The Lofty Chronicles

Part Four: A Traumatic Revelation
(continued)

Lauren at the treadle sewing machine

July 1992

Expectancy (Monday, 6 July 1992) It’s close to 10:30. Joyce and I are brushing our teeth and getting ready for story and bed. Lauren comes downstairs from the loft to join us. She’s been working on secret codes for the past several hours—first typing the master code on the computer (and thereby practicing how to save, view, and print documents in WordPerfect); then using one of Joyce’s calligraphy pens to write notes to two friends (“How do you spell ’secret’? How do you spell ‘brother’?”); and finally folding everything up into two bulky packets and stapling them into home-made envelopes.

She brings the envelopes down with her when she comes to brush her teeth. Eli is visiting in the morning and she wants to be ready.

“I can’t wait ’til tomorrow,” she exudes.

“It’s nice that you’re so excited about your life,” I reply.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” says Joyce, “Not everyone looks forward to their tomorrows as eagerly as you do.”

“I’m almost always looking forward to tomorrow,” Lofty replies, “except when I have to go to the doctor or the dentist.”

Then, after a pause, “But if someone were going to the doctor to have a baby, I bet they’d be looking forward to it.”

“That’s for sure!” Joyce says with a grin.

A Learned Tolerance for Diversity (Monday, 6 July 1992) It’s sobering to observe the endless daily reminders of how un-accepting we are of one another. I recall the phrase that was singing through my mind for days after the striking dream about the Tall Ones: the rightness of what is.

It would almost seem, however, as though we humans possess a genetic intolerance for diversity. Our dislike for someone saying or doing or thinking something other than what we normally say or do or think is deeply embedded.

We’re un-accepting of others because we’re unable to accept ourselves. And this is where a learned tolerance for diversity must begin. The roots of our personal insecurity are what need attention. Otherwise we just end up squeezing the balloon.

Lofty’s Intuitions (Tuesday, 7 July 1992) Lauren and I are taking her friend, Eli, home this afternoon. He’s been over for the day. Going out, we pass a car coming in. Lauren immediately says, “I bet that’s our guests.”

We’re expecting a couple from Virginia Beach to show up at Light Morning during the next few days. We don’t know them, don’t know exactly when they’ll be arriving, and certainly don’t know what their car looks like. And we’ve already passed several other unfamiliar cars on the road.

Lauren, however, sounds quite certain that this particular car contains our guests.

“We can test your intuition when we get home,” I say. “We’ll see if that car’s in our parking lot.”

After dropping Eli off and turning around, we pass Doro heading out.

“There’s Doro,” exclaims Lauren.

Then, as though having just seen something, she adds, “She’s going out to Smith’s Store to get treats to bring to music night tonight.”

“Could be,” I reply, thinking it rather unlikely.

Doro rarely comes to music night.

“That will give you another chance to test your intuition. We’ll ask her, if she shows up tonight.”

The rest of the way home we discuss intuition—how we sometimes know something without knowing how we know it; the difference between knowing and guessing; and why our intuitions are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

To Lauren’s surprise, the car that we had passed on our way out is not in our parking lot when we get home. But it is pulled up next to the community shelter. And it does belong to our guests.

And sure enough, Doro arrives after supper for music night. She mentions that she’d seen us as she was driving to the store to pick up some potato chips for tonight.

Lofty smiles at me.

“Nice going,” I say. “Two for two.”

The Road to Heaven (Wednesday, 8 July 1992) The road to hell, the saying goes, is paved with good intentions. One might also say that the road to heaven is paved with good intent. The highway to heightened awareness, in other words, becomes passable only as we acknowledge the good intent that is at the core of all people, all things, all circumstances.

The more we’re able to see the presence of All That Is within others, the easier it becomes to recognize It within ourselves. And it the more we experience It within ourselves, the more we start seeing It in the people and circumstances around us.

It reminds me of the lyrics for a little song I wrote a number of years ago.

If you could see yourself smiling
Reflected in the face of each thing
Then there’d be nothing that could ever bring
Back your fears.

And if you could hear yourself singing
In the heart of each person that you meet
Then every sound would be sweet
To your ears.

[How do we know what we know before we know it? These memories and insights, which arose seemingly unbidden in my mind, were just about to be put to the test.]

Lofty’s Letter (Thursday, 9 July 1992) Joyce has been away most of the past two weeks. Her mother, Lilly, has been hospitalized in Blacksburg with a heart attack. Joyce has been helping out, sometimes taking Lauren with her, mostly leaving her here with me.

Joyce and Lauren have been missing each other. The feelings are complex, since the mother-daughter energy between Joyce and Lilly, and especially their anxiety over the heart attack, will unavoidably rebound into the other mother-daughter relationship. So a lot of confusing transference is probably going on right now.

This afternoon, while I’m cat-napping, Lauren writes a letter to her absent mother. When I awake, she shows it to me.

“I am coming withe you this time,” it says. “And dad shud com to. Love from Lofty. P.S. Navr go awae for that log agen. Love from Lofty.”

I tell her it’s a lovely letter.

“I didn’t want to wait to ask you about the spelling,” she says. “So I just went ahead. I think Mom will get the meaning.”

“I’m sure she will. Don’t worry about the spelling. That stuff comes later. The meaning’s the important thing. Mom will love your letter.”

Lofty goes out to her swing. I sit for a moment, brooding on what a perfect example of natural learning this letter is. We haven’t been urging her to read or write, trusting that her innate desire will emerge in due course, and believing that learning to read and write is like learning to walk and talk. We don’t have to artificially create the desire. It’s already there. We simply have to lend a helping hand when it’s asked for.

Lauren had some feelings that she wanted to share, and had enough tools to get that feeling across. In doing so, she intuitively realized that meaning is more important than spelling. Later on she’ll learn that better language provides a greater range of expression. For now, though, her tools were perfectly adequate for the task at hand.

What’s more, she wrote the letter entirely on her own. “I do it myself!” was Lauren’s constant mantra as a toddler, especially when some well-meaning but meddling adult offers more help than had been asked for. I’ve heard the same phrase repeated endlessly by other youngsters.

Perhaps adults are slow to get the point. We seem to think that children are inherently different from us; that they thrive on unsolicited assistance and advice. Someone once offered that if the Golden Rule is, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” (a rule big people have great difficulty in applying to little people), then the Iron Rule should be, “Never do for others what they can do for themselves.”

The timing of Lofty’s letter-writing was impeccable. We both knew that I’d be highly unlikely to correct her spelling (and ruin her letter) while I was asleep. So she seized the brief moment of my nap-time to “do it herself.”

Robert, Lauren, and Joyce at Transdyne

Lofty’s First Fair (Saturday, 11 July 1992) Lofty and I are at the Salem Fair with Wes, Shara, and Rosie. The temperature’s in the mid 90s. But that doesn’t deter the girls. They’re pumped!

