showing up

I have a difficult time making decisions of any kind, but when I first heard about the Women's March on Washington, I didn't hesitate to say yes. It felt absolutely right. To say I had some pent-up energy around the election is an understatement, so having a focus to move towards, even temporarily, was helpful. The girls were in complete agreement.

My indecision revolved around the how. Drive with friends? Take the over-night bus? Stay outside of DC and ride the train? It was stepping enough out of my comfort zone - into the political arena, with hundreds of thousands of strangers with their own opinions and agendas and raging feelings - that I wanted to get in and get out as quickly and simply as possible, so the over-night bus it was. From step one I was aware that this was a privilege to be so thankful for, having the time to go and the money to spend on the bus. 

Dan did his part for the cause, driving us to the bus at 1:00 in the morning and picking us up again at 2:30 the next morning. Gleep! It was an uneventful, sleepy ride, and we arrived at 8 Saturday morning.

We were so happy just walking to the metro!

Ani's highlight of the day was being stuck in the metro, where we disembarked into a wall-to-wall sea of people heading to the march. It was still a pretty sleepy bunch, but once in a while a big "Whooo!!!" would erupt and undulate through the crowd, waking us up with the shivers!

We quickly started to realize how many people were there and how far we were going to have to be from the main rally. We found ourselves a jumbo-tron and stood watching the opening speakers with a few thousand of our closest friends...

Eliza and I got all swoony over Gloria, who declared the gathering
"the upside of the downside"

To be honest, managing the day - finding bathrooms and waiting for bathrooms, having to pee while pressed up against people for hours - was a challenge, but the spirits of everyone around us were so high! There wasn't anything that could dampen the mood. Even the poor security guy assigned to bathroom duty was polite, kind and friendly! So many issues were represented: Black Lives Matter, immigration, LGBTQ rights, No Wall, No DAPL, women's reproductive rights, gun laws...it was a feast for the eyes and for our burgeoning activist selves the day was full of positive action, raised voices and filled hearts.  

Before we left, I'd asked the girls why they felt it was important to march.  Eliza said she felt like we were showing up for people who didn't have the option to be there; that this president has made a lot of young women feel like they don't matter, that their voices are not as important, and she wanted to show up to have a voice. Ani told me she was thinking about friends of ours in the community who are Muslim and are here from Saudi Arabia in a tenuous visa situation, following the deportation of the family member who brought them here. She worries for them and knows they are scared to speak up for fear of drawing attention to their situation.

We returned tired but inspired, ready to move forward to the real work of becoming informed, speaking up and showing up, again and again and again.

Bits of December

I'm going to back-track a bit and start trying to catch up on the days and days and days...We were trying to remember something the other day and I turned to this blog to confirm and thought, shoot we are up a creek if we're hoping for any kind of record of 2016! 

What does it mean that I begin such a post with photos of kimchi in the making? Hm...Amidst the busy, appreciating the small details, like a brilliantly purple daikon radish.

We managed to have several game nights with our friends who are back for a few months from Maine. Gotta pack it in while they're here. The favorites right now are Codenames and Dixit.

Anything that can produce a laugh like this is a game I want to play again and again...

Mama and daughter 💚

The month was about wrapping up activities - Doctor Who history for Eliza (in her usual position on the futon, in pajamas, with Charlie mashed up as close as he can get), fiddle lessons, dance classes.

Sleepovers with besties

Fiddle orchestra!! I see you!!

The morning after Eliza's fiddle concert, we drove to New York City and landed at the home of the woman who married us sixteen years ago. Ah, to picking up the weaving of lives together...it's been nine years, but who would know? More on that trip in another post. 

Instant kinship

January feels like a little bit of a lull between the outer galaxy of December and the resumption of Normal. Time to find the threads that you want to pick up and to clean out what you would rather stay behind. I am trying to be present to that in my days; December felt like a bit too much for me, and I noticed that I worked hard at staying busy with my hands and making lists in my head and on paper, in an attempt to not be still and feel how incongruous the cheer-making of the season felt to me, in the mess that is the world right now.  Sometimes the cheer works its magic and lightens the horizon for me, but I felt rushed this year to Get There, and never really caught up to the light. I'm giving myself January to find my footing, gather strength and see where I am. Taking stock through catching up will hopefully feel like fortifying the ground underneath me, remind me of the brilliant light that accompanies my days, whether or not I notice.

life is still happening

Thank goodness for new beginnings and the opportunity to start over. I have always wished there was more representation of families with older kids homeschooling; I've wanted to look ahead to how things might be, what our days might look like. It's always been helpful for me to know more of the how and the why of people making this choice for their lives.  Around here the number of kids staying out of school really dwindles around Eliza's age, and we were noticing recently that kids in their early teens aren't well represented out in the community either! They hit that independent age and aren't along for every family outing and errand. The middles have suddenly disappeared.

All this to say: I've let this space go silent, and maybe there's someone out there who would like the occasional peek into the future, so I'm making an attempt to come back here and represent one picture of Life as a family with no kids in school...

But it's been the holidays and so, please, enjoy a glimpse of that. 

It was the year of the magicicada, so it's fitting that our tree
had a stowaway or two!

Ani with "her baby".  I'll leave that for another post...

My dear family was here, as they have been for the last several years. We feel fortunate to not be traveling further than the livingroom futon this time of year.

Christmas Day snap-circuits. With pajamas.

My new moustache, from Ani

New games to play! Quelf, Exploding Kittens, Code Names, Sushi Go...

It was cold and a little rainy, until it was gorgeously sunny and a little warmer. Out to Lake Hope for a short hike and lunch at the lodge.

Our holiday was about a lot of hanging out, playing games and eating bags of clementines. The new year came with blue skies and an eerie lack of birds, which did not bode well for our "bird of the year" tradition. Not at the feeders, not flying by the windows...it was like the avian rapture, until we headed out at Dan's urging to a local ridge to take a sunny walk...ah! Yes. Of course. Geese just where we knew we'd find them, by the river, and for Ani, her first sighting of bluebirds! Lucky girl, with all that happiness to fill her year.

Happy New Year!