long beach. No matter where my head is when I arrive in such a place, within minutes I am transported.

The last time we were there the beach was really really cold. And the children were not feeling to hang out with each other. But within minutes we were standing on the edge of sand 'cliffs' making them collapse, wrestling in the sand and just having a lovely time. All topped off by a fun breakfast made in the parking lot on our return to the RV.

I have also been getting into the habit of taking long long walks on Miami Beach whenever we stay here. I leave from the RV in the dark morning and just am in bliss walking in the sand, paddling in the waves, sitting with the birds.

Unfortunately my camera is doing a dance on me so I'll have to post the pictures later. But maybe you can just close your eyes for a minute and imagine the two beaches. The wild undulating sand of the State Park beach with animal foot prints, portuguese man-o-war tangled in the seaweed on the beach, sharks and stingrays hanging out in the reef just off shore, and tons of cormorants, hawks and Pelicans circling the beach and the estuary. Or you can picture South Beach with its recently raked sand, clear still aqua water, gently breaking waves on the shallow waterfront, and the lights of cruiseships parked on the horizon. The contrast is large but the beauty crosses over.

I am so blessed.

Parallel Realities

2010-01-25T05:41:00.002-08:00

Abundance has been pouring my way lately. In the midst of the 'disconnect' that I have been describing in my blog there has also been a resounding hurrah in the direction of love and generosity.

I know some incredible Trini woman here in South Florida. And while I have been wallowing - that's the truth I think - in my 'one of these things is not like the others' perception, these women have created the bridge that can carry me to the zone of connection.

I do think that there are several versions available of reality. And I believe that they all exist at the same time. And I think that you can, in an instant, jump from one of these to the other. So one moment your experience can be one of hardship, scarcity, brutality. And the next instant you may get the chance to leap to a state of abundance and love. Contrast is always available to human beings.

My recent bridges between these parallel realities have come, almost exclusively, in the form of my women friends, mainly Trini but with a few other nationalities thrown in for good measure. I have been given the chance to experience community through my relatively new friends, almost all of whom I met in the past few years. They have shared their lives and their families with me and I on the other hand have also shared my perspective and my experience. I have visited their dwellings and they have visited mine. And we have all been able to truly revel in the unusual lives that we have created. Perhaps these are the people with whom I will move forward, with intention, to create communal spaces.

It can get scary as an adult to let your life flow into the life of another adult. Children don't have this kind of fear. They do it all the time. They share food, ideas, computers, game systems, dolls, spaces. They sleep over at each other's homes as much as they possibly can. They lean on each other while they play. They pledge to be BFF - Best Friends Forever. And so it is obviously our children from whom we have to take guidance. The reality in which they exist - where only the most important things are exclusive belongings to be shared carefully and where all else is fair game, where they don't need to know your name to play with you, where they share love so generously - is waiting for all of us. I'm definitely going to see what it is like to follow them. And maybe we can all do this together.

Your fluency in English is of no significance when in France

2010-01-24T16:26:00.000-08:00

I am a slow learner. Not for the academic stuff - I was given a well-greased accelerator in that area. But I am a slow learner when it comes to the lessons that civilization throws our way. Many things that are so obvious to everyone else have had to be drilled into my brain with the high power button pushed.

Don't get confused, I'm not criticizing myself. I am what I am - and most of the time I love the list of ingredients. But I definitely take my cool time to figure some concepts out.

The latest understanding that I have reached is this: When you are in France it doesn't matter how good your English is. It doesn't matter if you never make spelling errors - in English. It doesn't matter if you have all the English Grammar rules down pat. It doesn't matter if you speak English in a melodic and poetic fashion. What matters, when in France, is the quality of your French.

This seems obvious, doesn't it? But somehow I haven't understood this during the past 40 years and I haven't translated this concept into other areas of my life. For example, these days I am a full time RVer in the midst of homeowners. A traveler in the midst of stationary people. An unschooler in the midst of focused learners. And so lots and lots of the things that I am interested in, or competent at. or focused on are unimportant to the people around me. My challenges and my strengths have little in common with the other inhabitants in the communities in which I have lately found myself.

I'm not complaining - does it sound like I am? I am simply observing the fact that many people that I have recently met are not interested in hearing about life choices that they do not share. And I never noticed it before. I'm marveling at the fact that I never ever realized:

1) that most people only like to speak in the language in which they are competent and

2) they only like to listen to you speak in a language that they can understand.

Is it strange that I LOVE to listen to languages that I haven't learned? The full truth is that I have always loved to learn languages but I have also always been drawn to listening to languages that I don't understand. I'm pulled to read information about lifestyles that are different from mine. I want to hear what teenagers find interesting and what elderly people are doing these days. I want to understand the culture of 'men'. I like to look at 'foreign' films about unfamiliar lands and unfamiliar people. I adore looking at homes that I've never visited, reading about strange concepts, smelling new smells. So it came as a bit of a surprise to me this month when I didn't get the same reaction from others. Everyone doesn't like to be exposed to people who live in different ways. And sometimes they dislike it so much that they respond to these differences very very strongly. (Check out the movie Happy Go Lucky to see a really skilled film about the ultimate optimist. The film brings out really strong reactions in people).

I sound naive and dense don't I? I don't think that I'm dense but I will definitely claim naive. I am one of the most gullible people that I've ever met. If you tell me something I usually believe exactly what I told you. Thank goodness I'm not the president of a large country. I would definitely engage in the following conversation.

HOSTILE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRY - We no longer mean you any harm. Those nuclear warheads pointing in your directions don't work. We just didn't have the labor to get rid of them after the last war.

ME, THE PRESIDENT - (Laughing Heartily) Are you serious? I'm so glad to hear that. I guess that I can dismantle our army now. (I sigh a sigh of relief). And actually if you need help to get rid of them please feel comfortable to ask for assistance since we'll have all the ex-army officers with time on their hands.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I believe in good intentions. I can find a good intention in the most brutal of acts. If someone has a positive expression on their face I usually believe that all is well and go home feeling happy. My 10 year old son often tells me that maybe they were only pretending to be positive. But do you think I can grasp that as a possibility? I am ALWAYS shocked when I hear that someone had something negative to say about me behind my back. No matter how many times it has happened I have always been, and dare say always will be, taken aback.

I'm not saying these things to make myself seem 'saintlike' or anything such. I have no judgement of people who are skeptical about others and don't think it's better or worse to be pollyanna like. I just don't understand or relate to it. And that's why I often make sure that I'm around other optimists. You understand now why I can't hang out with chronic liars? And why long term relationships might never work for me? Do you know what it is like to believe everything that your partner tells you even if all evidence is to the contrary? And despite being repeatedly burned with this blanket kind of belief since my early teens I continued to believe every word that spewed out of my boyfriends' mouths. Pretty exciting way to live!

So I am pretty proud of myself today. I finally realized that in France it doesn't matter how good your English is. And that if you want people to admire your English, you should get your butt to an anglophone country.

South Florida - Stationary Travel

2010-01-17T05:34:00.000-08:00

This is bizarre. I resisted coming back to South Florida, a place where I lived a relatively non-mobile lifestyle over several years. Yes it is true that I was not here all of the time - I spent many months in the Caribbean and Europe even though I maintained a home here - but I lived in a building made of bricks and mortar, an average lifestyle. So to be back here while still carrying our home with us is weird. No one I know here lives anything like I do.

The RV parks - even the state and county ones - are pricier than the ritzy ones in the rest of the US south. Gas is really expensive here - I'm paying about 30 cents a gallon more than I usually do. The roads often have tolls, unannounced detours, and flying objects - my sister and I used to have a hobby trying to identify the most bizarre thing we saw flying by on the road. It's not easy to find free internet. The highways are full, and full of some of the most obnoxious drivers that I have seen in all of my international driving. It's bad enough that they always speed up when you are trying to change lanes, but to have people blocking a vehicle like an RV puts all of us in a danger that they probably can't imagine. So certain basic things now become issues that I have to pull to the front of my consciousness and therefore leave less space for the extraordinary.

Yet at the same time I feel that it is important that I am here. I am being forced to examine normalcy in a way that I didn't have to for the last few months. My commitment to magnificence definitely gets challenged when the landscape is covered with miles and miles of indistinguishable suburban housing. And when the sounds of the natural world are drowned out by the roar of freeway traffic it puts me in a place where I have to dig deep to connect to the wildlife that the signs, posted everywhere you turn, admonish you not to feed or entice. Do they mean the squirrels? Or the raccoons digging in the garbage? Sorry ma'am ranger, I didn't intend to give the little animals my organic blue corn chips but I forgot to guard them while they were on the picnic bench. Would they do the 'immediate arrest' that they threaten on the same signs? And would the squirrel and the blue jay laugh raucously and sign the report on the line left for these civilized 'wildlife?'

Sounds like I hate the place huh? But I don't. I'm just deeply challenged by living in the midst of people who are under pressure to conform. And I don't always enjoy the feeling of 'one of these things is not like the others' that rings through my head on a regular basis. I miss the scruffy clothing and grooming habits of desert people. The starting-from-scratch-every-day life that characterized many of the people that I was meeting. I find myself trying to find movies filmed in the South West and about renegades. I forget to listen to the dialogue in these films and instead am glued to the empty landscape in the background soaking in the scrub covered hillsides and the dusty highways.

Is this how the desert tortoise feels in the pet store? I just realized recently that that BS about how the turtle walks with its home is unadulterated BS. I have my home with me but my home is not just my little RV. When you live in such a small space - about 200 sq ft for the three of us - my home includes the river in the distance, the rabbit holes that I see while washing dishes, the amazing sunset behind the yuccas and the sound of the hawk overhead. Home is the open welcome of the natural world without fences, gated communities and hostile faces. I can't wait to go west again.

More Movies - And some winners this time

2009-12-18T06:58:00.000-08:00

Away We Go
It's such a delight when, without any previous knowledge you find something on the Blockbuster shelves that makes you just want to find your way into the screen. I LOVED this one. Saw it twice in two days. I'm sorry that it's not a tv series so that I can 'hang out' with these characters over and over again. So natural. So hilarious. I want more.
American Violet
Another winner. Natural. Good story. Strong central character. No, I don't want to hang out in this scenario but an uplifting, inspiring story.
Tell No One
I'm a sucker for crime/mystery films and books. Especially well-crafted ones. I didn't realize this one was French until I started watching it and I usually adore french detective shows. Not only was the plot development in Tell No One engaging but God this film made me want to go to France even though it hasn't been such a fun place for me on my last few visits. When the main character said - Putain! - at one point I could just see so many of my french connections as they spit out that cuss word. And the soundtrack is delicious.
Can't wait to:
See more yummy movies and
Go to Paris

Consuming Creativity

2009-12-16T19:32:00.000-08:00

I'm on a movie marathon again. Except that this time instead of a short 20 plus mile run this is a cross country trek. I've been looking at tons of DVD's, going to the cinema, and renting stuff from iTunes.

Some of them.

World's Greatest Dad with Robin Williams - I was looking for something to make me laugh till I peed. No such luck. Bleak. Cynical. And as they say - Dark. Where the comedy was in this I am yet to discover.

Twilight. Both of them. The children and I watched the first one so many times that we would have noticed if they rearranged one of the trees in the pine forest. We went to see the second one at a movie theatre in Alpine, Texas. Can you believe there are still places in the US where the tix are $4? The second movie - New Moon - was only acceptable because of the teenage girls in the audience whistling and screaming anytime the teenage stars took off their shirts - the boy teenage stars that is.

Julie and Julia. Well, I guess that this critic has to whisper that she found the movie interesting to the eye but just not that engaging. I feel asleep on my first two attempts to watch it.

The Road. Incredible that a movie about the end of everything could be so profound, lovely and not at all depressing. Maybe after having seen so many hobos and hobo gangs in US cities during the last few months the whole premise isn't that unbelievable. The acting was amazing.

The full Avatar series. Not a movie but one of my favorite tv shows. We had never seen the 1st season so only now getting to it. Love it.

And lots more.

And I even read a few books including:

Running with Scissors. Nothing to say about that one. You have to read it yourself.

Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult. Enjoyable but too hard to put down when you have lots of things to do. Annoying to feel that something has that kind of power over you. Don't authors know that I am a busy woman.

Trinidad Noir. Still reading and having fun with this one. I love short stories AND I love mysteries, crime books and suspense. And I can put down the book and get to my important chores.

Rand-McNally Atlas. I now know this one by heart. Even the minor roads. Don't believe me? Give me a pop quiz.

Marathon, Texas

2009-11-28T02:24:00.000-08:00

In a small town like this, with so few commercial distractions, it is much simpler to get through certain thoughts, to hang out in a present way with the children, to sort through some of the noise that passes through life. The urge to simplify seems to be all around the globe. And coming to Marathon has been a piece of it for me.

I love many things about this town. The beauty of the motel/RV park where we stay. You can check it out at www.marathonmotel.com. Yesterday, I was sitting in the adobe courtyard in front of the outdoor fireplace and just felt so blessed every time I looked through one of the cutouts in the courtyard wall at the desert vistas that presented themselves. Layered mountain silhouettes with a yuca in the foreground. Purple skies with feathered clouds. Multicoloured grasses with large cottonwoods. This place is so so beautiful. I'll post pictures when I replace the dead batteries on my camera.

And I love the oddness of many of the town residents. I think that I am a bit odd myself and I celebrate it. Many of us in Marathon have walked our own paths for years, and have chosen autonomy and freedom over comfort and convenience (not that there really has to be a choice.) My children are deeply appreciated in a town such as this. The are relished for their directness, their energy, their uncompromising attitudes about their importance - the same things that run them into trouble elsewhere are seen as assets here.

But it's getting colder. And for me the fun of living in an RV plummets when it gets cold. We are confined to indoor living a lot more and the space begins to seem a bit cluttered and claustrophobic. Efua and I bought a sewing machine this week and it means that we have the ability to create lots of uproar. In a tiny space like this it becomes hard for me to cope with tumbled possessions absolutely all of the time. Especially when juice spills on them and the cord for the space heater trips me up and Kwamena stays in the fold-out bed all morning and I am making a complicated salad for Thanksgiving lunch. These are all joyful activities - or at least not a big deal - but in a tiny space with 3 of us and a freezing outdoors it gets more challenging for me to keep perspective.

I haven't yet decided where we will go next. I know that I want to come back to Marathon in March. And I know I want to feel warmer most of the time. And I know that I have some things to do in Florida. And that I want to go to Mexico and California at some point and they are warm. But I'm also trying to keep some cash flow issues in perspective. And not entirely sure I want to RV in Mexico without some buddies. And California may not be warm enough for me at present. What wonderful choices to have! But definitely by the middle of December we will be on our way to other vistas. While keeping this lovely jewel Marathon in the back of our minds.

Submerged

2009-11-27T04:36:00.000-08:00

Living our lives in a full and deeply textured way has taken up all available space. There has been no room for writing, little room for musing, and almost no room for considering anything other than this panorama of desert landscape, small town microcosm and unfolding relationships.

Marathon enveloped us. For a small town with less than 600 people it has a presence that is much bigger than its physical footprint. And we are not alone in having this experience. The community is full of people from all over the country who have been 'called' to this place. Yesterday at the Thanksgiving table we were joking that the Marathon Motel (where we stay in the RV Park section) should really change its name to Hotel California or the Vortex. So many of us at the table had come for several hours, several days but had ended up here a year later.

So the children and I have been making another home. Even before we arrived here I had a feeling that this would not be a quick in-and-out visit. But the unfolding has been way outside of anything that I could have contemplated. After a couple of days it turned out that there was an organic gardening project in its infancy on the motel grounds and that my particular skills were exactly right for what was needed. And the project has gone from strength to strength. What began as a plan for the almost 10 acre plot has rapidly expanded into a full sustainability plan for the town and the surrounding region. I have been in my element. Thinking about what links to what and how this can work. And for the first time in my life, at the inception of a project, I am working closely with people who are on exactly the same wavelength and for whom I don't have to translate my understanding of the world and the humans who live on it. What bliss!

It has all felt so natural. Have you ever had an experience where it has felt as though you are simply walking an already mapped out path? Where it felt as though the unfolding of events had little to do with you? Where you opened your mouth and words spewed out that you knew were not being generated in your brain? And I don't mean a psychosis with 'voices' in your head. I mean a level of inspiration that is happening so quickly that it is not allowing you to get in the way. That's what this whole thing has felt like. Once I landed here in this little spot on the West Texas map, I have been directed, turned and twirled to circumstances that could not have been foreseen by my rational mind. I feel as though I have known many of these people here for centuries. It is impossible to believe that it has only been weeks and that we know few, if any, details of our personal histories and life experiences.

The more I live my life from a position of surrender - such as what I am describing above with Marathon - the less I become surprised with how things go. Yesterday a large family group arrived to celebrate the weekend at the motel. I had the little piece of 'zing' that I am now familiar with when I know that something is more than just a piece of information. And soon after they arrived it began to show up. I had met several of the family members in completely detached circumstances where none of the connections had been involved. And here they all were, together, for several days, in the same compound where I was now living. When this kind of thing happens I can just sit and wait. And the story begins to unfold and the reasons begin to show themselves. All I need to do is to become increasingly clear that I must stay out of the way. And an entirely new and exciting path begins to reveal itself in my future. I can't wait.

And I'll keep you posted.

A Fickle Woman

2009-10-15T18:14:00.001-07:00

I guess that I have to admit it publicly. After being completely spellbound by New Mexico for weeks, writing openly about my fascination with being there in my blogs, on facebook and everywhere else, holding back tears yesterday when I could feel my imminent departure, I confess that I have already transferred my affections.

But this love is different – I protest, when the Enchanted Trails confronts me. - You are edgy, non-compromising, and hard to handle. The feelings and behaviours that you inspired in me are completely absent in my new love. The Lone Star Basin makes me feel safe, secure and stable. I behave sensibly and think about the future. You, land of the cliffs and Rio Grande, make me throw caution to the winds and put excitement and inspiration ahead of practical concerns.