Especially Lofty. This is her first fair. She’s been listening to the audio tapes of Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White. The climax of that story is set at a county fairground. While this isn’t exactly a county fair—there are no livestock exhibits or canned goods or blue ribbons—it’s close enough. There are candied apples, cotton candy, and lemonade. And lots of rides.

The first one we happen upon turns out to be the most gut-wrenching of the day. I forget its name. There’s a tall central column, maybe 50 or 60 feet high. A number of long chains hang down from it, each one attached to a small, one-person, gondola-like car. The riders buckle into the cars, the column begins to rotate and pick up speed, until the cars and their occupants are whirling far overhead at high velocity, the chains nearly parallel to the ground.

A ride is in progress as we approach. It’s impressive! Lofty eyes it cautiously. Rose, on the other hand, can’t wait. Wes had let her ride it the other day.

Shara and I look at each other, thinking, “Are we really going to let our kids go up in that thing?”

But Rosie’s enthusiasm, and the expectations of the day, overcome both Lofty’s caution and our parental protectiveness.

So when the blaring music dies down, and the chains and cars come to a standstill, and the riders stagger out, the girls clamber onto the platform and take their seats. I call out to Lauren to be sure to hold tight. She nods and manages a weak smile. Then the music starts up again and the central column begins to turn.

Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, the cars swing out in a widening gyre. Lofty’s face, as her car spins into view, is frozen in dismay.

“I’ve changed my mind, Dad,” her face says. “I don’t want to be here. Please tell the man, right now, to stop this thing so I can get off.”

But she knows, and I know, that there’s no stopping and no getting off. It calls to mind the time she contracted whooping cough. Once under way, there was no turning back. Surrendering to the full experience was our only option.

So I wave and smile encouragement each time her car whirls by, she clinging desperately to the chains, and the ride seems to go on and on, forever.

Finally the music ends and the cars coast to a stop. The girls get out and come over to where Shara and I are standing. Lofty looks at me.

“I am never, ever going up in one of those things again!” she announces passionately.

Then she holds out her hands, palms up. The marks of the chains are imprinted on her bone-white flesh.

I hoist her up, give her a big hug and a kiss. Then she and Rosie run off to decide on their next ride. Nothing that follows, however, not even the roller coaster or the 100-foot Ferris wheel, is much of a problem. That first ride put everything else into perspective.

He Is You (Wednesday, 15 July 1992) Adam and Marlene and I are squabbling about the adequacy of our water supply. Nothing serious. While we’re debating the issue, Lofty’s over at the desk, drawing.

Later, after everyone’s had their say and gone their way, Lofty shows me her drawing. At the top of the page are the words, “He is you, and you are him.”

Below the words is a picture of two smiling faces. The one on the right has a cartoon rendition of what it’s thinking. It says, “I am him.”

The one on the left is twice as big as the first one. Its thought is likewise labeled. “I am him, too.”

“Tell me about these guys,” I say.

“They’re two robots. But they’re really only one. The big one made the little one. He was lonely or something. So he made the little one. But they both know they’re the same.”

Patience and Desire (Saturday, 25 July 1992) We are striving to assimilate our circumstances. To re-connect the inner and the outer worlds. To re-integrate what’s within us and around us. To wake up. Given sufficient patience and desire, this communion can occur. The mirror does come clear.

But it takes both patience and desire. If we’re impatient, we never allow the murky waters of the seemingly external world to clarify and grow still. And if our desire is weak, if the striving for assimilation and re-connection isn’t impeccable, then by the time the mirror does clear, we’ve forgotten that what we’re seeing in the waters of our personal circumstances is our reflection. We’re back asleep again.

Lofty’s Week at Augusta (Monday, 27 July 1992) Joyce and Lauren have just returned from their week at Augusta Heritage Center. The calligraphy class that Joyce helped teach went well. They had a number of repeat students, which is good feedback for the instructors.

Lofty had several firsts. She attended her first Catholic Mass, and liked the priest, who, upon meeting her, held out his hand and said, “Give me five!” But she was disappointed that the kneeling-benches were no longer in use. The congregation apparently stands to pray these days.

She also practiced stone carving for the first time, which, in her excitement at telling me about it, she calls “stone starving.” They use a soft stone and a sharp scalpel. They normally don’t let kids under 12 practice this art. But Lofty did well, only jabbing herself once.

And last but not least, she had her first brush (or should I say blush?) with romance. She was in a class with nine other girls and one boy. The boy, an eleven-year-old from California, took an instant shine to Lofty. She was suitably impressed with Nat’s attentiveness, but didn’t quite understand it. To her, he was just another friend.

Nat, on the other hand, was rather more smitten. On the last day of the week, Joyce saw him sitting on some steps with his head in his hands.

“Hard to leave, isn’t it?” Joyce asked.

He nodded glumly.

“You coming back next year?” she continued.

Another nod.

“We’ll probably see you then,” she said, and started to walk away.

Finally, Nat seemed to tumble to whose mother he’d been talking to.

His head slowly lifted out of his hands.

“Are you coming back next year?” he asked.

Joyce smiled and nodded.

“Well,” he said, his mood visibly brighter, “I guess I will be seeing you then.”

[In retrospect, this is one more instance of the "synchronicities" that have accompanied the unfolding of events this summer. Everything is so inter-connected! It was the day after Lofty returned from Augusta, and her first tentative "boyfriend" experience, that she told her friend Claire about what had been going on with Adam. Myra, independently, and on the same day(!), told her older sister.

So everything secret came tumbling out, and the package with the "small, evil corpse," the arrival of which Lofty had been dreading in her dream from the morning of June 12th, was finally delivered into our unsuspecting (our consciously unsuspecting) hands.

In time, and with a good strong dose of the desire and patience alluded to in the July 25th journal entry, the opened package would indeed prove to contain presents, just as Lofty's dream had foretold. First, however, would come fire.]

Alice’s Revelation (Wednesday, 29 July 1992) Alice, Myra’s mom, comes down to our house with Adam at dusk this evening, just as I am finishing work on our new wood shed. She says she has something she wants to share with Joyce and me. Adam looks extremely sober.

We sit down on the back porch, in the dusky twilight, and Alice tells us that she has just learned that Adam had been fondling Lofty and Myra, and that the fondling had been going on for several months.

Joyce and I are stunned. My first, impulsive reaction is to do an inner “take” on Lofty. The immediate impression is that, while there are clearly going to be problems, she’s basically O.K. She’s going to need reassurances that touching and hugging are still good things; and help with her guilt for not having told us about it sooner, as well as her guilt for having told at all, when it may well send Adam to prison.

Further down the road, and still more pernicious, she may have to work with a tendency to equate her sexuality with something illicit and dangerous. This awareness fuels our cascading anger and deepens our grief for her sudden and shocking loss of innocence.

But it’s tempered by the gut sense that she’s a strong, resilient kid, both loving and loved, and that as bad as it is, it could have been much worse.

