first days

today began with mike jumping out of bed and announcing that he'd forgot to set the alarm. doh!
but we chose calm over crazy rush.  we chose trust over panic. and it worked.  we even got them there early.

bryn woke up in tears, mostly because he was tired i think, but the drama of being in year one, having two friends move away over the summer, and worrying that his teacher was too serious- got the best of him.

jude was fine. he's that guy who once he knows a place, and the routine, he is set.  last year was a different story, when it was new and he was new, the world was scarey and he let us know for about two weeks. but going into year 3, at the same school, piece of cake.

zoe had verbalized last night at dinner (while everyone was fighting over who got the finish the broccoli.....i know right?) that she was both excited and nervous.  totally natural, totally appropriate.  today the slowest girl in the world, managed her time and her excitement/ nervous combo- perfectly.  i was amazed.  but not really because the peace i was feeling was also clearly not of this world.  i could feel the prayers, those arms, that sheltering, the mountain inching.

rosie was quite honestly, being a brat- because for once- she was not getting the attention she likes.  she isn't starting school yet, so other people had issues today and needed to be held or their tears to be dried.  but she's three so it's allowed.

at breakfast they wanted to know about how i felt on the 'first days' of my life.  i was shy; my mom and i had a mix up my first day of 1st grade, and i thought she was picking me up at school, she meant the bus stop- that was scarey; but in general- i like new beginnings.

this is a new beginning.  today. wednesday. august 29th, 2012.

 at the equator, we don't have the seasonality that shaped my childhood years.  i miss it, and crave it, because it was another external boundary providing internal guidance.   so school starting  feels like that first cool autumn dry wind, bringing change, the leaving of something, the beginning of another. a seasons when i am not a home-schooler, i'm no longer zoe's teacher, i am free to be only her mom and all the beauty and responsibility and privilege that comes with that.


i don't know what this will hold.  i don't even know how long it was last.  maybe my phone will ring today - maybe there will be desk hiding and falling to bits.  or maybe it won't and these hours will become mine again- to work on our mobile medical clinic- to start the farming- and the poultry project- to write- to teach- to prepare to pick up at the end of the day and be just a mom to these guys, to be the support, the back up, the ears they need, the arms they need, as they navigate their worlds with out me.

i just finished gifts from the sea.  anne morrow lindbergh writes a postlogue 20 years after the book was first published.  it was fascinating.  the book is about the stages of life for a woman, as a mother, a worker, a thinker and writer.  she writes using different shells as analogies for each stage.  in the epilogue she writes that she'd missed a stage - the stage of the empty shell.  the quiet, lonely season that happens after the children have gone, before the exciting, re-self discovery, definition phase.  a season she didn't anticipate- but would have been very helpful to have thought of  - during the crazy, busy, time-less, days and hours of child rearing.  it's so easy to be tired.  it's so understandable to want a break, to jump for joy when school starts, to roll our eyes at the whistling, or the whining, fighting, and yelling.  it makes sense that we are sick of stepping on legos and looking for tiny lego guys hats late at night, and changing wet beds, and reminding people to wear deodorant.  but.

how quickly it goes!  how soon we will miss the very things that drive us nuts.  we will long to wake up to the sounds of their feet on the floor - to hear someone ask "what do hives look like?" and "what does confluent mean?" and "are those good questions?"

i've enjoyed this silent cup of coffee and uninterrupted time outside on the porch.  but already it seems too quiet, already i'm missing their voices and  laughter.  already i'm wondering how their day is going, what questions they are asking, how they feel about their desk placement and if they like their snacks.

and that is love, i think.  loving being with them, and loving letting them go.  enjoying alone time, but eagarly anticipating reunion.  yin and yang.  there is balance there.  i want to hold it- the awareness of the empty shell in my future.  so i can treasure the fullness of today.