My response is not satisfactory and New Mexico goes off to sulk. But you, my dear friends, can vindicate me. You followed my activities all these weeks. You know that when I first crossed state lines and approached Santa Fe I had intended to stay in the area for a week or so. Over a month passed and I still found myself struggling to leave. New Mexico, listen to me. I talked about you all the time. I looked around for housing so as to stay close by. You know that the intense connection that I felt with you cannot be replicated.

It feels like the kind of partner about whom your parents warn you.

Please reconsider your attraction - they plead - This alliance will be problematic. No job options, more interested in walking around mountains than balancing a checkbook, always giving away its assets – didn’t you go to hotsprings with no entrance fee, star gazing parties with people who were gaga about Jupiter and no money changed hands? How are you going to survive?

But, I argue - I have seldom felt so alive. - The wide-spread austerity means that I am not distracted by status symbols. I did not see one luxury European car in my time there and it took half an hour in Texas before three of them passed me by. I turned away from the mundane and became one with nature.

Hummpphh! - you hear in the background from your ancestors - We certainly prefer Texas and think that that would be a much better choice. But since when do you listen to us and pursue practicalities?

And I must say that this part of the Lone Star State reminds me of New Mexico. When my son woke up I had already been driving for 3 hours. He didn't think that we had crossed the border. His mistake was understandable. The place looks similar. But there are some differences.

First off, I saw a pale green that I hadn’t seen in weeks. There is definitely more rainfall here. The scruff brush grows closer together. The ranches look like the cows can find food. My skin doesn't feel like I am going to shed in one piece.

Secondly, the mountains have a smoothness to them.

None of that craggy, New Mexico cliff face. Instead, many of the mountains are almost rolling, full of curves. The hills here feel like a lullaby compared to some confrontational alternative rock with edgy lyrics that we left behind state lines.

And finally there are more people here. In New Mexico, especially in the Western Part, I sometimes felt like the only driver on the planet. I would reach for my camera on the other site, take it out, adjust the stuck lens cover, look around, all without any problem. In Texas – even though I took backroads and not the major highways – I had to be super careful to do anything because there was always the possibility of hitting a passing vehicle.

I crossed the border at about 5 AM and the rude awakening of El Paso was almost too much for me. If there were a place to do a U- turn on I-10 I would have done it. I felt like a country girl come to town. Lights everywhere, cars zipping by, people not even looking sideways to see who is in the vehicle next to them – HELP!

But I still felt stirred once I left the city lights. Especially with the beauty of the early morning mountains. The air was cool but not as biting cold as Silver City had been.

So Texas. You now have my affections. I keep remembering things that I loved over the last few weeks before coming to this town, but for now, before the itch for adventure overtakes me, I’m right here at your side with an undistracted gaze.

Let's Go Sledding - Just Add Sand!

2009-10-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Lots of you all have probably been sand sledding by now. But many of you probably don't even know about the White Sands National Monument. I didn't until a few weeks ago.

In South Eastern New Mexico there is the largest deposit of gypsum in the world. And we got to go sledding on the dunes today! It's a crazy experience. On the one hand the place looks like a snow scape.

Animals hiding in burrows during the day so very little living in sight. The sides of the roads obviously having to be cleared by snow ploughs,

indescribable glare, and a high chance of terrible sunburn.

We had an amazing time. I'm not in any of the pictures but I assure you that I was fully plonked down in a sled whipping my way down the dune and screaming loudly as I picked up speed.

But what they hesitate to mention in the guide books.

The high risk of heat or sun stroke. That place is challenging. High altitude - over 5000 feet, low humidity (the sand under the surface is cold and damp but the sand on the surface is so dry that it forms a crust, no shelter - not a piece of vegetation within range, and no ski lifts. So every time you go down the wonderfully steep dune you gotta walk back up.

Kwamena succumbed after a while and almost passed out. He had to drink water, eat watermelon and lie down in the RV. But he was having so much fun that as soon as he felt that he could walk without getting dizzy he was back up on the dune, speeding down in the sled. And they also don't tell you how the sand gets into everything. I am sure that 10 years down the road I will be finding sand in my pants pocket and falling out of my hair. The floor of the RV seems stained with white footprints forever. There is sand in the sheets and sand in the camera - I asked Efua to take a picture of me and she promptly plonked it down, open lens first, in the dune.

I will be back. But the next time I will take:

1) A wading pool to lie in after each bout of sledding

2) A tropical plant - to balance my Vata energy. I'll put it next to the wading pool.

3) A bikini - the sand and the air are cold but the sun makes it all really warm.

4) A bungee cord - to hold onto as I go downhill and hopefully develop enough tension that it will whip me back up to the top.

I can't wait.

What is Dangerous?

2009-10-11T21:22:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I met my first Black Widow Spider. Being in the desert-like areas in which we have been hanging out means that you are going to meet many forms of life with a bit of a bristle – cacti, rattlesnakes, black widows, biting/stinging things. But so far the rattlesnakes have been relatively quiet – it’s a bit too cold for them to be hanging out publicly. The cacti have been making the children’s Crocs almost useless – try avoiding getting thorns stuck in the soles. And the major danger has probably been keeping away from getting dead skin in your eyes and nose – it is so so lacking in humidity here that all of us have been shedding skin like the most diligent snakes. I think that a daily bath or shower is a health hazard here because your skin can get so inflamed – even with the thick Shea Butter that we use – that it can leave you to scratch yourself raw.

But one recent day, when we were staying in a deserted RV park in northern New Mexico, I went to open the water outlet on the ground, and there in the hole, before I put my hand in, I noticed something scurrying. At a closer look it seemed familiar – small, black, shiny and it even had the red hourglass looking thing that I had seen on National Geographic before.

What surprised me was my calm. Maybe after taking desert shortcuts for a while – walking through ravine bottoms to get to the Cochiti Library – and getting startled by surprised jackrabbits (see the little white tail of one under the wooden beam in this picture) but no rattlesnakes – I had already come to terms with the idea that I was a guest in someone else’s home. So I sat back and checked out my spider friend for a few minutes.

Should I put my hand in the hole to screw in my hose, or should I just replace the cover and find another way to get water? Well, good sense prevailed and I bid her a mental farewell and sent a clear vibe that I knew I was in her territory, replaced the cover on the water hole, and began to fill up my onboard tank from another outlet.

The next day I told the park owner about my encounter and when he dubiously came to check, he took a one second glimpse and confirmed that it was a Black Widow. The spider in the shower however, he clarified was a Wolf Spider, not a young tarantula as I had thought. But since I am comfortable with tarantulas it didn’t make a difference in my caution in any case.

But here is the most important part. After that incident – if you can call it an incident – I did some research and found out that no one, not one person, has died in the last 10 years from a Black Widow bite in the US. And that if you get bitten by a Black Widow many people don’t advise that you even bother to go to the doctor unless you get really strong symptoms!

To think that all my life I was sure that Black Widows were certain death. That a bite from them would not only be fatal but maybe would be accompanied by all that creepy music that is on nature shows.

There goes another myth. And so that leads me to a serious inquiry into the nature of danger. What should we be afraid of while we wonder around the US? Anything?

Well, I certainly know that rattlesnakes deserve some attention although of the 5000 plus bites from venomous snakes that people receive every year in the US, only about 5 people die. And seeing how 75% of the victims are men between 17 and 27 that leaves me in a better position if I don’t do the things that 17 to 27 year old men do – including drinking alcohol, a risk factor for a venomous snake bite! So during normal walks, on trails, on cool days, I don’t necessarily stay overly alert for rattlesnakes. Summer time is a different story but if one of the advantages of a moving home is the ability to follow the weather, why on earth would I come to the desert to spend the summer?

I had lots of fun reading the roadside warnings. As I drove further and further west the signs went from

1) Heavy warnings about traffic fines and highway patrol to

2) Increasing numbers of signs about deer crossings and

3) Signs at rest stops about locking vehicles and whether security guards were present at night.

By the time I reached into New Mexico the signs were about

4) Elk

5) Falling rocks

6) Flash floods on bridges and

7) Dust storms - so warnings to not stop in the middle of the traffic lane during a heavy dust storm – Duh!!

The potential dangers had changed. In New Mexico I have driven for hours without seeing a town or a gas station or another car. Recently I ended up with only 1/8 tank of gas and the only things visible up to the horizon were a small dust storm (you have to look really hard to see it in this picture) ahead and a big bird that flew in front of the truck and mad a big THUD when it hit the grille. Now that was a situation that had me alert. (Fortunately I got to a gas station in time but I will NEVER again drive with less than a half tank of gas). An empty gas tank is a sure danger in a sparsely-populated place like NM.

A few weeks ago I drove for about an hour through heavy heavy fog in Texas, just before the border with NM. The locals were obviously accustomed to it because many vehicles passed us at high speeds, including a school bus. But I can tell you that my snail’s pace was the only speed that felt safe. I have always been a relatively cautious driver and while I love adventure, there are certain adventures that I like more than others.

And to be honest, even in my encounter with the Black Widow, I continue to hold an underlying belief that the story is already written, and that I just need to chill and wait for the inevitable to come my way. I trust in the benign nature of the universe and really believe, deep down, that anything that comes my way – especially if I don’t force it – is from good intention. And that even if I can’t understand it at the time, the most important thing is to relax, leave open the exit door for fear and mistrust, and enjoy whatever view is most beautiful.

Where to start?

2009-10-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

So much is drawing my attention. And there is so much that I would like to share with all the different folks who accompany us in our travels by reading this blog. And where to start? Many days I take picture after picture of the places we pass through. And then we are in a new place and I haven't yet written anything on the computer even though the entire post unfolded in my brain.

For example today.

I woke up in the dark and took a walk through some of the neighboring streets. We are parked in an RV ghetto park - one of those with many rigs parked next to each other and little in the way of greenery. A nice park but definitely cramming them in. Across the street is a state park, and during my morning walk I was fed amazing vista after amazing vista.

Then we spent the day checking out the area, buying propane for the RV, getting Efua's bicycle - a belated birthday present, taking a soak in a hot springs resort, chilling with some local residents at a couple of cafes, and then returning home to watch some movies and hang out for a while. Although I am trying to write about all those things in a super blase way - like if I do them every day - I'm actually quite thrilled by all the amazing things we did in the last 24 hours. And many many days go that way.

So there is only one solution. You have to get on a plane and come and see all of this with your own two eyes.

You need to become so versed in watching the desert that a landscape that may have looked monotonous in the beginning reveals many of its subtleties to you. It's time for you to get practiced in hooking the RV into the electricity, water and sewerage at each park. It's a perfect moment to learn to quickly make a stranger into a friend for whom you feel wistful to leave 1 hour later. The vagabond life awaits you.

Seduced by New Mexico

2009-09-28T01:08:00.000-07:00

Every day we seem to find another reason to slow down our descent back into Texas. I'm actually looking forward to Texas but there is so much to keep us here in New Mexico. I want to return with the ability to stay for a few months and when the weather is a little bit warmer. it goes down to just about freezing most nights.

We are in Questa just north of Taos - about 20 miles or so from the Colorado border. Why did we come here? Well, I did want to see Taos - which we enjoyed a ton - and also the cousin of a friend of mine lives here so we had a bit of 'connection' in this area. She came to see us in the campsite almost as soon as we got here yesterday and took us around in her care. It was nice to get to know a few people in the town and get to see them again today. It is the first time that we have had that kind of experience and I could just see how the children enjoyed the homeyness of the whole thing.

Taos was lovely. In many of these beautiful New Mexico towns there is a wonderful plaza or downtown area and then the whole thing deteriorates into strip malls and gas stations as you leave the center - including Santa Fe. The overall aspect ends up being one of a certain level of ugliness and commercial shouting. Taos is different. Maybe the building rules are stricter so even the gas stations are adobe coloured.

The chain stores seem more focused in the south of the city and so as you drive out and about on the northern end it is just charming.

AND we found a great place for children. A Santa Fe friend said we had to go to Twirl - a children's toy store with a wonderful play structure - www.twirlspace.com. When we first got there the children were very blase about the whole thing. They felt that it was all catering for toddlers and I had to almost force them to get on. Well, we ended up staying for 2 hours, Efua made a friend, and even Kwamena had a rollicking time.

All of us continue to settle into this way of living. I have become more aware of the things that make a big difference for the children - like staying in each park at least two to three days and trying to ensure that we have good internet service. But finding other children to play with was a challenge before we hit the road and is still a challenge. In Trinidad and in the US most children attend long hours of school, after school care or extra-curricular activities, and then homework. And with Efua's insatiable desire for playmates other than myself it means that she wants people to play with all the time. We'll go back to Twirl today and tomorrow. There is a free bus from Questa that goes to Taos three times a day and so we'll try it this morning.

But the piece de resistance was our trip to the hot springs today. I hooked up with some couchsurfers and six of us went to this amazing place. We parked the vehicles up the hill - I for sure didn't want to negotiate a narrow, winding dirt road in the RV - and walked about 1 1/2 miles down hill then 1/4 mile uphill until we came to the steep rocky trail.

And the trail was steep and rocky. That's Kwamena in the blue t-shirt with the hat on. I forgot to take pictures of the hot pools - 2 delightfully warm shallow circles right next to the ice cool main river. We shared the pools with people who were coming and going and who shared their apples, water - you get really really dried out in these high altitudes - and friendliness.

And then of course Madame Efua had to chill while she complained about the walk back and discoursed on the vista.

And after our return back up the hill to the cars and RV - me giving Efua a piggy back most of the way and then getting a ride with a wonderful berry-picking woman who had mercy on all of us - we sat next to the RV, poured water down our throats, and ate some and leftover birthday cake and asparagus that I steamed on the spot - the joys of a camper - while we took in one of the best views in the country.

Wish you were here!

Acceptance and Jubilation in What Is and in Who I Am

2009-09-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

"There is no such thing as a handicap in design.

There is no such thing as a design that doesn't work - that is bad - that is heavy.

There is no dogma in Human Design.

There's no morality here.

You're not going to find any good or bad - all you're going to find is what's there.

And remember, that because a human being is fundamentally unique, what is there is perfect. It doesn't matter.

As long as they live out who they are, they will get to see the beauty of what that perfection can truly be for them."

Ra Uru Hu The channeler of Human Design

It took me over 40 years of living on this earth to remember what perfection is. I must have known it in the beginning, because very young children do not judge. They may have preferences, but they look at their parents with adoration, with no need to find a scale to balance the good and the bad and see what the conclusion is. They don't use some of my least favorite terms - 'unparent' and 'dead-beat-dad.' They just see the beauty of each human and love it just as it is.

When did I learn to try to measure the worth of a human? It must have been very early because by five years old I was already 'striving' to be a better person. I was evaluating myself very harshly and trying to squelch the characteristics that I did not like and exaggerate the ones that I did like. I never heard, not once, a phrase that I hear my daughter say at times 'everyone is different' when others try to compare people, especially her, to someone else.

But old habits die hard. And I find myself judging, labeling in a measuring way, taking my personality traits apart, putting them under the microscope and trying to discard or develop different ones in a critical way. My last post was about happiness and it is clear to me that the fastest way for me to move away from happiness is to criticize and judge either myself or others.

In the past few years I have finally crossed the line where I can have clarity on self-acceptance and even some thoughts about it in the midst of beating myself up. The influences of school and church - the main places where I, personally, learned about judgement, criticism and comparison - have begun to unravel, and I have begun to actually like myself - what a revelation! I have accepted that I am good at visioning and starting things based on a vision but not so good at the long haul, I am superb at getting information based on my information but not as strong with my memory for detail. I don't care much about things that I was taught were important and I am not interested in thinking about tomorrow. And all of these things lead to a wondrous person whose ability to live in the flow and in the now is just right for who I am and the landscape that this globe needs.

This joy in who I am says nothing about who anyone else is or which characteristics they have. It does not measure my value versus the value of those who are responsible for long periods of time, who like plodding along, who enjoy knowing everything about tomorrow and next week and who understand and are interested in IRAs, pension plans and social security. They too are critical for the painting that this globe has made and reveling in myself does nothing to lessen their importance.

During counseling sessions, I often tell the person that I am counseling - when they are in midst of an 'I am so inferior' slump, that 'If you were not yourself and you were looking at you from someone else's eyes you would see this really interesting person - who is you - and have a big desire to get close to them, to learn about them and to share their life.' And that is true for all of us. We are truly amazing and yet we judge ourselves so so harshly.

I think about how easy for me to be judgemental - and I'm not judging this trait, it's just the way that I am at the moment. And how possible it is for me to transfer this judgement to my children and criticize the way they did or didn't do something. And then I go into a tail spin of judging myself for judging them. And the more I judge myself the worse I feel and then I judge myself more harshly and then they feel bad for being judged and conflict arises and then I judge myself or them for the conflict.

What a *&%$#ing waste of time! Yet it is also good for what it is.

So now I have learned to not judge myself for judging others! Isn't this getting funnier and funnier? Actually one of the people that I think of a lot is Andy Warhol and how his crazy dysfunctional Catholic upbringing led to this man who was fascinating. Maybe full of angst in his own way but reveling in his angst, expressing this angst in ways that brought wonder to the world and gave so many of us a fresh look at things that we had all taken for granted.

So no matter what it is, no matter how challenging we find it to live our lives, the distinct spark that we bring to this universe, the signature sparkle that our particular star puts out, is so perfect for making a beautiful picture full of depth, dimension and contrast. And I breathe a breath of thankfulness and scream at the top of my lungs - Up with individuality and different ways of expressing life! Thanks to the heavens for every drop of everything that found its way in this bumpy globe that we call earth!