Then, surprisingly, my concern shifts to Adam. I know what others have gone through when confronted with sexual abuse charges. He is going to be facing some very painful fires. And while part of me feels he deserves the full social and judicial consequences of his actions, another part remembers my own horrific fire experience the week after Lauren was born. And this spontaneous memory kindles a strange empathy for someone whose life is about to go up in flames.

Finally, a realization dawns that this is a “moment of truth,” not only for Adam, but for all of us—for those now involved, and for so many others who soon will be. I know, as clearly as I have ever known anything in my life, that we are about to be tested.

A Long Talk With Adam (Friday, 31 July 1992) After giving Adam a day or two to “stabilize” somewhat, I go up to the community shelter to look for him this evening. The lights are on, so I know that he’s around, but the shelter is empty.

I settle down to wait, recollecting my fire experience and feeling increasingly deep parallels between it and Adam’s situation. Then, from the direction of the parking lot, comes the loud crack of a gun shot.

I stand up, feeling suddenly queasy, and walk in that direction. When I arrive at the steps of Ron and Marlene’s house, however, I hear Adam and Ron talking. The shot has been our neighbor’s attempt to keep the critters away from his crops.

Adam and I return to the porch and have a long talk. He’s in obvious denial during the first part of our conversation, believing that the crisis, while very serious, is containable. Then, as I convey my own understanding that the news of what has been going on between him and the girls will inevitably spread through the community, neighborhood, and county, and will, quite likely, end up in the courts, Adam begins to grasp the implications of what he has immersed himself in.

I suggest he’s going to find himself in desperate need of a friend, but that before I can even consider being such a friend, I have to unburden myself of the seething anger and sense of betrayal that his actions have aroused in me. Which I proceed to do—pointedly, and at length, and with no little heat.

Then, when the flood tide of my anger has run its course, I sketch for him a brief outline of my fire experience, in the belief that what he is about to go through may well follow that archetypal pattern.

In response, he draws the full story out of me, in a way that no one has since I passed through that terrifying hell eight years ago. I marvel at the deep rightness of my strong intuition, in the immediate aftermath of that great burning, that what I had just gone through would one day come to be seen as a great blessing.

For many other people, I had suddenly realized, even as the embers were still smoldering, will one day have their own versions of this archetypal trauma. And without having passed through the flames myself, I would have neither the understanding nor the empathy to be there for them when they needed it.

“How profoundly true that insight was,” I keep thinking to myself, as Adam starts to process his tumultuous feelings of guilt, fear, and self-loathing. While unable and unwilling to downplay the intensity of what he’s about to go through, I am able to hold out the promise of light at the far end of his looming tunnel of darkness.

And he can feel enough inner resonance to my words to allow him to find a few lucid intervals of peace in the midst of his raging firestorms of shame and anxiety.

Part Four: A Traumatic Revelation

Robert & Lauren (1991)

June 1992

[The following note was included as a preface to the Summer 1992 issue of the original Lofty Chronicles, and was intended to prepare Lauren's aunts, uncles, and grandparents for the intensity of what they were about to read. The first two months of that issue, June and July, are included here. The August entries will appear in our Summer 2003 Journal, as Part Five of the Lofty Chronicles.]

This has been quite a summer. First Joyce’s father, Joe, had a heart attack. Joyce packed a suitcase, ready to head north the moment a call came through saying she was needed. Joe made a good recovery, however, and we caught our breath. But only momentarily. The same day we learned that Joe had been released from the hospital, we got another message. Joyce’s mother had just been admitted to an Emergency Room in nearby Blacksburg-also with a heart attack.

Lilly eventually needed open-heart surgery, followed by a lengthy recuperation. She’s better now. But for a while Joyce was on the go constantly, shuttling back and forth between Blacksburg and Roanoke, where the surgery was performed.

This crisis had just started to ease off a bit when the third wave hit. In late July we learned that Adam, who has lived at Light Morning for over six years, had been fondling Lauren and her friend Myra since early Spring.

We were stunned, outraged, sickened, and bewildered. We were also plunged into a maelstrom of simultaneous and often competing needs–supporting the girls, supporting Adam, processing our own emotions and those of our friends and neighbors, not to mention becoming involved with attorneys, therapists, and the local social services and judicial systems.

In the pages that follow, I’ve tried to include at least some of this processing, along with the more normal vignettes of Lofty’s daily life. I’ve also added a few of my other journal entries, which, while not directly related to Lofty, seem to foreshadow what was about to occur. They show, as well, how certain “muscles” that we have been exercising for a number of years were suddenly called into use.

Reviewing the journal selections included here, I imagine that what’s been left out will likely cause some distortions and confusion. But this issue is over-long already, so we’re sending it off to you as is, with our love.

* * *

The Fawn (Monday, 1 June 1992) This morning, while Mary and I are watching a surveying crew work their way down the stream which marks our shared boundary line, I notice a new-born fawn curled up next to a fallen log. Mary and the lead surveyor had already walked past it. It is exquisitely camouflaged, the mottled brown and white blending into the fallen leaves. And it’s perfectly still. Only the fawn’s eyes are moving, ever so slightly, following us.

After watching it for a few moments, Mary leaves to get Sage and I go looking for Lauren. When Lauren and I return, Mary and Sage are already there. The fawn has risen up on wobbly legs and is standing behind the log. Then it runs down the hill and lies down again, this time by the edge of the stream.

The rest of the surveying crew are working along the stream bed, heading directly toward the fawn, which is partially in the water. Not seeing anything better to do, I go down to the stream and pick up the fawn. It’s about the size of a small goat. It sounds like one, too. In a surprisingly loud voice, it begins bleating, “Ma-a-a-a, m-a-a-a-a.”

Lauren and Sage (as well as Mary and I) melt with wonder at this little creature. We each say a brief hello and goodbye, then I carry it further up the hillside, where it will be out of the way of the surveyors, and set it down. It runs on up the slope on teetery legs, bleating as it goes. Then it disappears behind some shrubs. Listening to its plaintive call, we know that its mother won’t have any trouble finding it again.

Gatto’s Revolutionary Perspective (Tuesday, 2 June 1992) I guess you could call it a relapse. Or the need for further recuperation from the effects of my birthday sickness. Or, and this gets closer to home, the need for more complete assimilation.

It feels like something is lodged in my stomach, tormenting me, not letting me get comfortable in any position. Even now, several days later, my energy level and digestive system aren’t quite right. That’s why I’ve stopped eating and have decided to stay in bed all day. Recuperation. Assimilation.

On a non-literal, “dream” level, I’m still trying to digest that John Taylor Gatto tape on compulsory public schooling, which elicited such a gale of tears when I first listened to it on the morning of my birthday.

Joyce comes in to briefly keep me company. She, too, is sensing that the impact of Gatto goes far beyond the question of Lofty’s home schooling.

“It’s not just about changing a piece of the educational puzzle,” she says. “It’s like putting on a new pair of glasses. Everything you see, you see differently—the whole accepted definition of what life’s all about. It’s not about doing everything right. It frees me up not to do what other people want me to. It makes me bold.”

We’re Both Doctors (Tuesday, 2 June 1992) Lofty and Eli are down at the house this morning. I overhear a brief snatch of their conversation.

“Let’s play doctor,” Eli suggests.

I chuckle to myself, wondering if that still means what it used to mean when I was a kid. “O.K.” says Lofty. “We’ll both be doctors and there’s been an accident somewhere.”

“Yeah,” replies Eli, not taking the cue. “I’ll be the doctor and you be the nurse.”

“No,” says Lofty, with mild emphasis, “We’re both doctors.”

“Oh. Well, O.K.”

And the game gets under way.

The Intervention Threshold (Tuesday, 2 June 1992) When kids get into trouble, how soon should the adults intervene? The intervention threshold fluctuates from parent to parent, of course, and from situation to situation. Personally, I tend to favor a rather high threshold. Problems are such a precious commodity. We need to be careful, as adults, not to rob our children of their problems.

The Trickery of the Spirit (Tuesday, 2 June 1992) It occurs to me this afternoon that I’ve been so good about taking care of my lower back, doing the daily exercises so religiously, that a bad back can no longer be reliably used as a way of immobilizing me for several days in order to “force” me to assimilate something I’ve been too busy to attend to. I’m inwardly amused that the Spirit has had to resort to yet another trick, such as my birthday illness, in order to effect the same result.

“The Spirit must have quite a number of such devices,” I think to myself.

“You can’t begin to imagine,” replies an amused inward voice, “how many tricks the Spirit has up Its sleeve.”

The Evil Corpse in the Package (Friday, 12 June 1992) Lofty awakens with a powerful dream this morning. In the dream, she’s standing by our mailbox with Lilly. A large package has been delivered. Lofty is sure that it will contain “a small, evil corpse.”

When they open it, however, they find instead a number of gift-wrapped presents, as though for a birthday or for Christmas. Lofty is greatly surprised and relieved.

[A note added toward the end of August: This is an amazing dream. I remember being puzzled and bothered by it, and asked Lofty to share it with me several times. The feeling-tone of the dream just didn't seem to match the circumstances of her life, as far as I was then aware of them. We now know more. And my already deep respect for dreams gets another strong boost.]

Where Do You Sell Your Calligraphy? (Sunday, 14 June 1992) Joyce and I are packaging some of our calligraphy pieces today when Lofty pokes her head up the stairs.

“Where do you sell your calligraphy?”

“In stores, mostly,” Joyce replies.

“Do you sell them at the Augusta store?”

Augusta is an Appalachian traditional arts center in West Virginia. Joyce spends a week there each summer as an assistant calligraphy instructor. Last year she took Lofty along, and will again this year. There’s a small store on campus where the crafts people and musicians sell their art work and musical tapes.

Getting an affirmative nod, Lofty continues, “Do you think I could sell some of my little notebooks there?”

She’s been making pocket-sized notebooks lately, with brightly colored covers.

“No, I don’t think so. Only the instructors can sell things in the store.”

“Oh.”

Then, overcoming her initial disappointment, she brainstorms her way into a decision to make enough notebooks so that she can give one to each of the kids in the Augusta children’s program, which she’ll be participating in.

“Maybe our teacher can use them as part of an art project for the class,” she says, and happily goes back downstairs to continue working on them.

Later she shows us her collection–a rainbow array of small notebooks, neatly displayed in a small box. She says we can each have one.

A Spelling Lesson (Sunday, 14 June 1992) I’m fixing a big salad for supper. Lauren comes in from the porch with paper and pencil in hand.

“How do you spell radical?” she asks.

I spell it out. She copies it onto her paper, obviously making a caption for some drawing.

“What in the world does she want that word for?” I wonder, trying to imagine how she’s using it. It’s not until her next question, however, that the usage became clear.

“How do you spell dude?”

I smile and give her the letters. “Radical, dude!” is part of the Ninja Turtle lingo. So I stash the phrase away in a mental file, to be brought out again at some opportune moment.

I envision being in the garden with her. She’s pulling up one of her sweet-tasting carrots. And I casually say, “That’s radical, dude!”

Then I share a little secret with her: that the hidden meaning of radical is “root.”

This will intrigue her, the idea that words have secret meanings. She’s big into Pig Latin as a private language these days. If the timing’s right, and my touch is light, maybe the Ninja Turtles can be a doorway into the delights of etymology.

Red Ninja (by Lauren)

Take Me Out to the Ball Game (Tuesday, 16 June 1992) I’m in the loft this afternoon. Lauren’s singing in the living room.

“…Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks, I don’t care if we never get back.”

Eli’s birthday is coming up. Lauren’s been invited. They’re going down to Salem to see a baseball game. The Salem Buccaneers (a farm team for, I believe, the Pittsburgh Pirates) will be playing a team from North Carolina.

It will be her first baseball game and she’s already excited. She got Joyce to teach her the lyrics to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” And this morning she was looking at the sports section of the paper with me, seeing what kind of record Salem has, and who the best hitters and pitchers are. Now she’s all primed to, “Root, root, root for the home team, if they don’t win it’s a shame…”

Animal Encounters (Thursday, 18 June 1992) This morning I find a weasel on the side of the driveway, probably killed by an owl or a cat. It’s only the second weasel I’ve seen in the eighteen years we’ve lived here. I take it up to show Lofty, who’s intrigued. It has a small, lithe body, bright eyes (even in death), and sharp teeth. It lies curled, life-like, in the palm of my hand.

In the afternoon, a large Cecropia moth, newly emerged from its cocoon, crawls to a porch post by the kitchen door and rests there at eye level for several hours while it finishes pumping life into its wings. We pause as we pass by, admiring its intricate beauty. When its wings have strengthened sufficiently, it flies a spiral path into the poplar tree overhead.

Later, when Joyce and Lofty are near our mailbox, they come upon a snapping turtle by the side of the road. It has crawled up out of the frog pond to lay its eggs in one of Edgar’s fields. Once again there’s an opportunity, this time from a safe distance, to examine the critter at length.

“She was ugly,” Lauren tells me.

Now and then, for a brief, shimmering moment or two, I blink away the blinders of familiarity and give thanks for this lifestyle. What a special blessing it is to be able to see other creatures going about their daily business of living and dying, independent of our ponderous human endeavors.

Soul Food (Thursday, 18 June 1992) Our personal circumstances are grist for the mill and food for the soul.

They Thought I Was a Boy (Friday, 19 June 1992) Joyce, Lauren, and I are at an outdoor concert in Blacksburg with Lilly and Sandy tonight. While the staid adults sit on the grass enjoying the music, Lauren quickly joins a group of kids playing tag among the trees and bushes near by. Not until the concert is over does she show up, tired and happy.

“They thought I was a boy,” she announces with a smile, referring to her new friends.

“And why do you want to be a boy?” Sandy asks.

“Because girls can’t take off their shirts.”