Learning from the outside - Happiness 101

2009-09-20T07:29:00.000-07:00

While I believe that our internal awareness is the greatest teacher, I can definitely see how the response of our internal awareness to the external environment is a big learning tool. Travel is amazing in that way because it gives me so much variety in my external world that I can accelerate the pace of my own self-discovery.

Yesterday we left Santa Fe. I was very tempted to stay there since the flow was flowing a lot more smoothly than it had in the previous days. The weather was warmish and sunny, Efua and her friend Marley (a 5 year old girl from an RV'ing unschooling family that we met in Dallas - and with whom we are moving around a bit) went to a free drawing class at the Georgia O'Keefe museum, and then the two girls, Marley's mom and I passed through the Santa Fe Farmers' Market on our way to a playground where the girls had a wonderful time.

While at the playground Efua made a new friend

and I had a lovely chat with her new friend's mother about Santa Fe and more.

I was happy and I could feel it throughout my body and flooding in my internal world.

I know the external recipe now; the things that make me experience this condition that I call happiness. And it's not that complicated.

1) Getting to walk. I am a pedestrian by nature. Of course getting to walk in places that are stimulating and beautiful help but I'm not really that fussy.

2) Getting to walk where others are walking. There are always people on the street in the downtown Santa Fe area and so it makes me feel happier to walk there than when I am walking around the area where the RV is parked. Strip malls and lots of cars on wide streets, while still providing the pedestrian condition for happiness, don't put the whipped cream on the top.

3) Talking and analyzing the world from an optimistic perspective with someone who contributes and who listens. I LOVE this. Engaging with another human intelligence, especially through conversation, is one of the most delicious things that my life has offered me over and over again. It has been my motivation for learning new languages, for traveling, for meeting countless strangers, for couchsurfing, and for almost all of the activities in which I participate.

And so sitting at a playground, talking with another parent about our lives, brings moments of sweetness to my day that I just want to prolong.

So I didn't want to leave Santa Fe. Too much good stuff was flowing.

But I did leave. My RV'ing friends and I had discussed moving several days before - the Santa Fe campsite was much pricier than one in Alburquerque and also there was something just a little 'resigned' about it. Although the rigs were as big and luxurious as in other places, the facilities were as complete, it seemed as though the campsite managers were doing just as much as they felt they needed to do to make it work out. Nothing more. The extra 'je ne sais quoi' was just not there.

So we hit the road. My reluctance demonstrated itself in a slow departure, the dragging of the feet, and stopping three times in the one hour drive from Santa Fe to Alburquerque.

So now we are here. And I am still happy. The flow kept flowing.

4) My happiness bubbles when my children are happy. And they are happy here at this new park. Efua has her friend to play with AND we have great internet access so Kwamena is thrilled to be able to play his online games while he Skypes with his friends across the continent. Efua and Marley bathed dolls, swam in the pool and hot tub - a standard at many RV parks - bet you stationary livers didn't know that- helped me make a big dinner salad, and since we are parked side by side they get to really revel in each other's company. Kwamena played World of Warcraft with a friend in Calgary and got to experiment with all kinds of new and challenging features.

5) I am getting some 'connect with myself in silence' time. I got up early this morning and walked up and down the frontage road in the cold, dark of the pre-dawn morning. I even got to go back to the RV and get the camera to share some of this with you.
The frontage road is right next to the highway but I'm enough of a developing world 'never-see-come-see' that I can find lots of pleasure in the modernity of big rig 18 wheelers lit up all around like Christmas boxes.

and finally

6) The world of other living beings is talking to me. I saw a jack rabbit run alongside my walking route and it even stopped and patiently posed for me for about 10 minutes - but the damn camera didn't think that there was enough light to capture the image. See if you can see the little brown, long eared, white tailed funny bunny somewhere in this darkness.

I saw this plant

and this plant

and this plant.

It's not a coincidence that so many artists hang out here in New Mexico. It feels as though everything -including the sand and the rocks - is alive and vibesing with me.

I love this place. The sky is so big, the horizon is so far, the hills are so sudden and the air vibrates in such a clean and crisp way. I don't even miss the sea - which is a rare situation when I am inland. There is no question that I am in sync with the non-human pieces of this hologram.

I can't wait to go to the forest just north of Santa Fe - we'll do that next week sometime. But even the flat, pebbly, scrubby open areas of the high desert engage me in a way that the US east coast doesn't. This is the opposite to my lush, dense, thick rainforest spaces that completely nourish and embrace me at home. But I am prepared to tear my heart in two and love them both. And hopefully, as long as I'm honest, they'll accept the rich passion that they can each get from my end.

Off to play with some Mexican jumping beans.

Starting in the Middle - Our RV Adventures

2009-09-16T02:59:00.001-07:00

Well, I have not been too successful in the daily write. I update the blog everyday in my head. I take the pictures. I drive the drive. But any multi-step action becomes quite a feat in practice. Anyhow, that is about to change. I am going to

1) Bite the bullet and buy one of those small inexpensive computers. Efua doesn't give me much of a chance to get on this one.

2) Make sure I always know where the cord for the camera to computer hook up is.

3) Just do it.

Keep close, my friends. The gifts that are being revealed to me are for all of us.

And so here we are in Santa Fe at last.

Did I know when we left Florida that we would come to this part of the continent? I wasn't sure. But crossing the country and being in Dallas - actually in Grapevine, TX - made the pull to come here a lot stronger. And I wasn't wrong. The Panhandle Plains of north-west Texas were amazing. Vast. Immense. Flat. Stimulating. Never-ending. Kwamena kept saying 'We're in the middle of Nowhere.' And Efua, in her normal Efua way, just kept skipping and eating and chatting away no matter how massive it was around her.

But all of us were blown away by Palo Duro Canyon. So far, only a couple of the Americans and Texans that I've spoken to about this canyon knew it existed and none of them had been there. Palo Duro is the second largest canyon in the United States. And is quite an experience. Here are some of the pictures.

On the way to the canyon we went to the Plains Panhandle Museum in Canyon, Texas. I think that Kwamena got to see every gun ever made before 1970. They have a massive collection of weapons from all over the world. What can I say? It's Texas and gun history seems completely woven in to the development of the white part of the culture. And there were lots of good dinosaur bones and models. This was their stomping ground.

We have not been in the habit of going to museums - except for Children's museums. But I can feel that that is about to change. On Friday evening in Santa Fe most of the major museums are free so we will hit them with our new friends.

Where do I start on sharing this journey? I could already write a book. Or several books. On living as a family in a tiny tiny space on wheels. On driving through thick fog, thunderstorms, blistering heat, and cool desert air.

On crossing crazy 12 lane freeways - good ole Dallas, tiny country roads, many many highways under construction - Obama stimulus package to thank. On being whipped by massive truck wind as the 18 wheelers pass my own box on wheels. On holding tightly to the steering wheel as I race down steep roads in New Mexico, on keeping an eye on the temperature gauge during hot days, on awakening at 3 AM most mornings so the children don't have to deal with the boredom of the drive. And definitely, I could already fill volumes about the people. The almost toothless mechanic in Amarillo, Texas who repaired my leaking anti-freeze line and gave me some peace of mind. The many many people who have given us things without making us pay - or substantial discounts on what we should have paid. The RV'ers who help out at every turn and who give each other 'the wave' just like black people in America give each other 'the nod.' Human beings are something else.

During the entire time of crossing Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Texas, Texas, New Mexico, there has only been one person who has been what you would call 'rude.' One. Out of hundreds of encounters. And maybe one who has been brisk. Otherwise we have met loveliness that is Southern Iced Tea sweet. The 'darrlings', the 'what beautiful children', the 'have a lovely day honeys' and the general warmth and connectedness from so many strangers has really made a big difference in what, in some respects, is a bit of an isolating experience for me.

(Oh, I guess that the undiluted weekend experience of dealing with the horrible hotel staff at the Marriot in Dallas during our homeschooling/unschooling conference are not deserving of mention. But maybe I'll get to that another time.)

This trip can be isolating. I was supposed to have two driving companions, couchsurfers with their own interesting stories - one was a woman who has recently cycled alone across the US. But in the end I was the only adult who came along.

I thought that driving from Southern Florida to Dallas would have been really hard alone but it wasn't. I was a heavy driver in college - Atlanta to NY for weekend jaunts, to the Savannah coast just to get a whiff of the sea. But now I usually do anything to have a pedestrian life. Yet somehow long drives are different. I was listening, as I passed through Mississippi, to an NPR program about Charles Bowden http://hearingvoices.com/news/2009/08/hv069-pen-to-paper/ and in it he was speaking about something to which I could really relate - the hypnotic nature of these kind of drives. The way that you just feel to keep going.

I have a bit of a routine that starts the night before doing a long drive. I wash all the dishes and thoroughly clean up the RV. Not really because I want it clean, although I do, but because leaving thing lying around means hearing a loud 'THUD' while going 60 mph on a highway with a Mack Truck roaring past and concrete barriers with Men At Work signs and not knowing what that 'THUD' was and unable to turn my head around to see. Everything - and I mean everything - has to be anchored, put away securely behind closed cupboard doors. The balance of the routine is fragile because while I usually have to wait until the children are asleep, I don't want to stay up too late and make myself exhausted for the early-morning rising. So I clean up and put everything, especially things that make noise, away.

And this is what makes living in an RV so different. The routines are completely separate from living in a house. In a normal house you do things like close the windows before leaving home. You make sure that you are appropriately dressed and adequately fed - at least most people do. In an RV you don't have to worry about the clothes - you have them with you AND you have a bathroom in which to change. You don't have to worry about the food - you have a pantry and a fridge with you. But you have to worry about EVERYTHING that vibrates or that might fall. So I make sure to:

Raise the blinds - the metal ones make the worse racket as you pick up speed.

Put the stove racks in the clothes cupboard - horrible brbrbrbrbrbr as you careen down the highway.

Lay the computers on the carpet under the table - don't want those clunking on the Pergo pathway.

Keep the maps handy on the front passenger seat.

Dress in layers for the changing temperatures so I can shed like a snake.

And always ensure I know where there is cash and my debit card for hungry children, tolls, gas, and the million and one people looking for donations for everything.

Oops! Before I drive off from my spot in the RV park ensure that (1) water hose is unscrewed from the park supply, ends neatly screwed together and put in the rear compartment (2) electric plug is unplugged from the 30 Amp outlet (3) anything else that is tied down, hooked up or otherwise rigged in some way is untied, unhooked or unrigged to avoid nasty mishap and dangling things draggin' down the road - let's not get into the story this time. Oh, and don't forget to put some ice or a frozen water bottle into the fridge since the propane isn't working and you won't be at the next electric supply until later in the day. Oh, and ensure that the toilet cover is down and the toilet is well flushed. Oh, and take care to jam the bathroom door since it has no lock after that incident with Efua and her friend locking the door from the inside and pushing it shut on their way out.

Sounds like a pain doesn't it? But it's a pain that I can well handle. I love my growing empowerment with learning all the different things in this house on wheels - plumbing, electrical, sewerage, and more. I love starting to feel comfortable with how it moves when a crosswind passes, and what I need to do if it's raining heavily, and how to deal with smarmy RV mechanics. I love chugging along with the clouds casting their distinct shadows on the desert road and getting directions from my map-reading son about what to do next, and watching Efua take out her paints and sit behind an artist to paint Her version of the canyon.

I love seeing deer nibbling grass at the side of the road, raven munching on the insides of a squashed fox and hearing cicadas out sing crickets. The wonder of these kind of moments far outweigh the inconveniences.

And last night on the way to the communal bathrooms we could see the sheet lightning in the clouds just north of Santa Fe, numerous stars above - despite the city lights, and feel the bite of the cool air of the high desert. And I knew that this is just where we are meant to be and just when we are meant to be here.

Being called to the plate – what is required in our global crisis.

2009-08-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

I just spent a week in Santa Fe at a conference on organic breeding. I think that I am 2 feet taller. I grew so much. Although, to be honest, I sometimes felt like the main thing I was learning was the tile pattern on the hallway floors as I wandered around aimlessly not knowing which event to attend. But the truth is that there was a lot more that took place there.

My life feels like a sprouting process these days. The seed goes into the ground – hopefully a fertile organically prepared soil – a little water is added, and then all kinds of things start to happen that are not visible from the surface. My mind and my spirit were bubbling and boiling. Occasionally, during the week, my mouth would spout out some words that were reflective of the inner process, but most of the time, knowing that what I say is like alien speak to many humans, I simply look around intently, act normal and talk about something else.

But I noticed so much inside of myself. And I don't intend to be understated about it.

I have become so so brave. I think that I was always brave, but I allowed politeness, self-consciousness, fear of consequences, unexplained terror and other things to get in my way. And it was fascinating to watch other people getting stuck in those same old traps with which I was so familiar. At one point in the conference, when I was on a panel, the audience began to get very intense. Most of you who know me know that I love intense. But this one did not sit at all well in my gut.

First of all in their intense passion about Genetic Manipulation – a subject which understandably generates intense emotions – several people lost sight of the fact that the person on the podium, who represented a particular seed company, has about as much power as a cockroach to instigate the changes that their comments referenced. And although I love leisure and play., inefficiency makes me squirm. So the breath that they were wasting going after her could have been better used to burp or to cool a hot drink.

Secondly, if you want to influence an insider in a company that you are trying to change, the stupidest way to go about it is to ‘attack’ them. ‘Living while Black’ has taught me one thing: If someone perceives you as their ally you are way way more likely to get them to put themselves on the line for you. Even sometimes to make ‘stupid’ decisions that endanger their position on your behalf. It doesn’t mean that you brown-nose. You should never go against your gut sense of being authentic. But developing an ally means that you have to have someone’s back. If they feel that you will welcome them with open arms after they have lost their job for standing up to bad company policy, you can bet your last dollar that they will do things that are so correct and so brave that they can’t even understand themselves why they are doing them.

So while on the panel my big mouth just started flapping. I don’t even remember fully what I said but it had something to do with the organic community getting seduced to discuss the negative when we had a unique opportunity to focus on amazing things during that panel, to hear about them and to share what we ourselves were doing. I remember that at some point an audience member shouted out to me, from the back row of this very large room, something about having to focus on and stop all these bad things and how the bad things would influence me and blah blah blah. And I shouted back about how what was going on was inefficient, and that the seed company panel member had no power and we could be much more efficient by doing this in a different way and blah blah blah.

Whether what I said as useful or not, I am amazed by whomever this was who took over my body during those moments of heroic daring – Dramatic noise of trumpets playing and horses riding loudly through western deserts. It certainly wasn’t just me. I love these moments of grace.

And afterwards, I definitely got my ego stroked. Scores of people in the audience nodded their heads while I was talking about changing the subject. Dozens of them came up to me afterwards and admired me, called me brave and said they were so happy that I had done what I did – even one of the guys who was getting carried on the wave said he was grateful to me for getting him off. AND. To crown it all. In the Alberquerque aiport this morning I ran into a participant who went on at length (okay maybe not at length but for a little while) about how courageous I was for doing the right thing. I LOVE being worshipped and adored. Maybe my picture will be on the cover of Mother Earth magazine tomorrow for winning the brave woman award of the year. Ha Ha Ha.

Anyhow, back to being a normal person (that would be the day).

So I am coming to several conclusions about this ‘save the earth’ thing - especially now that I have had a chance to do field research on (mainly) European and US environmentalists for the last week. I may end up expounding on these at length over the next few months but here they go in their raw form.

1) The times are calling on us to be Fearless. This will happen by first being brave – which is different from fearless. When you are brave you feel afraid, sometimes terrified, but you still do what your internal guidance system is telling you to do. And after you are brave for a while, then you start to become fearless because the consequences that you feared either don’t happen, or they happen and you realize that they are not such a big deal in any case.

2) This movement towards fearlessness means that you have to develop and hone your internal guidance system. (See point one). And many of us have been so messed around that we haven’t been in touch with this since we were two and told Uncle Randolph that his belly was really big and he looked like Santa Claus – and you know what happened after that to make you stop relying on internal guidance.

3) You have to, internally, throw away everything you ever thought about everything, and rewrite your personal understanding of the world from a new perspective. For me this even meant throwing out the labels of ‘I’m a vegetarian’ and ‘I’m a kind mother’ and ‘Sex is a physical act’ and ‘The world exists’ and seeing what was really there. This has been the best part of the journey for me. It has revealed miracles to me and things that I never knew were possible but which became possible because I didn’t limit them.

4) It helps to stop dehumanizing people. The CEO of Montana was once a 5 year old who wanted cotton candy in the amusement park. And maybe someone said ‘No, you can never have cotton candy. You have to eat marinated kale instead.’ And he vowed to get rid of all healthy food on the planet. Think of what would happen if you became his friend and suddenly one day told him he COULD have as much cotton candy as he wanted, AND, despite your low (artist, environmentalist, farmer salary) you would even buy it for him, and then he sobbed and sobbed on your shoulder and became an organic advocate the next day! If you want to see one of the hokiest films in the world but kind of in this vein see ‘I love Huckabees.’ Anyhow, in order to see the humans inside of Montana (and other evil companies) for who they are – flawed humans but lovely nevertheless – maybe it will help for you to get a bit straight about all the places that you are flawed, and still love yourself deeply. The times you shout at your children and they burst into tears, the times you are cowardly – I need a show of hands -, the times you throw the plastic cup in the garbage instead of in the recycling bin three towns away. Environmentalist can find a thousand reasons a day to feel like Hitler. Learn to forgive yourself and really really deal with who you are and how wonderful you are not only despite but because of those things.

5) And although I could write this list for the next few years I will only write five things. The last one is this You are loved and all is well (from the Abraham-Hicks site). Get over your self-imposed distance from the amazing loving energy in the universe that would never never send anything your way unless it was in your best interest and unless, on some level, you had asked for the thing to be sent in the package in which you are receiving it. It’s not a lesson, it’s not a test, it’s not even something to make you strong. It’s a big big present that is already bringing you so much joy and experience and friends and purpose. And when you no longer need it then it will go away.

Sending glowing, big Santa Fe sky, bittersweet chocolate-covered orange slices, juiciness.

And (I can’t help this one) may the Force be with you.

I prefer my children’s company

2009-08-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

Well, the verdict has been reached. I enjoy traveling with my children more than I enjoy traveling without them. I think that this trip has made it clear that on many levels not only are they my best friends and companions, but they keep me steering correctly. And how do they do this?

They understand what having fun means and it is the top item on their list
They have not yet learned all the crazy rules of our societies and so they go straight for what they want.
They are not shy about making friends. If they want someone to play with them they either grab them or they make a suggestion of something to do together.
They are beautiful to gaze at.
They are lovely to snuggle with.
They pull me up when I am off course.
Their favorite words are ‘I’m bored.’

I missed everything about them. And although I see the value in getting some alone time, I think that what would be better is for us to travel together and for another adult to be around with whom they LOVE to spend time. It’s hard for anyone to meet their exacting standards but somewhere in this globe of several billion people there is one person who is just right for us and who is just waiting for this opportunity. I can’t wait to meet them!

RV’ing. A longtime dream come true.

2009-08-27T22:28:00.000-07:00

I was at a picnic with my South Beach friends this weekend. And while there a friend of mine responded with great glee when I told her of my RV plans. “Finally! I’m so glad to know that you got it to happen.”

I had forgotten that over 5 years ago I had dreamed of taking an RV on the road with the children. I had even gotten numbers to call people and speak about them, read lots of stuff online about buying one, checked out RV organizations, but when I had my daughter all of these plans went on the back burner.

What is particularly interesting is that, at the time, I was much less confident about handling something like that by myself. Not so much the driving but the whole enterprise. The idea of tackling the big USA with my children seemed a bit scary.

That fear has diminished a lot. And I attribute a lot of my increased confidence to my having created and run my organic business, pretty much solo, for 3 years. It was a big and difficult project. Having employees, customers to please, a building to furnish and organize, vagrants to handle, personal attacks and a small takeover attempt, customs officers in need of bribes, import permits, bank managers, wire transfers, etc. There was so much that I had to cope with. And although I did not do all of it anywhere near the way that I wanted, and there are still loose ends that I need to tackle. I did it. And all while successfully tending to the children. Ensuring that they were clothed, healthy, entertained, learning, socially fulfilled,. I got lots and lots of financial support from their father. And lots and lots of other support from friends and family. But at two o’clock in the morning, when a shipment would arrive from the airport, and the goods would need refrigeration, it was I who had to handle it. When the driver crashed the car and had neglected to mention his expired driver’s license, it was I who had to figure out what to do. Even if I had two sleeping children at home and it was me alone.

Challenges can really build confidence. That is not to say that I believe in running down problems and bringing them to me. I have gained piles of experience by simply sitting put and reflecting. By looking at how others are dealing with their own lives and contemplating my feelings about similar issues. But getting behind the wheel of life and driving hard was an amazing teacher and one that has raised my level of bravery and my motivation to fulfillment for myself and my children a thousand fold.

Down with limitations! And up with a free life!

Alone again, naturally?

2009-08-27T22:24:00.002-07:00

Is it natural for a mother of relatively young children to be alone without them for a few days? A question with no firm answer for me. For the first three years of Kwamena’s life we were never without each other. My sister had her daughter when he was about 3 and since I was one of her coaches I spent the night away from him. But the truth is that until last year Kwamena, Efua and I were somewhat chained at the hip. Their dad lived overseas most of the time and so my place was at their side.

This year has been different. Several months ago I spent a week in Trinidad while they were in Tobago. Then I took a 5 day trip to Trinidad while they hung out in Miami Beach with their dad. And now I’m on my way to Santa Fe for 4 days while they are staying in South Florida with my sister and her family and with my parents. Both children have slept by their cousins multiple times and recently Kwamena, with his cousin, slept by a mutual friend.

I enjoy having time to focus on my physical needs alone. I’m not so great at the food thing in any case and since I could get by on apples all day, or a few steamed vegetables and rice cakes, it makes it a bit easier when children are not around. Not my children – who also eat fairly simply and in bits. But children who are accustomed to plates with five items on them at the same time. Yikes! And since I try to make sure that my children’s needs are being met much of the time, it means that we almost always have other children over. And so I have to figure out the eating thing all day long –it seems.

It’s the first time I will be in a hotel alone. I wanted them to come. I thought they would enjoy the swimming pool, the room service, the cable tv. All the luxury treatment that they love. But our RV wasn’t ready and it would have been a few hundred dollars extra since the conference wouldn’t pay their expenses. And in any case next week we will be in Texas on the concierge floor – unlimited snacks and desserts all day long, wireless, etc. I can’t wait for them to have that kind of fun.

And so it will be interesting to see how I choose to spend my time in Santa Fe. I have a conference to attend - http://www.ifoam.org/events/ifoam_conferences.php - but I also have a fair amount of stuff that I want to get done. I want to organize all the things for the RV we are buying and the upcoming trip next week. Things like wireless on the road, places to stop, a place to park in Dallas, etc. And I have the farmers’ project in Trinidad that I need to finish the proposal to. And the family budget to update. And a paper on Health, Food and Agriculture that I want to rewrite. And lots more here and there.

Will I be able to stop and hang out with myself in a leisurely way? Look around Santa Fe a bit? Meet other conference attendees – my main goal in going? I’ll try my best to keep posting no matter what.

Movies are my solace

2009-08-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

I grew up reading addictively. Books were my escape, my security blanket, places of fantasy to arrive in spots around the globe of which I could only dream. But over the years I succeeded in breaking some of this addiction. It still grips me at times - I start a book and cannot put it down even though I am dead tired and need the sleep, I have things to do, I have responsibilities. I find myself making a meal while reading. Reading at stop lights. Almost dying for the book to end so that I can be liberated from this delicious pleasure.

And then I found movies. Last year when I moved on from my business I would sometimes watch several movies a day. Day after day. I would choose movies over sleep. I hadn't watched more than about 10 movies in 9 years - since I first became a parent. And all of a sudden, in 3 months, I became someone who hasddevoured most of what was available in the video store. My conclusion is that for several years I had to create everything that I wanted - a shop to get organic food, homeschooling to provide rational alternatives for my children and myself - and now suddenly, I could watch someone else's creation. This was even better than books because I didn't have to make a mental picture. The picture was already there and I just had to watch it.

Plus, with movies I can put them on while I watch dishes - computer perched precariously next to the sink with headphones to overpower the sound of running water. I fold clothes, I cut vegetables all while watching movies. I've gotten good enough that I can even read subtitles while sweeping or sorting. A 2 hour movie for me can take about 5 hours or several days to finish because it is interrupted by the normal workings of life.

Anime, suspense, drama, British films, science fiction, you name it I watch it. I have reached the point where I follow one actor at a time and rent all the movies in which they have acted. I follow directors or I follow themes. (One time I even rented movie after movie in which there were lofts as a setting) I have become the 'Purple Rose in Cairo' protagonist. And I love it.

Since being in Florida that movie hunger has revived after a short break. In the past week I have seen:

Happily Ever After - a lovely French film about marriage that is indicative of how only the French can treat a complex subject.

Taken - an action movie with Liam Neeson - also set mainly in France

Inglorious Basterds - again set in France. The new Tarantino movie. I have NEVER in my life closed my eyes during a movie (other than Kill Bill). I must have spent over 1/4 of this movie looking at the underside of my eyelids. A powerful film.

Blueberry Nights - Rented to try to purge the effects of Inglorious Basterds. After leaving the above movie - almost 3 hours long - my sister and I decided we had to rent something to get back settled. Straight off to blockbuster to get this one and up till 2 AM to watch it. A piece of fluff but I LOVE watching Jude Law in anything. He reminds me of a cad I once knew.

Ponyo - The jewel in the crown. I have watched almost everything by Hiyao Miyazake and this is now one of my favorites. I will definitely buy the DVD to watch repeatedly. Not only was the story beautiful but the images are to die for.

The Time Traveler's Wife - A for effort. I hadn't read the book - which I heard is really good. But this movie made my head spin like a second hand. The deliciousness of sitting in a movie theatre unaccompanied on a Saturday afternoon chomping on popcorn would have made even Friday the 13th worth watching. But I had to dive into the scenery and the interior design to get much enjoyment.

Snow Falling on Cedars - Thank goodness my new RV was not yet in my hands. I would have immediately have packed the children in the bed, jumped in the driver's seat - even though it was the middle of the night - and taken off for that awesome place that they showed in this film. In addition to the scenery the movie is well worth watching.

Priceless - A bit fluffy but some beautiful hotel interiors in the South of France and a glimpse into a type of life with which I am very unfamiliar. Again in France. Huh!

Wow! Quite a few for 10 days. What will I see today? Off to the video store.

An Addition

I knew I had watched a few more! Just remembered

A Good Year - More Fluff but beautiful French countryside (Can't believe the French slant is so heavy)

Mumford - A little deeper than fluff but a bit forgettable

Just got back from the movie store and about to sink my teeth (or eyes) into I've Loved You So Long with remarkable Kristin Scott Thomas.

Learning All The Time

2009-08-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

Playgenius

by Marna Franson

Today I didn't learn to write,

To spell, to multiply, divide.

Today I saw where princes reign,

I grew a tulip, rode a train.

I sat real still,

As still could be.

To see if I could fool a bee,

To gather pollen out of me.

Today I skipped a million stones,

Stayed in my jammies, thought alone.

I built a tower to the sky,

I held my brother when he cried.

Today I didn't learn my math,

Write an essay, draw a graph.

Today I breathed in deep and clear.

I thought and planned the distant year

When I would put my hand to task

And grow a family that will last.

Today I didn't strive or groan.

Today I stayed and played at home.

Today I was a simple boy.

I loved my life. I stockpiled joy.

______________________________

I love this poem. I think that, as much as my children's lives, it describes mine. I have become marginally interested in accomplishment. And yet, even with that disinterest, I find myself achieving all kinds of things. Interesting things. Big and small things. I am surprised by how little 'striving' is required for my life to go well. How amazingly everything can unfold when I make time for goal oriented activities and spend most of my day just experiencing life.

Of course there are many things that are not mentioned in the poem above that are not as 'comfortable' for adults. Today one of my children did not gush politeness and enthusiasm to an adult. And I saw the adult softly and yet manipulatively, turn him to face their direction emotionally. I saw my child start to boil inside but control the external expression just enough to satisfy the adult. So they learned about emotions, about limits, about ways to treat other people, and about ways that you feel when someone treats you that way.

I am so glad that I was born in this time. As a black woman in another time I may have received the same treatment that my child receives. A redirection of sullenness, an encouragement to gush and be bubbly, constant reminders to be grateful for not having it worse. Nowadays, most black people who are not children or teenagers do not get that kind of correction from white people. Actually that is not entirely true. Black working class people who are not aggressive do sometimes get that kind of treatment from lighter skinned humans. I've seen it many times in Trinidad, Barbados, Jamaica, the UK and the US. But it is not the norm any more. Most black people, like most people, can choose to be grumpy, happy, sad, enthusiastic, and all that we face, are the consequences of our behavior. Not punishment in the way that children receive it.

For my children, particularly my son, it is normal to get 'pulled up.' He is a daydreamer. Often when he is walking around looking sullen he is actually deep in thought. It took me a while to realize what was happening. Sometimes I have to call him three or four times and suddenly the words penetrate and he shakes his head and comes back to alertness. To a less observant adult it simply looks like rudeness. And so we, including me sometimes, will respond with anger and superiority. I can't imagine what it would have been like for him to have been in school.

Both my children cycle through activities. I see them focus on something mental, then run off regularly to do something physical - jump on the bed, run around the house, spin in one spot. And emotions roll like waves through it all. Tears for 10 minutes. Anger and rancour at another time. Full out laughter here and there. And they get to have so many experiences based on these feelings and my response to these feelings.

On my side, it's hard sometimes to be observed so closely. To be held so accountable for my behavior. Sometimes I think about what it would be like to send my children to school and not really spend time thinking about what teachers said to them. To shut off my responsibility the moment they walk in the gate. To be able to behave in many different ways without anyone looking at me. Without anyone evaluating what I am doing. When I speak harshly to my daughter she cries. And makes it clear that my tone is mean. My son does not think that it is okay for me to interrupt him when he is deep in thought. Or to refer to things from the past that he did incorrectly. He expects me to treat his activities without judgement even if I don't like them. Their standards are high and they stay fairly consistent with them.

But yesterday, when my son was being harsh in his judgement, my daughter took me aside and said,

'Don't pay attention to what he is saying. He won't continue to say it. And his feelings will change. '

And so, thank God, I get to keep learning too. A teacher amongst teachers. Yummy.

Living Like You Are The Only One

2009-07-04T04:20:00.001-07:00

I have found it very useful to stop myself mid-activity and consider what I would do if I were the only person on the planet. I think to myself - how would I do this if there was no one else around? What choice would I make at this moment if I didn't expect that I was being watched, judged, praised, observed?

When you grow up in a small place within a tight community, you become accustomed to being observed. You know that everything that you do, and I mean EVERYTHING, has the possibility of not only being seen but also being communicated to many other people.

Sometimes I would shower with my sisters or my girlfriends when I was a child, and my brothers and the other neighbourhood boys would climb up on the windows to see us naked. It was all done in innocence but that was the level of privacy that could be expected. In my neighbourhood the children were tight. We hung out in gangs climbing the mountains, going to the waterfall, playing games in the street, catching butterflies, having teenage dance practice, climbing trees. And one of the things that I learned was to expect eyes on me. There was always a feeling that I would be evaluated and judged.

In my unconscious moments I still feel that way. I claimed that feeling and, up to recently, walked with it ALL the time. I expected consequences, usually negative, from my actions. And so I adjusted my actions to deflect these consequences.

I don't want that kind of life for my children. It is wonderful for them to be part of a community that looks out for them and thinks well about them. But the part where you are constantly under judgement - no way! I won't feed into it. I do my best to make sure that they don't feel that I am checking out their every action. None of that - He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake. How creepy that feels!

Of course I haven't freed myself completely from this vigilance, but I can definitely see that they haven't internalized the watching, judging eyes completely - the way that I had by about 3 or 4 years old. I ensure that they feel forgiveness from me whenever they do something that they see as a mistake. And I forgive myself openly, in front of them, when I do something that I don't like.

For them, as children, to accept themselves it means that they must be supported to follow their desires and their passions - no matter what someone else may think. In general both children have remained passionate about their needs and I can see them becoming a bit more aware of my needs and the needs of others as time goes on.

I wish for them a life without the active resentment of those who have submerged their true glowing selves to status, opinions and labels. I expect that Efua and Kwamena will not have to feel bitter towards others who are glowing and growing - because they have glowed and grown and continue to do so. I anticipate that they will not have to drown their disappointment in foods, substances and seeking love and approval because they have not been encouraged to accept compromise. Win/win is a concept that we are all trying to live together.

And for myself. I continue to be my major cheerleader as I move towards reclaiming days without self-consciousness and nights of emotional serenity. I enjoy a life that is free, in general, from thoughts of 'what if' and from the perpetual replaying of conversations and incidents in which I could have behaved differently. I encourage myself to remain exposed and fearless and to rest in the understanding that the Divine has taken good care of me and will continue to create a life for me and my loved ones that nourishes us, sustains us and supports us to soar.

They Eat From Bowls

2009-06-27T05:14:00.000-07:00

I was looking at some other blogs and realizing that this is not a Blog. It is a Blooooooooooggggggg. My posts are so long compared to others. And so I need to start writing short, to the point entries. Adding a picture. And getting 1000 people to leave comments. That's what a blog is.

So here goes.

We eat from bowls.

I was loading the dishwasher this morning - yes, I do leave dirty dishes out overnight to attract cockroaches - and realized that we mainly eat in bowls. Is that a sign of a slacker mom or what? It means my children and I eat

1) Lots of cereal - But it was organic cereal God! she pleads at the pearly gates

2) Things that can slide on your plate - No, I swear to you that they didn't have jello for breakfast! she says to the judge at the custody hearing

3) Liquified things - I confess that I am eating even liquified salads these days - see the green coloured blender in the picture and then call my dentist. Oh, and it wasn't callalloo

and

4) We eat on the couch. In case you didn't know, when you eat in bowls it's not as messy when you roll over the food during Sponge Bob.

Do the number of the bowls in the dishwasher correlate to the intellectual intensity of a household, whether people watch Sponge Bob or not (and whether the parents chuckle under the breath as they walk by the TV or whether they turn around, growl and say in a stern voice 'I HATE Sponge Bob.' )

When I was a young adult I never thought I would have bowls in my dishwasher. Actually, I never envisaged eating or dishwashers or anything mundane like that. I thought that I would be very skinny (so didn't need to eat), wear black all the time, smoke Gitanes or Sobranie cigarettes, and discuss intellectual topics in cafes at the Free University of Berlin - poor lil' brainwashed third-world island girl. I never thought of cavities, toilets, ticks on dogs and all the other things that they don't show in movies. And I certainly never envisaged sleeping in big old white T-shirts belonging to my father and maybe needing reading glasses in the near future!

And so here we are, Efua, Kwamena and I, living normal lives and not wearing black very often or sitting in Free University Cafes. Although I guess that radical unschooling, nomadic, homebirthing people don't really qualify as normal. But we are still normal most of the time. We have to eat, drink, clean the kitchen, bathe once in a while, sweep and mop, use the bathroom, return phone calls, buy things in supermarkets and participate in those other activities in which normal people engage and which they only show on programs like Sponge Bob.