Ah, yes. Slowly the memory comes into focus. It’s been several years now. A small town in North Carolina. Joyce and Lauren are there visiting family. They’ve gone to a neighborhood playground. It’s stinking hot. Lauren, who’s five, has taken off her shirt and is running around in a skirt.

On the swings is a group of girls, 8 or 9 years old, that Lauren’s trying to befriend. They are shunning her tentative approaches, however, and are making fun of her because she’s shirtless. Having grown up with the freedom to run around naked in the hot summer months, Lauren can’t figure out what’s troubling these girls. She’s confused, and hurt by their rejection.

Finally, a self-appointed committee of several girls comes over to Joyce.

“Why do you let her go around without a top on?” one of them asks in an accusatory tone.

Joyce is impressed by their willingness to explore the question and to confront someone who is clearly, through their eyes, being negligent in her role as a mother.

So Joyce explains our lifestyle to the girls, who are remarkably receptive.

Then she hikes Lauren’s long skirt up above her non-existent breasts. This conciliatory gesture, along with Joyce’s explanation, seems to satisfy the girls. They take Lauren off to the swings with them and integrate her into their circle of friends.

Recalling this incident, I sense the intricate tapestry of factors, both personal and cultural, that have coalesced into Lauren wanting to be called “Lofty,” and her pleasure at having been taken for a boy earlier this evening.

[Looking back at this June journal entry from the vantage point of August, I am searingly aware of another, and even more compelling reason for Lauren needing to take refuge in being a boy. And my heart brims with sadness and anger.]

The Deer Attacking the Dog (Tuesday, 23 June 1992) Joyce glances out the large west window of our house to see a deer attacking a dog. The deer is chasing it, nipping it, rearing up and pawing at it. Recovering from our astonishment, we realize that the dog must be after the deer’s fawn.

I dash outside to drive the dog away. The deer bounds off, but the dog keeps trying to get past me, to get at the fawn. Then the deer returns, walks slowly toward us, waits for the dog to see her, and then leads him off on a wild goose chase.

I’ve watched a quail fake a broken wing in order to lure me away from her nest. But I’ve never heard of a deer doing something similar. What an extraordinary demonstration of the maternal instinct.

Going Into Her Closet (Wednesday, 24 June 1992) Lauren and I are down at the house. She’s in her room; I’m in the living room.

“You want to see my meditation area?” she asks.

I’m a bit startled. You don’t hear the word “meditation” float around here too much. We find other words for it, like “sitting,” and try to allow Lauren’s germinal interest in this facet of our lifestyle to ripen naturally. So I wonder what she’s up to.

Walking over to her room and peering in, I see that she’s sitting in what was formerly her closet. The shelves are still there, with stacks of folded shirts and pants. But all her hanging clothes have been moved elsewhere, and she’s sitting quietly in the newly created space.

“You like it?” she asks.

I nod.

It occurs to me to pass on what Jesus had to say about the proper place for prayer: “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.”

I manage to keep the door of my own mouth shut, however, and leave her to her solitude.

Mama Hen (Friday, 27 June 1992) I’m scything tall grass by the edge of the driveway, out by the mailboxes. The sweep of the blade occasionally uncovers small clusters of wild strawberries. Now and then I bend down, gather a handful, and eat them.

One of the children from the Hollow House is sitting at the top of his driveway, watching me intently. The scything seems to fascinate him, as do my strawberry snacks. After a while he wanders over. I offer him a few berries, which he shyly accepts. Soon he’s following close behind, scanning the newly mown swath for more.

He’s joined by a brother and a sister. Then Lofty and Becky, who are watching the horses, get curious and come over, too. That makes five children trailing along in my wake, finding just enough berries to keep them all searching.

Suddenly I laugh aloud. Just yesterday I’d seen one of Stanley’s mama hens scratching up grubs for her clutch of biddies, who were hustling along close at her heels, pecking at whatever she turned over. And here I now am, a mama hen myself, uncovering treats for a brood of hungry youngsters.

Horsepower (Saturday, 28 June 1992) Becky and Alysia’s family just bought a new Toyota pickup. Very powerful. 160 horsepower. And very expensive. A puzzling choice of vehicles for a large family, it seems, looked at from the outside. But when Willie says it can pull a two-horse trailer, the missing piece of the puzzle falls into place.

Alysia, who’s been giving Lofty riding lessons, and her sister Becky, will be wanting to compete in the horse shows that are an integral part of the Virginia tradition. And you obviously have to be able to transport the horses and their riders to the shows. A small compact car, or even a station wagon, can’t pull that kind of a load.

So now Willie commutes to his new job as postmaster in a Toyota pickup. And the girls are preparing to compete in the horse shows. And I’m left to marvel at modern technology, which harnesses up one hundred and sixty horses in order to pull two.

Part Three: Sifting Through Your Mind
(continued)

Spring 1992

Lauren visiting Aunt Heather

How Many Words Have You Spoken Today? (Saturday, 18 April 1992) As we are walking up to supper tonight, Lauren again surprises me with an offhand question.

“How many words have you spoken today?”

I am brought up short.

“I have no idea.”

“Take a guess. How many words would you guess you’ve spoken so far today?”

I admit that I don’t have the faintest idea and wouldn’t even know how to make an educated guess.

Inwardly, I find myself associating to financial journals and keeping a budget. Then a weird insight surfaces, of words being the coin of some other realm. It’s a realm and a currency of which I am only vaguely aware. But keeping track of how I “spend” my words might be as important in that realm as keeping track of how I spend my time or my money is in this realm.

Then, as though reading my mind, Lauren continues.

“Wouldn’t it be neat if we carried around a piece of paper and a pencil some day and wrote down how many words we spoke? Not counting each and every one, but stopping to jot down about how many we used each time we spoke, and then adding them up at the end of the day.”

I Haven’t Decided Yet (Saturday, 18 April 1992) After supper, I’m tossing a wiffle ball to Lofty for batting practice. While I’m retrieving a ball that she’s hit over my head, she remarks, “I haven’t decided yet whether, when I grow up, I’m going to play baseball or football.”

Sifting Through Your Mind (Saturday, 18 April 1992) We put away the wiffle ball and bat and start throwing a half-filled water balloon back and forth to each other. I’m amazed that it doesn’t break on the sharp tufts of grass. It must be made from a sturdy grade of rubber.

It’s dusky. Joyce is in the community shelter, talking with her parents who are visiting from Delaware. Ron, Marlene, and Tom are chatting on the porch. Now and then a high-flying jetliner passes overhead on the way to Atlanta. Lower down, a bat skims the treetops, hunting for insects. It’s a gentle evening. We’re both happy to be outside, tossing the balloon around.

“Do you sometimes get real quiet,” Lauren says, as though wondering out loud, “and go sifting through your mind?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, sometimes when I’m not doing anything, I kind of sift through my mind, like I’m going through a box to see what I want to get rid of. I throw some stuff away, and keep other stuff.”

She pauses, as the balloon sails through the dusk.