And, in the end, isn't that what much of our spend our lives trying to figure out? How to, in the midst of all the routine parts of life, find joy. Whether you eat from bowls or not.

The Dietary Habits of these Home/Unschoolers ... and more

2009-06-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

Lots of people have been asking me to write about why we homeschool and why we 'unschool'. This would be quite extensive and I can't honestly say that it will be easy to condense into a few posts. So to make it easy I thought that I would simply begin by sharing our days, touching on our habits, our activities and more. There is a lot about this lifestyle that I take for granted and that I think focuses in on the joy that we find in our daily lives.

When it comes to food and eating there is no regularity for either Kwamena or Efua. Many parents notice, on a close look, that their children eat in spurts. Lots and lots of volume goes down the hatch some days and very little some days. Some children eat more in the morning others eat at night. Some eat lots of carbohydrates for a few weeks and then it may be protein for the next few weeks. Some may focus on one food for days and then not eat it again for months. IMO the human body, when not distorted, figures out what it needs with a tightly calibrated but casual looking guidance system.

One of the joys of homeschooling - and especially radical unschooling - is that I can support my children to follow their individual eating habits - and the corresponding bathroom behaviour. They really do spend a lot of their day eating and I am usually involved in most of it.

Today Efua started with a big bowl of oatmeal and honey

Kwamena had angel hair pasta with cheese and pasta sauce. I forgot to take a photo.

Then they had vanilla ice cream

Then baked potatoes with cheese, broccoli (their favorite vegetable) and veggie dogs.

Then blue corn chips with melted cheese and a little pasta sauce

Efua had some basmati rice

Then more ice cream

Then some remnants of the chocolate cookies that we made yesterday - except in a pie dish so it was more like a chocolate chip cookie cake.

Then Kwamena had a piece of a banana

and Efua had an egg, a slice of bread and a piece of a veggie dog.

And of course lots and lots of water to drink all day long and a bit of juice for Efua.

And me? I'm loving organic apple/celery juice these days so I had a few glasses of that as the day went on and some of the baked potato.

If you want to label our learning style you would say that we fall into the category of unschooling homeschoolers - sometimes known as natural learners, self-directed learners, whole-life learners, there are lots of different terms that try to condense the description. And the same basic principles that underly our learning can be found in our eating.

Even though I don't force the children to eat what I want them to eat, or to eat on my schedule, I do encourage them to eat things that I think will enhance their lives. I keep a wide variety of food in the fridge and always try to cut up the freshest stuff - the fruits, their favorite vegetables - and have them accessible on the counter or table if possible. But I don't insist and I don't require. All of the food that you saw served above was stuff that they asked for or that, when I offered it they willingly accepted.

When children first become self-directed eaters there is usually a period during which they eat massive quantities of the 'unhealthy' stuff. The more rigid you were about it before, the more they are going to shovel it into their mouths. They do not trust that the restrictions have been removed and so the sweet stuff, the crunchy stuff, the coloured things, the artificial flavours, will be breakfast, lunch and dinner of choice. This is a really really hard transition to deal with if you are oriented to 'healthy' food - and it can go on for a year or so. But in supporting your child to develop discernment, you have to give them room to experiment. And the best way for them to experiment is with you at their side.

At one point Kwamena said to me 'The more freedom you give me the more you make me pay for it.' And what he really was referring to was the fact that although I was not restricting, I was there making snide remarks about how he was going to be getting ill from all that sugar, or getting tired from the lack of fresh stuff. And I took stock and stopped. I do believe in the Law of Attraction -the vibration and thoughts that you bring into your life are self-fulfilling prophecies and bring results in line with those vibrations and thoughts. So we don't need fear of food to be part of our household. We need to come from the vibration that we are resilient, and that divine energy comes to us from whatever we eat.

And my children are still incredibly healthy. Efua has had two colds - one last week - and 4 days of fever, in total, in her almost 5 years. Her eyes are clear white, her skin glows, and she is full full of energy. Kwamena is also really healthy and any problems that he has with health clearly started when he had shots as a child. His first dose of immunizations - even though I delayed them significantly - had him with a cold within an hour. His second dose led to a series of ear infections that I only halted on doing cranio-sacral work at the Upledger institute in Florida.

As it makes sense I'll keep blogging on how the home/unschooling thing looks and I would love to hear from the rest of you if you have thoughts or questions.

In case you think that all we did was eat for the whole day. We also

Played a lot (Efua)

Learned to read some new words and to type them on the computer keyboard (Efua likes to do her own google searches so wanted to learn to look up her own games)
Watched movies in English, Spanish and Japanese (both Kwamena and Efua)

Continued complicated negotiations with global online friends to get them to switch to his preferred game (Kwamena)

Succeeded at his negotiations (Kwamena)

Learned lots and lots of complicated online game techniques that I cannot describe but am now learning (Kwamena)

Learned to use a credit card online (Kwamena)

Resisted intense pressure to do an activity that did not make sense for him (Kwamena)

and hugged and talked to their mother off and on throughout the day (Kwamena and Efua)
I, on the other hand, spent much of my day engaged in my own activities but keeping a close eye on what their needs were. Efua tends to call for me much more to type for her, to play with her, to look at movies with her, to do google searches - she has been on my computer for 4 days now which is very unusual for her - and to get her cold drinks 'NOW!' and organize her social needs. In the midst of this I did do some income earning work - met with some members of a farmers' group which I helped to start and which is going really really well, started a blog for the group, worked on a paper on Food and Health, ordered some organic dry goods, cleaned the kitchen about 3 times, did some household bookeeping, checked in multiple times with my emotions to keep some unwanted drama from entering our chill vibration, practiced my latest Bob Marley piece on my acoustic guitar - Kwamena is taking electric guitar lessons instead -

and connected in with lots of our wonderful allies and community to keep our lovely life as rich and as caring and as wonderful as this life can be and usually is.

We are soooo blessed!

Bliss II - A Tourist at Home

2009-06-22T04:08:00.001-07:00

The walk across the coast has quite a different vibe than the through-forest part. There is no longer the cool shelter of the canopy, the occasional temptation of a waterfall roaring or a spring tinkling in the background, and the almost complete absence of human life. Instead there are tempting glimpses of sand and water and the occasional smell of a campsite meal being prepared - it took all my self-control not to rip off my overalls and run screaming like a banshee into the waves.

The North Coast sea is a diva. She is loud, dramatic, unpredictable and sometimes dangerous. She prepares the shoreline for the turtles everywhere by packing up beach sand for their nesting, then in a couple of days, when the turtles are done, whoosh, she washes away the sand so that humans don't think it had anything to do with their bathing pleasure. She'll rip you out to sea if you are not vigilant, but boy can she also be seductive.

By the time I arrived at my sleeping spot, despite resisting the running-into-the-waves-like-a-banshee behaviour, it was late afternoon. I waited about 10 seconds before getting into the water. And it was the same roll-me-around-from-sandbar-to-depression teaser waves that had been here last time. But in addition the sky decided to have a party. For about 45 minutes I was treated (and it was about me since the beach was completely deserted of other humans) to an amazing spectacle of first and second chakra colours with a tinge of the seventh thrown in for good balance.

I thought that the celestial show was over when the earth bowed its head to the sun. But on abandoning my hammock in the middle of the night (I don't like rustling noises in leaves while I am sleeping - even if they reveal themselves the next morning to be linked to ocelot paw marks in the sand) and wrapping up in my sheet on the sand, I was serenaded by the Milky Way. Because of the lack of the sliver of the moon, and the absence of clouds, every star that hung around this planet was revealing itself. I saw the swirling sand-like formations of the galaxy, I saw lots and lots of the major constellations, and I saw at least 6 shooting stars diving through the sky. And that's when I was looking. Which between dozing off, walking around looking at turtles doing their mothering do, stirring phosphorescence in the pools left on the sand by the midnight high tide, and occasionally sitting by the fire to warm myself up, was not a lot of time. The sky was partying.

And the next day it kept going from one encore performance to another. I had run out of food - I ate everything the night before - except for some limp lettuce leaves and a couple of olives. But the sunrise tried to leave me satisfied by pulling out brilliant moment after brilliant moment. No offense, solstice sun, but I was still ravenous and ended up eating some chataigne that Kelly, Karl's wife, had sent with him, and drinking coconut water. But these early morning rays surely satisfied me in other ways.

A beach appeared where there had been none the month before. A little private sliver of sand wedged between two magnificent rock outcrops. Just right for sunny skin and midmorning contemplation. Plus some hungry stares at the whelks and cockles and pacro (chitons) despite my vegetarian lifestyle. I was still empty-bellied and if I had some lime with me they would have been immediate ceviche.

The invisible water sparkled. Sandbars peeped over the surface of ripples. And the beach continued as empty as ever.

When you wake at 4 AM it's lunchtime by 9 O Clock. So after filling the water bottles from a rocky river we started on the walk back. Past Justin's cottages where I bummed some bananas and where I'll go with the children in a couple of weeks. Then a stop to chill with the corbeaux on a wide and restless beach and take another dip. And the requisite sexy bikini shot - yes, I did pay good money for a gold bottom and a silver top so that I could look like a fish. And no - I haven't yet mastered the self-timer so did find myself adjusting an 'alpiniste' swimsuit.

A moment to drink in the beauty of Paria Bay before heading back forest wise.

My body was stiff from the rapid movement the day before. So with silence still, and a more leisurely pace I plumbed outer beauty and inner examination. Karl, the perfect guide, relaxedly left me with my thoughts, staying just close enough that I kept him in sight, but giving me enough room to look around and sink into the forest life.

When we got to Brasso the Father's Day celebrations were in full swing and I was able to bum a ride to Arima. I was so tired that, despite an aspiring Grand Prix maxi driver, I slept all the way to town and then dragged myself to the St. Ann's taxi stand. Back to a different river, a different journey.

(For an experienced forest/wildlife guide you can reach Carl Fitzjames from Brasso Seco at 667-5968)

Bliss I - A Tourist in My Own Country

2009-06-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

Don't ask me to run from a burning fire today. I can barely hobble 10 feet. But there is satisfaction in the pain because my thighs are rock hard and my memories of adventure-magazine beaches are intact (and I have photos).
This weekend I tackled the Northern Range. I walked about 9 miles from Brasso Seco to Paria Bay - Feel that deep admiration for me, 9 miles in a mountain range is not easy - and then about 3 1/2 miles across the coast till I got to my Trini essence-of-me beach. And then I walked back the next day. And I took tons of pictures with my little cheapo camera. It was a mouth-opening, Eden beautiful,Milky-Way revealing, ocelot weekend.

You may remember that I did a little full moon North Coast odyssey about 6 weeks ago during the middle of the Sixth Day of the Mayan Calender. Well this time it was 'dark night' journey - I didn't glimpse the moon until about 4 AM on Sunday, the day of the solstice - and so the stars put on quite a show. More on that later.

As a parent it meant that I had to organize things before leaving home. And that was a journey in itself. Finding places where each child wanted to go, making sure there was food, money, clothes, toothbrushes, that the transitions were going to be smooth, that the numbers were recorded, that the hair was combed, and all the other little things that surely add up. No wonder mothers hardly travel.

And then there was the journey to get to the journey. My car is still down so it meant walking to a St. Anns taxi, walking from the St. Anns taxi stand to the Priority Terminus and catching a redband maxi to Arima. A chill drive up the Priority Route with a non-racing-car-driver is always cool although the scenery is nothing to write home about.

Then a good 45 minute wait for a taxi to take me into Brasso Seco. For those who don't know, Brasso Seco is a little village - population about 300 - nestled in the Northern Range just above the Asa Wright Nature center. That's where I was going to meet someone to take me into the forest and hang out with me on the beach overnight. But there is only really one route taxi for Brasso and after the 45 minutes while we waited for the driver when he arrived he had to go and 'run message' for a few people and then sit and eat lunch. Fortunately Carl Fitzjames - the guide with whom I was going on my adventure - anticipated how long this whole thing would take and decided to come down the 16 mile hillside road and pick me up in Arima. When we left the corner the taxi driver was still eating his soup with relish. But at least this picture will show you the bar where you have to wait for the Brasso taxi if you ever retrace my steps.

After spending my morning and early afternoon getting there and hanging out listening to people proselytizing on the end of the world while taxi waiting you can imagine my exhalation on seeing this

once my walk started.

And what a walk it was! Up and Down and Twist and Turn and Climb and Run and Drink and Savour and Listen and Think and Follow and Lead and Jump and Up and Down.

We got to the sea in 2 1/4 hours. Carl had planned on 4 and he said that only when going by himself has he ever made it in such record time. I cannot describe how invigorated and physically inspired I was during those hours. At one point we were moving along briskly, in silence, and I just let him know that I was passing him and would be running. Why? The Lord alone knows. I just felt to run. And so I did not knowing that Carl was a marathoner who used these tracks as his training grounds. So he followed close on my heels. In silence. It was amazing. The path was wide and we were closely surrounded by untouched rainforest. When we were thirsty or hot we would descend a steep trail down into the bottom of the riverbed valley and drink sweet spring water and then run back up to the main trail. All I needed was a pair of wings to be able to take off. It felt just about possible.

We did most of the 2 days in silence. I have been increasingly drawn to spending companionable time with others without saying anything but the essentials. And it is much more of a gold mine than I could have imagined. There are thoughts and feelings and sensations that appear, wash over me and then move on - if I only remove all resistance to the feelings and don't create any stories.

When I walk like I walked this weekend I forget about everything else. I forget about the other essential pieces of my life journey (as I write this my daughter is climbing all over me refusing to let me write, refusing to let me use the computer, pointing out the icons for what she was doing before I put my grubby fingers on the keyboard, staying focus on her desires - this is another part of my journey.) I drift from the outer world - the sounds of the birds, the glint on the water, the feel of the breeze on my cheek - to the inner world - my thoughts, my feelings, my communication with the divine. This is my meditation.

I love the forest but I breathe the sea. And so that moment, in the midst of the birdcalls and the rustling leaves, that moment when you hear the first crash of the waves is like a homecoming for me. There is first the sound and then the sight. The first glimpse of sand through the trees. And then the blue and white of the water. And then the feel of the sand through your toes. Here I am, Mother! I am home!

A Tourist in My Country

2009-06-19T09:59:00.001-07:00

It's always best to pretend to be a visitor. Whether you're pretending to visit your country of residence, your planet, or your universe. Seeing things with fresh eyes can make you aware of much of the beauty that you pass over with a more familiar regard.

This week I went to my dentist in Chaguanas and fresh eyes definitely helped me to see the vibrancy and the individuality on the cramped streets. I felt that carefree sense of being on holiday even though I was off to interfere with my teeth. And in any dentist's office - in this case the amazing Dr. Curtis Sealey - having a new attitude helps. Instead of feeling stressed out by the sound of the drill and the smell of the amalgams, I allowed myself to feel so grateful for all this attention I was getting. How nice to have a highly-trained man and 3 assistants attending to one lil' ole tooth and trying to ensure that it could hang around for a long long time! It was kind of like a massage. Not exactly, but kind of. The new spa. The dentist's office!

And then I brought new eyes to my visit to the Carlton Savannah. What a perfect South Beach place for my time in Trinidad! And it's walking distance, Yahoo! Check it out at www.thecarltonsavannah.com. I've gotten to know the Executive Chef, Jason Prangnell, because he actually sought me out trying to find high-quality local produce. He is really really passionate about food and its ingredients - just up my alley. I can talk enthusiastically about all kinds of things with him (and with my other favorite chef Khalid Mohammed) that have other people yawning. You already read my post about my infatuation with lettuce, and so you are aware that I can come out of my funkiest funk by seeing a Miss-Universe-level tomato, a milky soursop, or any grown thing that is bursting with authentic energy! Jason and Khalid are definitely my buddies in this regard. Look out for some fun developments in this area.

When I travel I don't usually seek out the more upscale places - not for any particular reason but just cause they are outnumbered by the funky little authentic joints. But it was fun to go to a chi-chi spot and run into - Ha Ha - the same dentist from the day before who made it possible for me to bite down on the goodies in the lounge. And a couple of other faces that I had seen around. And to be spending time with a very cool friend whose clothes I am always trying to steal from her. (And one of the good parts is that she brought me a ton of clothing goodies. I'm so happy, la di da di da.)

So despite my 'back to the basics' philosophy and lifestyle, I see people I like everywhere I go - even the latest hotspot in town. It's as yummy as the green papaya salad that I had yesterday! I LOVE being from out of town. And I can't wait to taste the Channa & Salt Prune soup in the upstairs restaurant.

Puerto Viejo - my eclectic homeland

2009-06-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

I was born in Trinidad and definitely consider it my 'mother' country. My early adult years in the US make it my 'adopted' country. But Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica is certainly a place that is my 'individualism' town of choice.

Maybe it was the landscape. Undeveloped beaches overhung with branches of almond trees. Mountains in the background without any visible buildings. The main road running alongside the shore so that you could just park your bike and jump into the water on the spur of the moment.

Maybe it was the people. The German boy across the street from the internet cafe who became gaming friends with Kwamena and whose hobby was putting the chain back on his bike as it fell off every five minutes. The Argentinian surfer who explained to me that one of the reasons that I didn't like the Pacific Coast was that there was a human price to pay when people gave 100% to the tourist experience like they did on that coast. The short haired Jamaican woman known as Boy Boy who sold whole wheat Jamaican style bread from her backpack and who lived in a large two storied house right on the beautiful black sand beach - Playa Negra. The white rastafarian woman with whom I always shared a pleasant smile and a wave as we passed each other on our bikes every day, small child in each of our bike seats. And I could go on for hours. The Trini-Guyanese-Canadian-Costa Rican who owned the best restaurant in town and who became our host for most of the trip. The rastafarian surfing teacher Beto from Uruguay who insisted that he give extra time to me to get me up on the board after Kwamena's lesson. The Nicaraguan man from Corn Island who grew up riding horses on his car less island and who handed over the reins to me when the children went horseback riding and said 'you take them out. I'll stay back here. Walk wherever you want to go.'

Maybe it was the whole vibe of the place. An energy that said, we know that everyone in the rest of the world thinks that everything is SO important, but we think that nothing is really that important. So step off that Speedy Gonzalez trip that you are on and come join us as we bring a 'chillin' attitude to everything that we do. That's why there was a 'hammock hotel' where we stayed, no buses or cars accessible for transport so most people ride bikes, and three wild horses wandering the streets of the town.

The place if full of 'misfits.' People who have found themselves to be really out of sync with the values of much of the rest of the world but feel at home here. There is a little community of cowboy style outlaws on the north of the town but I didn't really want to get too close. The majority of the local population is made up of bilingual black descendants of Jamaicans and people from other parts of the West Indies. But there are Amerindians, Europeans, Americans, Canadians, people from other parts of Central and South America. A survey was done recently and of the 4000+ people there they found over 40 languages spoken.

Puerto Viejo whets your appetite for an unpretentious life where shirt and shoes do not matter. Where no one gives a hoot about the size of your bank account or whether you have one at all. And where the shop owners threatened not to pay taxes because of the bad state of the roads and the municipality came and paved the main road just in front of the businesses. Nothing more, nothing less. In front of one of the restaurants there was a teenager with a hose who stood there all day wetting the road to keep the dust down. It's that kind of place. It's the kind of place where you just ask where 'Baby' or 'Stash' or 'Crazy Sylvester' or 'Raul' are and everyone can tell you not only where they live but how long ago they passed down the road.

I'll be back. The question only is when.

SCREEEEECHHHH!! Who pressed the brakes???

2009-06-16T04:07:00.000-07:00

I did. I confess. I didn't want to, but returning to Trinidad, being surrounded by familiarity, by assumptions and by expectations was too hard to resist. The arms in the air, spinning around, dancing with the wolves impulses became very still and were drowned out by my desire to make everyone happy and comfortable around me.

Did anyone come up to me and outright say - Madam, your desire for freedom makes life difficult for the rest of us. Our children do not like our restrictions when they look at your type of parenting, you make us feel like something is wrong with our choices by living standard lives, and you actually appear quite irresponsible to us. Imagine a 45 year old woman with 2 young children (already an irresponsible situation in our opinion) gallivanting around the globe! You don't put away money for the future. You have few possessions of major financial value. You haven't been thinking about your retirement. And you no longer have a spouse. So please get your act together. At some stage, if you don't change the way that you are doing things, you are going to have to lean very heavily on the rest of us who have done things differently and put away a nest egg!

No. No one said that. Actually in the past few days, since my return home I have been congratulated for my choices, called a 'mentor', admired for the new vibrancy of my presence and my physical fitness. The gratitude from others has been coming full force and has far outweighed the worried judgement from a small handful of family and friends. The fear that they feel when they look at me is centuries old and has accumulated to a massive height during that time. No utterances on my part will still that fear.

How did the brake pressing manifest? At first it was a strong internal reaction. In an instant I stopped feeling free. I stopped feeling that at during every unfolding second in time I could make a new decision about the direction in which my life - and consequently the lives of my children - was going. I began to feel restricted, hemmed in, suffocating. My sparkling, passionate love affair with life - in which I have been deeply immersed for the last few months - very quickly began to get tainted. As a result I started making up lots of sour stories about myself and about the world around me.

Thank God for the fact that I have become so accustomed to feeling free that this temporary dip back into imprisonment felt completely and utterly intolerable. Little by little my rudder began to reset my course. And I began to get all the Divine help that was available.

First off my children did not lose their taste for freedom just by arriving in Trinidad. And their stretch for liberty - and their demands for the circumstances in which they could best experience it - brought up such a massive wave of anger in me that it jolted me back to myself. I was pissed off. As I felt judged by others I wanted them to suddenly become people pleasers, to be super-obedient, to make me look like a 'good' mummy. But they didn't comply. They still wanted everything that made them happy and they still wanted to live free lives. No expensive compass could have helped me get back on course as those two Naruto-quoters did.

Then inspirational nuggets began to come my way. I began having mental flashes of others who were reaching in the same direction as myself and I began to make contact. I made plans to meet with the father of a friend of mine, a man who had been flowing in a spiritual direction over many years and with whom I had always had the intention to make a connection. I set up a guitar lesson with another friend who had taught herself to play many instruments over the years. And I began to push myself physically in order to connect with rapid manifestation. I ran, I kayaked, I crunched and I leg-lifted. And bit by bit, as I glimpsed liberty and power in small doses, I could feel a loosening of the ropes in which I had rolled myself on my return. And the more that this loosening happened the more I was handed support for continuing this lifestyle. One of the gems that I received was the awareness of this guy called Oren Harris - the FLOW guy. And in particular his perspective on the 'People Pleasing Disease' Look at all three of the You Tube segments to get the information.

It will be interesting to see what I am able to relax into over the coming weeks. It will be even more interesting to observe the universe unfold in response. Can I dance naked in the sunlight during the upcoming Summer Solstice? Can I express myself authentically moment by moment? Can my vibe glow so strongly that other freedom-seekers come flocking so that we have our own gypsy clan? Will the rules and restrictions run like screaming banshees as my group of three spend our days in complete inspiration?

I await miracles with anticipation and am again thrilled to put one foot in front of the other on this amazing island of contrast.

I LOVE South Beach

2009-06-11T08:31:00.000-07:00

By now I guess that you know I harbor extremely positive feelings for the amazing South Miami Beach. I find it uplifting, beautiful, and the ideal urban environment. Yesterday I spent the day there on the beach, in the playground and out and about. The playgrounds in South Beach used to be horrible. There was very little focus on anything to do with young people but in the last few years that has changed quite a bit. At South Pointe Park - at the end - they have built grassy mounds (so now Florida children know what a hill looks like), a lovely area with sculptural metal thing-a-ma-gigs spraying and misting water, and a playground. The children and I had a wonderful time getting wet, running around and rolling down the hills.

Then we chilled on the beach and in the water until I had to skeedadle. Oh, and it's lovely when the pizza delivery people in a place are willing to bring the pizza to the beach. Can't wait till I find just the right apartment there for us!

Irritable, Angry - Shoot! Flooded South Beach!

2009-06-06T12:42:00.001-07:00

Yes, I get pissed off. Yes, I am still the perfect mother. And yes, I apologize a lot.

It gets harder to avoid lashing out when you are pissed off and not feeling completely in charge of your emotions because of deep and meaningful spiritual work you have been doing and -

1) You don't feed your children enough throughout the morning (because of the previously mentioned deep spiritual work) and as you get in the car with only 10 minutes to get to the train (which is 10 minutes away) they suddenly want cereal with milk, peanut butter sandwiches with real jelly, and they will DIE otherwise

2) You forget to check on bathroom needs and everyone needs to use the bathroom just as the train, which ended up being 20 minutes late after the drama of getting food needs met in 1 minute (see (1) above), is pulling up in the station

3) The bathroom in the train is 2 cars away and involves lurching over multiple fallen bicycles, a swaying break between the two train cars, lifting dear daughter over the swinging toilet so she doesn't sit on it, getting pee on your shoe, and then needing to use the bathroom yourself after all the holier than thou lectures you just gave them about using the bathroom long in advance of leaving home

4) On getting off the train you see the L bus to Miami Beach across the street, hurry the two loved children along while carrying four bags only to see the bus pull off as you are crossing the street and rain start to fall

5) Have four bags - as much luggage as you took for 2 weeks in Costa Rica - and you are only going for 2 days to South Beach

6) Have a destitute man eyeing you with great suspicion after you try to take his picture in preparation for a great blogpost that you were planning to do about the increase in street people in the U.S. and so you can't take his picture openly but have to keep putting your children in the front to look like you are really trying to photograph them in the middle of Nowhere, Miami in the ugliest location in the country

7) Get into the bus just in time for the storm of the decade and spend hours sitting in the bus driving through waist deep water on South Beach watching fallen branches, people pushing flooded cars, and floods of doggie poop tinged water - people in South Beach NEVER pick up after the dogs.

8) Haul your now wet luggage out of the bus and try to find a working ATM on Lincoln Road to get cash since you only have hundreds of heavy colones from Costa Rica in your bag and the taxis don't take colones

9) Have 4 year old child move into empowered zone and insist she is 'NOT WALKING ONE MORE STEP ' till she gets pizza

10) Try to find pizza while looking for ATM machine slyly out of the corner of one's eye in order not to raise the wrath of this four year old

11) Feed both children in an international fast food chain (make resolution to steam some broccoli tonight) and then have same 4 year old insist that "YOU ARE NOT STOPPING FOR SUSHI' when you try to get your food needs met by gracefully slipping two children, four bags and one hungry mother into a sushi joint

12) Try to flag down one of the 3 taxis that passes within 1/2 hour on flooded South Beach. No luck getting taxi driver to stop even when hide children behind you

13) Ask UPS truck driver if you and your hapless children can ride on his truck to cross the waist deep water on the next corner

14) Have UPS driver raise eyebrows at least 1/2 mile at your request, run into his truck and lock the door - despite the sophisticated look of your high heeled leather clogs that your shopping sister gave you to replace your normal flat, unemployed looking rubber slippers

15) Fish same rubber slippers (OK they are Havaianas) out of one of the wet bags and exchange with clogs in order to wade through knee deep water to enter apartment complex. See note about dog poop cleaning habits of South Beachers above to understand why I rush everyone into the bathtub to immediately wash body parts up to knees.

So is it understandable why I turned into a fire breathing monster later that evening and had to apologize profusely all night and the next day for my mean behaviour - which had nothing to do with my children and everything to do with my having reached capacity with everything? Fortunately, since there was no electricity in South Beach, the flames lit the apartment long enough for me to see my way around, roast some kalamata olives with the leftovers from my children's sandwiches, and eventually have a warm and cozy hug up with my two wonderful traveling companions. What a day!

Extra-ordinary times

2009-05-30T22:16:00.001-07:00

This year it is increasingly clear to me that these are extraordinary times. I love being able to live an extraordinary life and therefore flow in perfect harmony with the current energy of the universe and the globe. Being in sync, as a small being, with a much vaster trend around me makes everything so much easier.

How is my life extraordinary?
1) When people ask me where I live I say that I do not know. And that is the truth. I spent so much of my life thinking of homelessness as a negative thing. But there are many kinds of homelessness and this kind – where I feel almost completely at home wherever I am – is indescribably delicious. I have created my own desert caravan and I love the rootlessness.

2) I live fully and naturally with my children.

We have moments of unnecessary disconnection but these are not accepted as trends to follow. I do not impose my perspective and my agenda on their lives except as in temporary situations of necessity or when I have lost clarity. I create minimal rules and I consider my answer whenever I feel compelled to say no. I cherish my relationship with them above anything else - over learning, over potential earning and over health. With a good relationship they trust what I say and we can collaborate on any challenge or any mutual desire.

3) I prioritize my non-physical existence. I am able to spend much of my time being with my emotions, my relationship with the Divine, developing my understanding of the non-physical world. In exchange my intuition becomes sharper and sharper. I find information coming to me in many non-physical forms. And love becomes the definition of who I am as opposed to my definition being linked to my appearance, my thinking, my intellect.

4) I meet extraordinary people every day. I can’t even expand on this one because these daily miracle workers are indescribable. Take my word for it.

I am so blessed.

Exactly

2009-05-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

I am exactly where I need to be, I need to be
Exactly where I am, I am
A blessing manifesting
I can address the moment. Naked time unwinding
From within I find the kind of beauty only I can find
I am exactly where I need to be, I need to be
Exactly where I am, I am
Surrendering so willingly
To be the perfect me, inside this now and truly how
How else could it be?
Destiny
She blesses me
And when I try to fight or run I only wind up back at square one
And when I think I know what is best for me
Fate
She takes me back to exactly where I need to be

Amy Steinberg
Must be the Moon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqZYd2UCfI8

How come while in a tiny hamlet in Costa Rica I meet a man who was married to someone who has gone out with two of my ex-boyfriends and my ex-brother in law? And then he turns out to be a wonderful host for the next few days for us and definitely a good future friend. How come when I am hitting a certain issue hard I open a new book and the same issue is being dealt with on the open pages? How come if I simply stop trying to control my life and let it move relaxedly from one inspired decision to the next I find that everything happens in exactly the right way to make miracles?

In much of the non-dualism stuff that I am reading the message is:
There is nothing to do. It is already done. Consciousness has already made your life unfold in a particular way in order to have a particular experience and all we have to do is to go with it. The work is already done. So just enjoy the ride!

Can you do this?

Limon - Celebrating Seediness

2009-05-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

I can almost predict it now. If a guidebook seems to be making hints about the seediness of a place, the lack of a certain type of manicured setting, I can be sure that I will find lots to like about it. Limon was like that. Definitely a town that doesn’t sell a lot of paint or paint scrapers. A town without a large budget for street sweepers. A town that doesn’t bow down and genuflect in front of tourists but rather probably grabs their wallets and runs.

What I sometimes like about these kind of towns is their authenticity. The people in Limon go about their business. We tend to wake up early since Costa Rica is 2 hours behind Trinidad and the Eastern US so by 6 AM we are ordinarily walking around. And the men smoking in the central Plaza, the homeless sleeping under the cardboard in front of the customs building, the schoolgirls walking in their tight miniskirts and short white shirts, they couldn’t really care less about whether we were there or not. There was no rush to pick up garbage hoping for more tourist dollars.

I heard that they did get a bit more money from the municipality to spruce up but it certainly ain't showing yet.

We all liked our hotel - one of the best in town.
Once again a pretty down to earth place. And so no stress about children, noise, or anything else. They had some of the best pillow fights that they had had in weeks because the beds were pretty sturdy.

And there was enough 'tackiness' to win awards. I kept staring at this green cement 'thing' across the street from the hotel and trying to figure out if it was some sort of religious symbol or what. Anyhow Efua took one look at it and said - hey, an ice cream shop. I guess that my brain was tied up trying to speak Spanish almost 24/7.

And then, of course, the daily bus ride. We got to the station just in time to catch the 1 1/2 hour local to Puerto Viejo. I just drank in the lovely, wonderful, beautiful, familiar, undeveloped Caribbean coastline while the children slept.

Another win/win moment.

WIN/WIN – The Costa Rican Slant – part II

2009-05-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Limon tonight – a coastal port town that is the main entry to the Caribbean coast. I will post more about the trip from San Jose to Limon in another entry but wanted to share the progress towards win/win.

Kwamena was ambivalent about coming East but in the end decided to accompany us instead of staying in San Jose with his friend. What I thought would improve the children's experience was:
1) A hotel and not some sort of little alternative lodging choice of mine
2) Access to Room Service – that alone was enough to convince them to come
3) Television – they are watching all the cartoons in Spanish now and no longer dancing around the room chanting ‘En-glish, En-glish’ while watching.
4) Air Conditioning – they love cuddling up under the covers.
And so we got a room in a safe, waterside hotel.

The room has a small balcony facing the water which is all I need to make me happy for the week. I can’t wait for the morning to see what already is revealing itself as a slightly seedy, run-down port town – just my kind of urban vibe.

The children got their room service, a private bathroom with little containers of shampoo, and a chiller in the lobby with bubbly drinks. So they are thrilled. Kwamena got good internet access in the restaurant to allow him to play the games he loves.

We are all happy.

WIN/WIN – The Costa Rican slant – Part I

2009-05-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

A major issue has emerged over the last week since we have been traveling in Costa Rica. What I want and what Kwamena wants and what Efua wants are not the same things. And this shows up a lot when we are on the road.

Kwamena wants to hang out with people and to see the same people repeatedly. On the Pacific Coast, because of the hilly geography, the quietness of the hotel, and the fact that it is the slow tourist season, it was not easy to meet others. The hotel staff had that ‘reserve’ that you sometimes find in heavily touristic areas – a kind of protection of the psyche the locals do by keeping the relationships really superficial, interactions polite but no sharing of personal energy.

It wasn’t until the last day while waiting at the bus station that we saw someone we had seen the day before, spoke to some lost Americans from Ohio who spoke no Spanish and needed help with finding their bus, and got some encouragement to hit the Caribbean coast from a backpacker that I could see Kwamena visibly relaxing. And then we ended up taking a local bus and had much more interaction with the Tico population, people were getting on and off while going about their life. Once again I could see a loosening happening in the children.

But the best fun for him was hooking up with his Trini friend of his age in San Jose,

playing video games together, pillow fighting with two other boys who spent the night, watching TV together. And so I have kind of pinpointed that for him to have fun he has to be able to get game time with others and also make some friends – of any age.

I, on the other hand, want to go to markets, people watch, go to uninhabited natural environments, read, hang out on the beach, and have fun with them. Some of my normal uplifting activities, engaging in spiritual conversations, reading ‘New Age’ online pages, and participating in parenting groups online, I can postpone until next week. But the other stuff I would love to be able to engage with.

And Efua. She just wants to do anything that I do. And do it when I’m doing it or get to find out what I am planning to do and do it before me. Oh, and she wants to shop. Buy dolls, clothes, shoes, trinkets.

So how do we all win? Is it possible for no one to have to compromise? I am sure. I don't believe in compromise on important things. Win Win is the only desirable option. It probably would help if I didn’t get bent out of shape, cranky, and edgy when there seems to be no meeting point of our three different desires. Somewhere I think that I have been taking the contrasting tastes personally. I think that I have not fully purged the idea that ‘my children are supposed to like what I like and have the same orientation that I do.’ Unschooling confronts this assumption straight in the face and does not allow me to sit complacently in that misconception. My children do NOT like many of the things that I like and they downright refuse to engage in some of the choices that I have chosen as appropriate. And I fully support them to develop into people who use their own internal discernment over the draw of the crowd.