“It’s funny,” she continues. “It’s like that divider on my desk where I keep my different papers. My mind has cubby holes like that, or categories, where different thoughts go when they come in.” She gestures with her hands. “And the strange thing is, there’s always room for more. No matter how many thoughts come in, there’s always room for more.”

“How is it,” I ask, “that there’s always room for more? Why don’t our minds get crowded? Or all filled up?”

She’s quiet for a moment, then lies down on the grass, looking up at the almost dark sky. “I don’t know,” she finally says. “It’s like they’re disks or something.”

The image of a large coin comes to mind. Then it shifts 90 degrees and practically disappears, because, instead of viewing it face on, I am looking at its edge. Maybe huge clusters of thoughts are like galaxies, I muse; great, wheeling disks that appear either slender or enormous, depending upon whether we view them from the “top” or from the “side.”

“Sometimes I sift through my thoughts and get rid of the bad dreams,” she goes on. “So that they don’t build up into something. It’s like I’m collecting things, and deciding what I want to have in my collection.”

Shoo-Shoo (Sunday, 19 April 1992) Returning from my walk this morning, I meet Lofty heading out. We pause and talk a while. Today’s her birthday party and I want to get the details of a game she wants to play, called “Sharks and Fishes.”

“When I played it at Augusta,” she says, “they called it ‘Whales and Fishes.’ But I like ‘Sharks and Fishes’ better.”

She explains the game and shows me how big the playing field should be. Then, as we each move on a good ways in our respective directions, she turns.

“You know,” she calls, smiling, “I’m waiting for someone to come up to me this morning and say, ‘Where’s the birthday girl?’

“And then I’ll say, ‘You mean, where’s the birthday boy?’

“And they’ll say, ‘What birthday boy?’

“And I’ll say, ‘This birthday boy!!’”

“And then when they say, ‘Why do you always want to be a boy instead of a girl?’, I’ll just say, ‘Shoo-shoo!!’”

She gives me a long-distance grin and continues her morning walk.

Happy Birthday to You! (Monday, 20 April 1992) A nice party for Lofty yesterday. Lots of kids. Lots of parents. A combination Easter egg hunt, Sunday morning pancakes, and birthday party. Everyone seemed to have a good time. As though we were all looking for an excuse to get together.

The weather threw a scare at me, threatening to drizzle. I had planned for a lot of outside activities for the 15+ kids. No conceivable way that everyone could have squeezed into our small shelter. But the clouds parted and the drizzle held off.

Myra and Claire spent the night. The three of them are downstairs now, supposedly getting ready to go up for breakfast. Sounds to me like they’re singing and clapping along with some music from Sweet Honey in the Rock.

“Time to get ready to go up for breakfast, girls,” I call down.

No answer.

I’m guessing that they’ll opt to stay here and munch on the Cheerios that Lauren’s grandparents brought. So I’ll sign off and go to breakfast myself. Hard to leave the music, though.

Nearing Our Destiny (Wednesday, 22 April 1992) We’ve had torrential rains the past several days. Roanoke’s expecting another flood by the time all these swollen mountain tributaries funnel their waters into the Roanoke River. Wes and Shara, who live next to the river, will probably have to evacuate their home tonight.

But today dawns clear and the roar of Free State Creek proves an irresistible lure. So Lofty and I decide to pay it a visit. We pretend we’re rain drops. Starting from close to our house, where the runoff from the vineyard hillside spills across the path, we follow the water into the overgrown clearing where the old homestead used to be, then down a rocky cascade into the Free State valley.

The walking proves steep and difficult. Finally, however, the ground levels out.

“Sounds like we’re nearing our destiny,” Lauren remarks, listening to the tumult of the water.

I smile and agree.

Then we round a bend and our little stream pours its generous share of rain drops into the already turbulent Free State Creek. There’s an impressive amount of water barreling toward an anxious Roanoke. The creek is well out of its banks.

We fool around in the valley for most of the day, finding brown salamanders, wine-red trillium, and, by the bend in the river, a “robbers’ hideout” straight out of Tom Sawyer. We return home up a longer and gentler slope, getting back just in time for supper.

A note from the next day: Wes & Shara were forced to evacuate. The flood waters eventually crested less than an inch below the threshold of their front door. They have no basement, though, and were largely unscathed. Rosie and her friends had fun chasing a big fish and a snapping turtle through the lake that was formerly their front yard.

The Power of Prayer (Saturday, 25 April 1992) Joyce, Lauren, and I, and a few neighbors, are going to the annual meeting of the Virginia chapter of the Nature Conservancy today. It’s being held at their new Bottom Creek Gorge preserve, just a few miles from here.

A big tent is set up to protect the chairs and tables from possible rain, but most of the planned activities involve various hikes and other outdoor events. They are clearly gambling that the day will be nice enough to enable them to show off their new acquisition. They are also clearly keeping an eye on the weather. The last few times they’ve tried outdoor annual meetings, they have been rained out.

But the morning’s bright and clear, with only a few suspicious clouds on the horizon. In her opening remarks, the matriarchal chairman of the board of trustees refers to their concern about the weather. Then, looking up appreciatively at the blue sky, she says, “We must have a lot of Christians, and other people who pray, here with us today.”

Several of us local folks roll our eyes a bit and wonder, in passing, about the Buddhists and pagans and atheists. Lauren, sitting next to us, overhears our remarks. But she seems more interested in what the other kids are doing to entertain themselves during this wordy and boring portion of the day.

The formal, talky part of the event wraps up just before noon. A short break is announced, to be followed by lunch and then the hikes. The sky, meanwhile, is no longer blue. The little white clouds having taken on an ominous shade of gray. A light drizzle starts to fall. Lauren and I decide to avoid the rush for the tent by seeking shelter in our car.

“Well,” she remarks, as rain drops patter against the windshield, “it looks like the Christians and the people who pray must have left.”

I laugh and nod, marveling to myself yet again at how kids take in everything that goes on around them. Even when they don’t seem to be paying any attention to it.

The Christians, by the way, must have poured on some prayer power, because those few drops of rain are all that come down. It doesn’t actually clear, but the black clouds back off and everyone enjoys the hikes.

Palm and Sun (by Lauren)

A Sweet Gesture (Sunday, 3 May 1992) Lofty, Sage, and I are preparing to walk to the pond for a swim. Sage wants to go barefoot, despite our suggestions that the gravel will be sharp on his still tender feet. Lofty even offers him the use of her second set of flip-flops.

But he insists on going shoeless. So we shrug and set off.

Sure enough, just beyond our mailbox, Sage starts to bemoan how hard the gravel is. He tries the side of the road, but finds it not much better. Then Lofty stops, takes off her day pack, and removes the spare flip-flops which Sage had previously rejected. She had surreptitiously stashed them away, knowing that he would need them.

It’s a sweet gesture, and eagerly received. Sage promptly and thankfully slips them on and off we go to the pond.

“A Wild Ride” (Sunday, 10 May 1992) We had a long meeting last night to discuss the pros and cons of building a new community shelter. The question is being called because of the large stash of old plywood pallets to which Adam has gained access.

Joyce has been tenaciously advocating the need for such a shelter for years, and has drawn up elaborate architecture layouts and renderings. From a practical point of view, however, the project seems ludicrous. All of us are already up to our ears in other responsibilities. We can’t imagine where the time and energy will come from for something this major.

So this morning I awaken with a dream of Lauren getting ready to ride down a steep woodland trail, the way she used to ride her tricycle down the path to our house at break-neck speed. This time, however, she’s going to be riding Ron’s wheeled plywood dolly that we use to move heavy furniture and appliances. Kevin, a friend and local builder, is standing with Lauren at the top of the path.

Lying down on the plywood as though it’s a sled, Lauren pushes off. She starts down the hill backward, however. Feet first, rather than head first. As she picks up speed, the swiveled wheels start to spin her around. She’s having a wonderful time. I’m appalled, though, watching her head spin round and round, just barely missing the rocks and trees.

She whirls all the way down to the bottom of the hill and part way up the other side before her momentum finally slows and she comes to a stop. I am amazed and relieved that she hasn’t crashed.

Upon awaking from the dream, my immediate associations are to the potential plywood for the new community shelter, and for going “feet first” rather than “head first.” Just jump into it, the dream seems to be saying, rather than analyzing it to death. And my association to Kevin has to do with an insistence upon quality.

[A much later postscript: We accepted Adam's offer of the plywood pallets and three years later broke ground on the dicey project. Now, eight years into construction, and having officially moved into Rivendell, our new shelter, both the hidden costs and the incalculable benefits are continuing to manifest themselves to us.]

Lofty’s Full Week (Thursday, 14 May 1992) Lofty’s had a full week of it. Sage was here a couple of days. She over there once. We helped Ed and Randye with their fence and she spent the day playing with Eli: goats, kittens, ponies, swimming.

Another day in town with Rosie. Then to Dixie Caverns with the Blue Mountain kids. And to top it off, her first horseback riding lesson with Alysia. She says she’s ready for a break, a quiet day at home with not too much going on.

A Question of Trust (Saturday, 16 May 1992) I come down to the house on this sunny afternoon to find Lauren in a rather contemplative mood, swinging on her swing,. We don’t talk. I simply watch her from the window, wondering how much I trust her. Wondering how much I trust myself.

If she were going to school, my primary concern would be whether I trusted the school to be responsive to her feelings and needs. But given our choices, my questions lie closer to home, so to speak. Do I trust her indigenous interests and curiosities, and her desire and ability to pursue these, independent of outside pressures?

Doesn’t true education, in other words, have its roots in a child’s innate need to creatively explore the tidal zone between his or her inner and outer worlds? And isn’t this need like a bold spring head, bubbling out of the ground like sudden laughter or spontaneous play? Or like natural hunger, which can reliably guide us to an understanding of what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat?

One of my quarrels with compulsory education is that an outside agency assumes the role of telling children what to learn, when to learn it, and when to move on to something else. Over time, the child’s innate capacity to be inner-directed is thwarted and suppressed. Eventually they are taught to look to others, and to become dependent upon others, not only for direction and evaluation, but also for the intimately related sense of self-worth.

So the seemingly simple act of choosing to trust Lauren to make most of her own decisions about when and what and how much to eat, both literally and figuratively, has far-reaching implications.

This question comes home to roost, of course, when I consider how much I trust myself. At one level, do I trust myself to give her the time, the attention, and the support that she needs? Beyond that, do I trust myself to pursue my own gifts, interests, and inclinations? Because I’m unlikely to trust Lauren, or anyone else for that matter, any more than I’m willing to trust myself.

The Bottom Line (Tuesday, 19 May 1992) Doug is in a confrontational mood during our Tuesday night meeting, probing various people. At one point he tells Lofty, who only rarely joins us for these events, that her parents don’t tell her the truth.

“They do too!” she immediately counters.

Then, after a brief pause. “Most of the time they do.”

“No they don’t,” Doug insists.

I know what he’s getting at–that truth and integration go hand in hand; that the more segregated we are, psychologically and spiritually, the less truthful we will be, both with one another and with ourselves. But he doesn’t explain what he means, of course, and I wonder how Lofty will respond to his inimitable style.

She ponders his assertion for a moment.

Then she says, “Well, I know that one thing they tell me is true.”

“And what’s that?” he asks, his curiosity clearly piqued.

“They tell me they love me,” she replies, with quiet certainty.

Doug smiles and agrees with her. I am warmed by her response, sensing how important it is that she has something relatively unshakable to fall back upon when she’s feeling threatened.

Bushwhacked by John Gatto (Friday, 29 May 1992) Today is my birthday. I wake up with the first telltale symptoms of the flu that both Lofty and Joyce are already experiencing.

“What about my birthday dinner at Transdyne tonight?” I wonder apprehensively. “It’s too late to re-schedule it now.”

So I wander up to the community shelter. After breakfast, Joyce starts preparing lunch and a couple of casseroles for this evening. She can hardly keep on her feet, her energy is so low. I get the cake ready for her and put it into the oven, then drag back down to the house.

Collapsing into a chair, I have an urge to listen to the newly-arrived John Gatto tape. John Taylor Gatto is a controversial teacher in New York City. After winning that city’s Teacher of the Year award three times, he was named New York State’s Teacher of the Year last year.

What makes him so controversial is his scathing indictment of what he calls “government monopoly compulsory schooling.” His acceptance speech for the New York State award was titled, “The Seven Lesson Curriculum.” I was so impressed, upon reading it, that when I heard he had a book out, I asked our local library to obtain it for us via Inter Library Loan.

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling arrived a couple of weeks later, courtesy of a Wyoming library. For me, the book was a powerful articulation of what had previously been a strong but mostly inarticulate resistance to public schooling. It also had a radicalizing effect on Joyce. We decided to order a copy, as well as a tape of a speech that Gatto recently made to a home schooling group in Ohio.

Yesterday, the book and tape arrived in the mail. In the same mail was the third grade home schooling curriculum from Oak Meadow, which we had previously ordered. I noticed the synchronicity, but let it pass. There was too much else going on. Spring is a busy season here.

This morning, however, after coming down from the kitchen, and with the help of a rainy day, a stressed back, and the onset of the flu, I relinquish my crowded agenda and sit down to listen to the Gatto tape. The impact is unexpected and dramatic.

My first impression is an appreciation for the quality of the recording. It’s well done. Then, hearing Gatto speak, I realize once again how powerful the spoken word is, compared to a written transcript. Then, five or ten minutes into his speech, he says something that triggers uncontrollable tears.

The depth of the emotion startles me. My response to ideas is rarely so visceral. I have hardly recovered my composure, however, when another remark sets off a second round of convulsive sobbing. Three or four more times during his talk, I find myself crying my guts out over what he’s saying. By the time the ninety minute tape is over, I am physically and emotionally drained.