Very early on when I was a puritan raw foodist Kwamena declared to anyone who would listen that he was a cooked foodist. Efua claims proudly that she is a meat eater and she is totally into fashion. Kwamena loves video games, nerf guns, and Linkin Park. So I have chosen, again and again, more and more, to move towards celebrating their choices, engaging when I can and using all of these new experiences as ways to deepen my exploration of freedom, my refusal of stereotypes, and my surrender to Fate.

I can't wait to see how all of this unfolds in the days ahead.

Finding the Centre and the Edge of Infinity

2009-05-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

He who is the same to foe and friend, and also in honour and dishonour, who is the same in cold and heat and in pleasure and pain, who is free from attachment,
To whom censure and praise are equal, who is silent,content with anything, homeless, steady-minded, full of devotion - that man is dear to Me.
Krishna from the Bhagawad - Geeta XII, 18,19

OK, so I'm in love with lettuce!

2009-05-24T18:48:00.000-07:00

It's kind of funny! In all my gushing and waxing poetic about life in this blog I seem to have created an impression that my ongoing euphoria has to do with romance! LOL! And yes, I do have this somewhat over enthusiastic desire to know everything about other members of homo sapiens - men, women and children. To connect with them in a very open way. To give people presents whenever I can including my time and attention. To think about them when I'm not around them. And to do other things that are construed extremely incorrectly.

It has ALWAYS been that way for me. I guess that in this world people are supposed to be more restrained. More polite. Less exuberant. Less open about how much they really really like other people. And I'm not talking about 'romantic' love here. Just 'like' kind of liking.

But fortunately I'm over 40 now and don't have to care anymore. And I also have enthusiastic, people-loving children so the club is getting bigger. The world is changing and soon it won't seem weird to make direct eye contact with a stranger and smile at them. And no one will think it is a come on. I can't wait. I can't wait for the day when I can meet someone, click with them, and in an uninhibited way, just like a child, can play with them for the whole day (and maybe the whole night and the next day, and maybe even the next day) without them needing to go into therapy. It would be so funny if children behaved like adults and we had to set up counseling booths on playgrounds because they enjoyed each other's company too much!

And since I'm into confessing maybe this is also a good time to confess that I am batty about delicious, beautiful, well-loved fruits and vegetables (and even some animal products). Yesterday I went walking in a 'local' market here in Heredia, a town just outside of San Jose, Costa Rica. And I was so thrilled. Stall after stall of produce, meats, spices, cheeses, dry goods in piles.

Why do I feel so overjoyed when I see these things? Why do I LOVE the smell of home-butchered meats even though I have been vegetarian for almost 30 years - with a couple of mouthfuls of meat every decade or so? Why do I feel to hug the man behind the cheese counter? Why do I think that the greatest experience that I had for the week was a conversation with the tamale seller about 'que rico' the tamales were? Why do I stalk the spice stall looking surreptitiously at the many bowls with brightly coloured powders? And I pass back repeatedly to get a glimpse and to avoid doing what I really want to do which is to spend a full hour just standing gazing open mouthed at what is true beauty for me. Little piles of ground up pimentos, tumeric, ginger, and more.

How come I spent so long in the market that I had to run and catch the wrong bus and that meant extra walking to get home because I could not tear myself away? And how come I know such irrelevant things? I know the word for Persimmon (persimmon). I know that the Heredia team is in the national final after 15 years of non-success. I can tell you the price, in general, for avocados - either the small variety or the large variety. And yet I don't know where to buy clothes. Where the shopping is best in San Jose. And if I get a moment without my son I will find my way to the nearest fruit and vegetable stand to gape at all the local offerings. And not try to go have a drink in a bar or go shop in the duty free stores.

So after thinking about it yes, I guess the assumptions were correct. I am in love! And his name is lettuce!

The Free Life

2009-05-23T18:46:00.000-07:00

I know, in advance, what it would be like to go bungee jumping. To pull to the end of an elastic cord, to feel the exhilaration of being just about to touch my fingertips to the treetops and then.....biinnnnnggg........ be yanked back towards the point of origin.

My journey towards freedom - or maybe it is inside of freedom - often feels that way. Maybe that up and down isn't the full truth of it but it is often my emotional experience of this kind of life. I feel involved, engaged, unrestrained, liberated. I dance inside and outside, I sing loudly in public, I fall in love with everything and everyone. And then......YANK....
caution, anxiety, irritability. The dance stops. The song quiets. And I feel scared.

That's when the thoughts run like a rainy season river....
'Single woman traveling with two young children, malaria, too old, money will run out, who's that person, are we in the way, can't stay in touch, where are the bus tickets, can't lift Efua one more time, do I have all the bags, am I gaining weight, children not having fun, drizzling, dirty smelly clothes, settle down, what about school, too much junk, am I losing weight, need time alone.....'
I can fill volumes with the thoughts that run through my head in 20 seconds.

And then inevitably, brinnnnggggg, the bungee cord stretches out again and I go hurtling into freedom. My arms fling apart, electricity runs through my abdomen, my hair resists gravity, and my thoughts race towards the stratosphere. I find websites about Karezza, unschooling groups, buses to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. I meet a backpacking woman who tells me about crossing the border to Panama. I zing again. The blood courses through my soul. A chant tickles my lips.

But one big difference. The bungee cord gets longer and longer with every bounce. And one day, the whole thing will unravel and I will go spinning off into orbit. Ha ha. A new planet has been sighted with two blinding moons. It will be us.

Unimpressed children in Costa Rica

2009-05-22T22:04:00.000-07:00

I have been a bit frustrated. The children took a stand - despite the lovely resort on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica - http://www.hotelmonoazul.com/gallery03a.htm - and decided that they were not enjoying themselves and it was time to go back to San Jose and maybe even Florida. Yikes!
Well the beach looked idyllic

but I'm not being entirely honest in these pictures.

On the road side of the beach there is vendor after vendor. And since there are not too many tourists you get a sense of being watched, of people waiting to see whether they can entice you. Of course there is nothing wrong with this but if you are not completely self-focused it can be a bit distracting.
And Kwamena was also a bit uneasy by the constant signs warning of DANGEROUS RIP TIDES, the footnotes in books, magazines, etc warning of watching your possessions, the stories by other visitors about being ripped off by imposter parking valets. It wasn't exactly relaxing for a 9 year old who didn't understand a word of spanish and didn't feel completely oriented.

And to add to the experience I got a terrible toothache in the middle of the night and had to get some support to deal with the nerve discotheque. We even got to visit a very pleasant dentist the next day. So with all of that back we went to San Jose almost one week prior to the original plan.

The drive back was lovely. We took a local bus that took an extra hour and a half and picked up every grocery shopper, Friday night partier, Pacific Coast cowboy and fancy women going to San Jose for a fun weekend. The friendliness of the bus really put the children at ease and instantly I could see them settling down, trying out a few Spanish words, waving goodbye to friendly Ticos, and just shifting completely from their space of dis-ease. It did help that they had a few moments with the familiarity of their favourite portable computer games before re-engaging with the newness of the people around them.

And I got to look at those miles and miles and miles and miles of African Palm Tree plantations,

and muddy rivers and one lane bridges.

I loved every minute of it.

Plane, Train, Automobile

2009-05-22T22:03:00.000-07:00

The journey was quite impressive. First we started at 8 AM from my sister's house in Broward County, Florida. Then she dropped us to the Ft. Lauderdale train station.

We took a bus from the station to Miami International Airport. Then at least we walked to the gate

Took a plane to San Jose through all the normal turbulence of the rainy season in Costa Rica and the bumpiness that I have been told to expect with global warming.

Then a taxi to my friend's house in San Joaquim close to the airport. And it didn't take too long. By the time we got to my friend's house it was about 4 PM local time.

Then back into a bus,

then a taxi with a thoroughly 'lost' driver,
then an express bus to get to Manuel Antonio on the Pacific Coast by the next afternoon.

I got so much in the habit that I could have kept traveling for days. Without children, this would have been a meditation. With children it was an attempt to see what it is like to be in a meditative state (HA HA HA) even though they were determined to express their positive and negative opinions as loudly as possible. It helped to have good old Bob to listen to while they slept on the crossover from the mountains around San Jose. Stir it Up takes on a different meaning when you are living a 'free' life.

Exhaling on South Beach

2009-05-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

I keep trying to like other places in the US. But in the end there are so many things that I love about South Beach. First of all I don't have to get into a car if I don't want to. Everything is a short walk, a short bike ride, or a short bus ride away. Today I walked to the hairdresser, to the bookstore and to the ice cream shop. It was wonderful. Last night I stayed at my friend Marina's house and, as usual, got to meet wonderful South Beach people and have wonderful South Beach conversations. What do I mean by that? Well, to me the people that I know in South Beach have always been willing to make lots of difficult choices in order to do things for which they have strong passionate feelings.
I feel at home here. My children question me piercingly - like all the children that I know here. I wear eclectic clothing combinations and don't stand out. I talk about esoteric issues and am understood. Even though I haven't made much of an effort to fit into the crowd during my lifetime, it's nice sometimes to have like-minded people around.
I don't particularly get into the breast implant part of this culture - my 8 years of breastfeeding have certainly kept that part of my anatomy humble. I make a mental note to not be 'fighting' age and to do whatever emotional work I need to do in order to stay centred around this issue. And the physical environment is cool but not exactly a reflection of the natural world. So South Beach has its challenges. But on the other hand adults can certainly have fun in this small area.
So I'm going to feel my way around. Should we try to get a place here? Is South Beach worth a second look as a home? I need more time to check it out and to see whether inspiration will take me. Meanwhile, I'll just hang out getting to inhale and exhale in peace.

A Miracle

2009-05-11T00:54:00.000-07:00

I spent Mother's Day dipping into an experience that has left me in the throes of intense spiritual awe and wonder. Never before in my life have I felt so much part of the waves, the sand, the leaves, the river bed. Never before have I been on the verge of spending the rest of my days floating in the sea and letting myself be rolled, rolled, tossed and turned by the tumbling water. Never before have I felt to eat a mountain, to lie down with a deer, to become a water skater.

For a few moments in time the community of other living ones sang happy mother's day and let me fall into their world.
The leatherback turtles and I shared in motherhood as they clambered on the sand, dug deep nests and began another annual pilgrimage into procreation.
The mapipire and I shared motherhood as they mated in the forest and began preparing for their egg birth period.
The black white snail and I shared our motherhood as the little ones appeared from her sides.

Motherhood was everywhere. In the intense, close observation of another camper, David, a Master's student from Tennessee who spends days cradled in the forest looking at the whabines up close, examining mother-like what they eat in their little river springs and how their diets change over the year. In the pregnant coconuts hanging in a thick circle on the trees overhead. In the shrill 'come back home' whistle of the cicadas drowning out any other interloper in the morning sky.

I walked alert through forest trails, head titled to hear the sounds ahead. Toes barely touching the ground. A staccato skip here, a falling branch there, the tinkle of a stream, the distant roar of the waves. As an ongoing melody in my background was an awareness of Kwamena and Efua, two beings who have shared their existence so closely and generously with me. And who will soon be building a new miracle with me in this magical place of intense physical beauty.

On the journey back home with Cleve, the driver of the pirogue that provided the magic chariot to the beach, he surfed the swells, turning the boat left, dashing right,
steaaaddddy,
steaaaddddy,
there we go he caressed the restless water.
I stood in the prow for a few moments, tilting as he tilted, bending my knees to blunt the blow of the 'WADDAP' slap of the jumping boat over a particularly steep wave, catching small glimpses out of the corner of my eye of the thick breathing mountain on my left.

There are no more words for this.

I am eternally grateful. All that is left is to surrender.

Intentional Community - Part One

2009-05-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

The Great Big Happy Life Workshop – an intentional community model

OK, I admit it was only for 3 nights and 3 ½ days. OK, I admit that there were mainly mothers there and OK, for the last time I will admit that it was all-inclusive. (If you are reading this I am not talking to you, just to the internal skeptic that keeps me from becoming complacent.)

But in the end, the Great Big Happy Life Unschooling Conference in New Jersey was the closest thing that I have come to a glimpse of what an intentional community could look like. I have lived in co-housing of different types but there were never any prior screening questions. It was generally in the vein of, I know you, I need a roommate, are you interested?

During the days of the GBHL workshop there were many things that made the experience wonderful and some of these would be great to replicate in an intentional community.
These included:

No money woes – we all paid in advance for food and activities so no one had the stressed out experience of – can I afford it? and all the discussions with our children that can be involved in that question.

Minimal housework and other chores – the food was cooked by someone else, the dishes were washed by someone else, the floor was swept by someone else, and we didn’t have to worry about things like plumbing, leaks in the roof, the grass to cut, etc.

Minimal need for personal cleanliness – My children barely glimpsed water for the entire workshop. My son refused to take shower for 3 days and my daughter only took one because she was covered in paint. I felt no pressure because all the other boys looked grungier than Kwamena did and I had bought him new underwear at Target before coming to the workshop. I actually showered a couple of times a day because it was the only solution that I found for staying warm.

And finally, we were meeting all these amazing people and children for the first time in real life.

Yes, I’m kind of joking around with my tone – but be aware that the facts about bathing and so on are accurate. So maybe the ideal intentional community should:

1) Be like a Club Med All Inclusive – food is provided at bountiful buffets. Activities are included in the price. And there are tons of things for smaller people and bigger people to satisfy our every need for stimulation

2) Have mandatory grunginess in its mission statement. Think of how that would remove the pressure if all of the inhabitants could only bathe once a month! And children could only change clothes once a week!

3) Have compostable everything so that no dishes need ever be washed. If someone wanted to get ceramic plates or mugs they would have to apply for a variance and be charged a fee.

4) Actually maybe we should all live in tents so that things like plumbing, roof leaks, joists (I put that word in so that I would look construction-savvy), and mortgages didn’t add stress to our lifestyles.

5) A lack of permanence. Knowing that you will leave at some point will make the whole thing bearable. No one could stay there for more than 6 months at a time and then they would have to go back to regular jobs, required bathing for social acceptance, and other unpleasant rules that would make a return to the intentional community a deep relief.

I’m too tired so I will finish this tomorrow.

New Jersey Shore - New Friends

2009-05-02T03:34:00.000-07:00

We are couchsurfers. That is, we belong to an organization of strangers who become friends while staying at each other's homes - check out www.couchsurfing.com. When I talk about couchsurfing to people the immediate reaction of most of them is 'Wow! I would love to do it but I don't think that I can trust people that much.' But there is a small minority that are like 'Wow! It's just what I was looking for!'

So we are couchsurfers. We have night hosted a couple of people, day hosted a few, and I have stayed by some and intend to stay by many more in the future. It has been one of the best things in my life so far. Many of the couchsurfers are amazing people. Unbound to place, to things, to anything else but people and other living beings. Some are amazing but have more mainstream lives. But almost all of them seem to get it. The 'it' being that just because you know someone doesn't mean that they are not going to do bad things to you AND just because you don't 'know' someone doesn't mean that they are going to do bad things to you.

I trust people a lot. And have had such amazing experiences in my life because of trusting my intuition about people. We just finished going to a wonderful unschooling workshop in New Jersey. And we made so many new friends. We were planning to couchsurf our way from Florida to New York and back but now we have people to stay with who we have met AND couchsurfers and we will probably go as far north as Vermont because we have met some great friends from up there.

This weekend we are at the Jersey Shore with some other new friends. I met Marcelle in one of the yahoo unschooling groups in which I participate and we completely clicked with each other in person when we met at the conference this weekend. Her son and Kwamena hung out through a lot of the Great Big Happy Life Conference and Efua loves her. She organized a Pretty in Pink funshop with makeup, glitter, hair sparkles and pink boas and Efua loves nothing better. Her husband is also absolutely lovely and the children enjoyed the few hours that he was able to hang out with us last night before returning to his job.

THE SHORE

I have travelled all over the US but somehow never made it here. I always eventually find my way to islands. Last night as we were crossing the bridge from the mainland I had a whiff of South Beach and felt right at home. But it's cold. Really cold. So the children were not thrilled on the beach for more than a few minutes last evening but hopefully today is better. I had a lovely walk with my iPod, Indigo Girls, horseshoe crab shells, and the wind. I can't wait to see what it is all like today with no tourists here yet, the shops mostly closed, and great friends and great food.

The contrast of being alone

2009-04-04T23:42:00.000-07:00

It's really weird getting up in an empty house. Yesterday my children went off to spend a week at my parents' home with various siblings and cousins. I have 4 sisters and brothers and in all there are 10 grandchildren. My parents live in Tobago and over the course of the next week all my siblings and their children will be meeting for Easter at my parents' house. There is one cousin who is 16 and all the 9 others are 11 years old and under so there will be complete playing and fun for almost 2 weeks. The adults are usually running around preparing meals, providing towels after swimming pool and beach time, fixing snacks, combing hair and getting clothes. The children take over.

I ended up deciding to stay here in Trinidad for a week before joining them. I am centrally located in the national organic movement and there will be a trainer coming for the week to start our farms in their process of organic certification so I have to move around to about 10 farms over the week . The children have much more fun being in Tobago and I can also do what I need to do here in a more focused way.

I guess some of this post is about coming to terms with unschooling in our own way. I am now full-time solo parenting and self-employed and spend most of my time together with my children but have to also find the way to incorporate activities that flow financially and creatively. I try to find activities that are my children's 'first choice' when I am otherwise occupied but it doesn't always work that way. Spending a full week apart brings me to a realization of myself that is not the same as I usually feel. .

Parenting young children and mixing the lives of young children and adults in such a complete way - as happens with radical unschooling - can be all absorbing. Kwamena and Efua still require lots of involvement in filling basic needs - showering, shampooing hair, getting food and snacks, organizing around sleep, moving around from one place to the next, communicating with friends and getting friends to come over - the list is still long. And the amount of support available to do these things varies as to whether my parents are in the country, their father is in the country, I have a housekeeper or not, and lots of other factors. So spending even a day without having them at home provides a big contrast. And now a week ....

First off there is silence. No sound of their voices, no television or online games, no Youtube, no squeaking creaking toys. The house is silent except for the never-ending neighborhood dog barking that is part of Trinidad life. Sometimes I seek out silence when we are all three in the house together - I wake up in the middle of the night to get it - but right now it is a bit deafening. No Efua saying firmly - I want cereal and I want it now! No Kwamena calling me to look at something online or on the television. No voices of friends or cousins asking for more cookies. The silence is loud.

Then there is unnecessary alertness. I am not a paranoid parent but I always have a third ear listening out. Am I needed by someone somewhere? Is a pot boiling? Has the dryer stopped? Where is the ringing phone? Was that a crashing sound? And do I need to get a broom for fragments? All part of a typical day. And now the alertness is redundant. The only person who is close enough to need their wellbeing considered is myself. What do I do with all this awareness? Who is there to look out for? I am not accustomed to having someone else do this part of parenting and I admit to feeling very uncomfortable at having to stop doing it - if even for one week.

And the time. I am accustomed to hustling with hours. I 'sneak' naps and Skype calls. Am often juggling 10 balls. Have to schedule time tightly to get many things done. I have some commitments this week but can sleep when I want, watch movies, catch up with undone tasks, prepare only salad and steamed vegetables all week, talk for a long time on the telephone without having to interrupt the conversation constantly to answer questions or give information. What a change!

There is a definite sadness that I will sit with. I miss my two friends and constant companions. They offer me so many opportunities to stay grounded in passion. They are living examples of authenticity and realness. They are so lacking in neuroticism. And they are so determined in their happiness, their indignation, their emphasis on the fullness and completeness of every moment. They are the jumping off point.

And what I can do this week is to be. There is not as much 'doing' that is necessary - if I don't go and start looking for it - and I can really practice 'being' so that when I run into their arms on Sunday next I have moved closer to myself and no longer get so removed, at confused moments, from who I am. I am so blessed.

An Attitude of Gratitude

2009-02-14T19:42:00.001-08:00

I am grateful for:
Efua's taking charge of her clothing and her dressing
The wonderful group of teachers and parents at the Life Centre and all the tears we've shared together
My drive to reach for authenticity
Opportunities to meet people with very different lifestyles and to connect deeply to them
The opportunity to fly over Dominica this week
Having learned during this lifetime that crying is a good thing
My robust health that allows me to get out there to walk in the pre-dawn hours

Taking a trip to St. Kitts and Nevis, Part 1

2009-02-14T10:24:00.000-08:00

I went on my own to St. Kitts and Nevis this week. It was a short trip. I left Trinidad at 3 PM on Tuesday and left St. Kitts at 2 PM on Thursday. But despite the brevity it was quite a full time. It was useful for me to become clear that I prefer to travel with my children, and I prefer longer trips even if they seem more convenient and are more expensive.

As I move fully into being an income owner outside of the shop I am faced with multiple choices about how I am going to spend my time. And I really intend to have most of my time be focused on my children and my relationship with them. But I also want to have some activities outside of this point of focus and most of those activities I would like to center around teaching and leading in the area of behavioural change/health/agriculture. St. Kitts and Nevis fell squarely into this desire.
I was invited to St. Kitts to be the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Ministry of Agriculture. The topic was on Information and Communication and their role in moving agriculture forward. Just up my alley! The talk went very very well. I was able to engage a diverse audience - from farmers to academic agriculturists - and to keep them awake for the entire time. However, it would have been great if I could have talked for the full time but we were late in starting and by the time we got to my turn we were quite behind.

I visited one farm on St. Kitts where they are working with young children. The children learn organic farming and have adult contact and support to help them get a solid sense of themselves. A great project but, like many other similar initiatives, the organizers are on the verge of being burnt out. The other two farms on Nevis, were well worth the 6:30AM ferry ride and the ferry ride back just in time to catch my flight back home.

The children seem to have done well with their dad and my mother but on Friday, the day after my return, they were very much in need of focused attention and I had to teach a class, send some faxes, do ordering for the coop, and more. I feel really torn between what I would like to see happen in the ideal situation, and the need for me to take care of a wide range of activities in order to support their lives in a holisitic way and to earn the income to meet their needs.

One of the highlights of my trip was the plane ride back home. It was amazing to fly out of Antigua and see below me Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Marie Galante, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia and then the flickering lights on St. Vincent. In the darkness I missed Grenada but by the time we reached Trinidad I had been inspired by seeing some many of the homes of my fellow Caribbean people. Nothing like a trip through the region to awaken an affectionate feeling for my part in it.

Folding the feelings and putting them away

2009-02-03T18:26:00.000-08:00

For me the most challenging aspect of parenting is being in charge of my emotions rather than allowing my emotions to take charge of me. If I am grumpy, feeling frustrated, unable to get something that I want, then I have had a tendency to allow these emotions to guide my behaviour. On an intellectual level I understand that it does not make sense to let these emotions run over when there are other people involved. But on a feeling level it is sometimes extremely tempting to lash out at the others around.

When my daughter is upset and angry she has a tendency to be very rough with the dog. I feel quite upset when she does this but I try not to extend the lashing out behaviour by lashing out at her. And in the same vein I have a tendency to be very rough with them when they are treating each other roughly in an attempt to stop their behaviour. How much sense does that make?

So after all these years of learning about and teaching other about emotions, I can truly empathize with those who do not feel emotionally competent 24 hours in a day. So visualizing folding the feelings and then putting them away is a really good strategy. But how is it possible to only put away the bad feelings and leave all the good ones alone? I don't think that it is.

Win Win

2009-02-02T15:47:00.001-08:00

Yes, I am super tired after a win-win day! One of those days when we all have different desires but all end up getting them met. The only part that I have yet to figure out completely is the driving.
So the day started with a good long sleep for us all, pancakes with syrup - efua's favourite - an extra pineapple for free from the neighbourhood green grocer, and then on the road.
First I dropped off the children to our new unschooling friends in Maracas, St. Joseph, then picked up a friend and his mother, then off to Caura valley to pick up produce for the coop, then over to Agronomics for a pleasant surprise with all the seedlings that they have on offer, back to Maracas valley for a wonderful few hours having lunch and chatting with my friend the unschooling mother (I'm still in a bit of belief that there is another one in Trinidad) back to town to pick up some payments for work in which I am involved - while the children slept soundly in the back seat, dropped Kwamena home to play World of Warcraft while Efua and I went off to the bank - where she loves to go, picked up my brother and his daughter to take them to the ballet school, detoured to dvd store for some new movies, next to the coop to drop off produce from Caura, quickly dropped my son and his cousins to karate, picked up my brother and my niece from ballet school, drove home to cook dinner, picked up Kwamena from karate and here I am watching Happily Never After with Efua.

Is your head spinning as yet?
And yet with all of this I could stop and breathe and notice how lucky I am. Efua just loves me. And seeing both of them so happy with the high level of social stimulation that they both want combined with minimal harassment just made my day over and over. I am so blessed. And yes, just like today with Kwamena Efua and I all got what we wanted, it is possible for everyone to win at the same time.

Waiting for the dawn

2009-01-31T01:06:00.000-08:00

I love to walk in the early morning. But since I don't use an alarm it is a bit of a hit or miss process. Some mornings I don't get up in time to avoid the traffic, the noise and the oppressive warmth of the day. Other mornings I awake when the clubbers are now driving past with screeching brakes, drunk drivers too prone to veer off the road for me to venture out.
This morning was one of the 'too early' ones. When I crawled carefully out of bed - I cosleep with my children many nights - I thought it was about 5 AM and so I was totally prepared to scrape on my clothes, push my way into my running shoes, gather my phone, my iPod, some dollars and my glasses, and start down the stairs until ...oops ... my morning ritual of remembering that I forgot my keys.
But when I gazed at the time it was only quarter past 3! So now I've had two hours to catch up on my reading, fix my other computer - Yaay it turned back on finally, look at some hilarious youtube videos, and charge my iPod. It still looks like this outside

but in 15 minutes (at 5:30) it will be perfect to take a stroll. I can't wait to smell the ylang ylang flowers, to see the early morning regulars, to feel the cool cool air coming off the Savannah. What a way to start the day!

Unschooling Friends

2009-01-30T23:45:00.000-08:00

I am still in a bit of shock that we have found some unschoolers right here in Trinidad! Talk about getting what you need in your backyard. And my children are so happy.
Even before we went to visit them Efua couldn't stop talking about them and asking question after question -
Can we spend the night?
What are their names?
How old are they?
What color are they?
Can we spend the night?

Well, I explained to her that we don't know them well enough to have sleepovers - since at that point we didn't really know them at all. So a few minutes into the visit she prompted - Mummy, we know them now so can we have a sleepover?

Efua has not been around homeschoolers very much. When we lived in Florida we hung out with their cousins who homeschool and then in France we met some others but she was too young to really get into that memory. So she was thrilled. They filled up the wading pool - twice. Played with the slide and the hose. Painted. Dressed up in all the clothes in the closet. Ate. Talked. Ran around. Swung.

Kwamena meanwhile did what he loved to do, hung out on the computer and explored games with - wonder of all wonders - a homeschooling boy who is the same age. And not only is he a homeschooler, he is an unschooler so that he gets real parental support for his interest in playing, in exploring what games offer, and in following his passion for computer games! So of course the two of them were in seventh heaven. They were side by side but organized their Skype accounts so that as soon as Kwamena got settled in at night he was chatting and playing with his new friend, introducing him to his other online friends, and for the first time in many months, was on Pirates of the Caribbean because it is a simpler game for a new person to play.

On the way home in the car the two of them conked out on the back seat and I could barely get them up the stairs before they were in dreamland again. We are all really looking forward to more of the same with this wonderful family.

Kwamena's 9th Birthday

2008-12-18T13:26:00.000-08:00

Well, my big boy turned 9 today. I will expand this post later but wanted to post the pictures. The party went from eating to sparring to dancing to movie watching to... I thought it would be a little lunch time thing but it ended up going into late afternoon! They were having too much fun to leave.

Deschooling myself

2008-12-16T02:49:00.000-08:00

It has been quite some time since I have published any of my posts. I actually keep writing them but not finishing or not inclined to finish. I think that I am on the cusp of a shift and so will start posting old ones as I get through them.

So now I know what deschooling feels like. I started school at 2, was reading by 3, topped the academic rolls for most of my life, and finished medical school at 30. Since then I think that I have slowly attempted to shift the approach that I learned.

Don't get me wrong. As most of you who are close to me know - I love learning. Even in the four year gap that I took between undergraduate and graduate school I took classes at a community college - mainly ceramics and jewellery making. I have never stopped trying to learn about things that interest me - and I am interested by so much. But yet I know that there were lots of shoulds. And now the shoulds are not desirable.

How has this affected my life?

Exercise - A lifetime of fitness did not mean that after years of almost no exercise that I fell right back it. Starting back a movement routine in the last few months has been a challenge because I was accustomed to a super-fit body all my life. And then a few weeks into the walking I began to run. Top speed running since I never accustomed myself to a slow jog. But soon my ankles and knees starting protesting. And so I slowed down again - a very unusual thing for me. I began to exercise rationally which was not something that I had ever done. Normally I would run through the pain. It has been interesting seeing how I am not as blindly driven to go all out the way that I used to be.

Food - I have been eating from food groups and food types that I haven't tasted in years. It is really interesting. And at the end of it I know that I will be fine. It's been fun to have different textures and tastes in my mouth. And to know that I also love fresh healthy food, juices, salads. Right now mushrooms are the food of the week - Portabello, Button and Shiitake. What a treat!

Books and Movies - I am gravitating towards lots of children's books and movies! Never before would I have gone to the DVD shop and chosen out children's movies for myself. Sound of Music, Lemony Snickett, the Golden Compass. I love them and want more.

Creative Ventures - These seem a lot easier. I grabbed a bunch of different things and have been slowly decorating the apartment for Christmas. It's happening without any big struggle and I am enjoying searching for and finding things to use.

I am getting happier and happier with my life!

Fear, Bravery and Parenting

2008-11-16T05:06:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest detractors from me being the best parent that I can be is fear. In the past I have been an Olympic level performer at generating fear - I would see one small issue and within 2 minutes I could create a story that would make life look worse than anything that had ever happened to anyone.
I have retired from that sport. I feel fearless much of the time. And when internally-generated fear consumes me I can usually identify it quickly and just look at it while thinking - huh, how interesting! It's that fear again.
But the most vulnerability that I have now is being infected with someone else's fear. In particular I am susceptible to the fear of other family members. Is your son going to always be disrespectful to adults? I am asked. And a shiver goes through me that I am messing up. No, my mind may say, He will be mean to people, have no friends and everyone will look at you and say - it is your fault. You experimented with him and look how he turned out. YIIIKKKEEESSS!
That's what fear looks like. Fear can take months of slow, quiet contemplation, hours of research and questioning, years of love and negate all of these substantial accomplishments in one second. All of a sudden I find myself implementing punishments, speaking in a mean voice, feeling like dirt, and doubting that I am doing anything right.

I am lucky. By the time I became a parent I had done some really really scary things already. I had shifted from a prestigous and lucrative career to an intuitive lifestyle, I had changed my country of residence a few times, I had given up traditional thinking and struck out alone, and more. So I wasn't as concerned about how I was perceived by others. But some niggling doubts remained.

I don't mean to say that I think that it is useless to pay some attention to reservations and doubts. But the times in our life when we really soar are not the times when we stay in little boxes and play it safe. The times of true wonder and accomplishment are when we step out brave, when we look at the solution rather than focus on the problem, and when we trust that all will be well.

As a parent my intention is to keep my eyes on the prize. And the prize comes to me every day in every moment.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

2008-10-09T02:15:00.000-07:00

What a life!

As I get increasingly involved in thinking about what/how we grow and what/how we eat, I am getting more opportunities to hang out with others who are doing the same. This week we came to St. Vincent and the Grenadines for me to attend a Round Table Discussion on agriculture that is happening during the Caribbean Week of Agriculture discussions. Of course provisions are not explicitly made for full time homeschooling/income earning moms to be accompanied by their children but we were able to cut and paste and fit the whole thing within our budget.

I decided to come early to give us a chance to settle in and for my mom and the children to do some knocking about before my days got tied up with the workshop. So on Sunday we took the ferry to Bequai. Quite an experience! I didn't have my camera with me but here are some amazing pictures of Bequia that someone else posted online.
http://www.bequia-information.com/Galleries/islands/bequia/002/vc-009s.jpg - This beach does look exactly like the photo. And there was not one single person on it.

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/28ef42/

We also swam and chilled on a few of the beautiful brown/black sand beaches on St. Vincent, and visited the old, authentically falling-apart set for the movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' Here's a picture of my mom with Kwamena and Efua in front of the set.

My mother leaves today and the children and I will do a bit more wandering (and working the IICA table in the St. Vincent Agriculture Exhibition) before leaving ourselves on Saturday evening. Until then I will keep holding my breath while we ride the roller-coaster like mini vans that take us from place to place on the hairpin bend steep roads. Who needs to go to amusement parks!

Birthday Girl Birthday Mom

2008-09-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

I always have felt that a birthday should be for who was born and who gave birth. While it is true that you only are born once and you may get to give birth many many times, it would still be a good day for both celebrations. Today is Efua's birthday and my 'giving birth' day.

Here's the cake

It was really really nice and best of all, Efua LOVED it.

And here are the cousins. For her celebration today we had her three cousins, Kwamena, myself and her dad. A few others dropped in including her uncles, and our latest couchsurfer, Sarah.

Of course no one was ready to leave at the end but although today was a national holiday (Republic Day), tomorrow is school for the cousins.

Tobago Travel

2008-09-17T06:56:00.001-07:00

My parents' house in Tobago is a place of real beauty. It has been a work in progress for about 30 years. And just as my siblings and I enjoyed it as children so too do my children and their cousins get to immerse themselves in this amazing spot. Wonderful!

And now there is high-speed internet so that Kwamena can feed his new passion for the World of Warcraft, and there is enough space for Efua and him to jump on the bed, play running games inside, swim in the pool, and just generally live life in a full and joyful way.

And as I detangle from my addiction of feeling like I have to be everything for everyone, and my cell phone and my land line ring pretty regularly with a call from this one about documents, a call from that one about a possible cancerous growth that she may have, a call from someone else about a resource available that can be used and developed, it is sometimes a challenge to exhale and to not feel like my life is one big piece of homework.

Even though I loved learning what I learned in school, and because I loved learning, to some extent I loved homework. However, I still remember the dread on Sunday afternoons when it was not all done. It's a similar feeling now. In my life growing up there were all these unfinished pieces of chores and homework that are waiting for me into infinity. Tasks that I could never finish to a perfectionistic level AND do the activities that I really wanted to do AND read the books that I wanted to read AND play with friends as much as made sense..... You get the drift. A life of the unfinished.

The quote from the Abraham-Hicks site today was:
You are the owner of all that you perceive. But you can't perceive apart from your vibration. Feel your way, little-by-little, into a greater sense of abundance by looking for the treasures that the Universe is offering you on a day-to-day basis.

Excerpted from a workshop in Portland, OR on Tuesday, June 10th, 1997

And Tobago is a wonderful place to notice this unfinished piece of work. It is clear that no matter what beauty the world around me offers, I play a role in the co-creation of my universe by lifting my vibration so that the beauty is accessible to me.

And so I sit still, breathe a few slow deep breaths, let a sudden strong feeling of wistfulness pass through me and be gone, and I am able to find my way back home to my spirit.

I am so blessed.