Slumped in my chair, the turbulence slowly subsiding, I realize what a tangled and intricate skein those feelings had been. “Tears of rage, tears of grief,” as Bob Dylan once sang. And along with the rage and the grief, an unbearable mingling of hope and fear, despair and determination.

Not just for Lofty. And not just for the public school kids in the neighborhood and beyond, or for their families. But for myself. For my community. For our entire culture.

I feel the terrible consequences of so many children growing up not really knowing either family or home, taught not to trust or to love themselves, fearful of intimacy and spontaneity, disconnected from the Earth. I feel the present and pending price of this devastating alienation, and deep in my bones I tremble for our future.

Then I recall the card that I’d drawn during our last “Tuesday Night Game.” It was from the Seth/Jane Roberts material. I’ve been carrying it around in my pocket ever since, all but forgotten. Until now. So I fish it out and re-read it.

Ideas have no reality unless you make them your own. Make friends or enemies of them. Fight with them or love, them but use and experience them, not only with your intellect but with your feelings.

Shaking my head in amazement at how appropriate the card is, I get up and trudge to the community shelter for lunch. Folks ask how I’m feeling, knowing my energy is low, and are astonished to see me burst into tears. Eventually I get the story out. Lofty comes over and puts her arms around me, comforting her uncharacteristically distraught father.

After lunch, I barely have the stamina to get back down to the house, take off my clothes, and crawl into bed. Joyce is in the same shape. Lauren tends both of us. She turns back the covers, brings us drinking water, and stokes the stove. We tell her that she must be growing up; never before have both her parents been sick at the same time. She smiles and agrees, and ends up going to Transdyne with Ron, Marlene, and Adam to celebrate my birthday, with the guest of honor and his wife “in absentia.”

The following day brings a slow recovery. We’re told that the party was fun and that Lofty did an admirable job of standing in for her ailing parents.

And the three of us are now leaning toward returning the third grade curriculum. While attractive, it feels rather tightly structured. It appears that we’re being nudged still further down the road of child-led learning.

Part Three: Sifting Through Your Mind

Helping out with Tom's new deck

Spring 1992

When Robin Hood Was a Boy (Wednesday, 4 March 1992) We’re in town today, tending our usual long list of errands. We’re also planning to take in a matinee performance of Hook, the Peter Pan sequel which Lauren’s been wanting to see. As we’re winding our way down the mountain on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Lauren starts talking about a difficult dynamic that she and one of the adults in the community are working on together. Lauren vents some feelings. Then the conversation broadens into the subtle but pervasive prejudice against kids in this culture.

A while later, Lauren is wishing for a movie about when Robin Hood was a boy. She’s read the classic book version of Robin Hood, and has seen the Kevin Costner movie about her hero. I silently wonder if she’s wanting to see how Robin, who stood up to the establishment against overwhelming odds, might have faced the looming conspiracy of adults when he was a young boy.

Then Joyce suggests that maybe when Lauren grows up she can somehow avoid contracting the inevitable case of adult-itis. Maybe she can even make a movie about what it’s like to be a kid living in a world run by adults.

“Yeah!” Lauren replies. “And when I make the movie, I’ll give [that so-and-so] free admission, just to see what it feels like.”

The conversation gets buried under the busyness of the day. Finally, after supper, we sit down in the Grandin Theater to watch Hook. I’m not too taken by the movie. Dustin Hoffman is wonderful, but other than that, it lacks the magic of Spielberg’s earlier classics.

Lofty, however, loves the show. She laughs and hollers all the way through it. It’s worth the price of admission to see her enjoyment. Finally I tumble to the tie-in between the theme of the movie and our talk coming down the mountain. For the busy, self-important, grown-up Peter Pan has forgotten his magical childhood. As a properly pre-occupied adult, he has effectively suppressed any traces of spontaneity, wonder, and adventure, both in himself and in his children.

The movie’s plot has Hook kidnapping Peter’s children. Peter, in order to rescue them, is forced to return to the magical island and the magical powers of his youth, thus providing Hook with a “worthy opponent” and the opportunity for revenge. The entire movie, in other words, is an imaginative amplification of the very themes that we’d been talking about earlier.

In an amusing footnote, as we’re driving up the mountain, through the misty rain, the car starts acting a little funny.

“Let’s send it some stardust,” I suggest.

In the movie, Tinker Bell had used stardust to assist the children’s flight, and I’m hoping to fly home without too much of an adventure.

So off we go, into the fog and up the mountain. Somewhat to my surprise, the car’s funny symptoms subside. By the time we reach the top of Bent Mountain, it’s purring along, my anxiety has dissipated, and Lauren has fallen asleep.

Just as I’m mentioning to Joyce that we should remember to thank Tinker Bell when we get home, a shooting star with a long flowing tail, its brilliance barely softened by the fog, falls through the darkness just ahead of us. It looks exactly like the depiction of Tinker Bell in the movie. Joyce and I look at each other, grin, and wish that Lofty had been awake to see it.

An Exchange of Favors (Friday, 6 March 1992) A nice example of the universe taking care of itself today. Joyce volunteers to drive Marlene to Bedford and spend the day with her while she has her teeth pulled and gets fitted for dentures. Upon their return, Marlene receives in the mail three videos that she’d ordered as part of a video club come-on—Robin Hood, Dances With Wolves, and Ghost. All three are among Lauren’s favorites. A fine exchange of favors between Marlene and Joyce, completely unplanned (at a conscious level) by either of them.

The Old Western Café (Saturday, 7 March 1992) Lofty and I are heading toward dinner this evening. We are most of the way to the community shelter when she says, “Wouldn’t it be fun if I were all dressed up in cowboy clothes, with a hat and everything? And you were all dressed up in cowboy clothes? And Mom was, too? And we all walked into a café? And it was called ‘The Old Western Café’? Wouldn’t that be neat?! I’d like that!!”

Lofty’s Pouch and Fur-Bag (Saturday, 7 March 1992) Lofty and I are in the community shelter this morning. She’s all decked out with her paraphernalia: a large Swiss Army knife that Adam gave her for Christmas (more on that in a moment) fastened to her belt on a key chain holder and tucked into the front pocket of her favorite pair of black jeans; a leather carrying case, which she calls her “pouch;” and a small lambskin bag that’s her “fur-bag.”

She’s been helping me pick up some shards of a broken lamp chimney and has sliced her finger. As she sucks on it, trying to get it to stop bleeding, she suddenly gives a start and says, “I almost forgot all about them!”

Opening her leather pouch and rummaging through the contents, she triumphantly produces a small band-aid, which she applies to her wounded finger.

“I knew they’d come in handy,” she announces.

I smile and ask what else she has in her pouch.

“You can look if you’d like.”

But just then Sage arrives and off they go.

Later, however, I accept her offer and take an inventory of her medicine bundles.

In the fur-bag are a pair of dice, one red, one white, and a small, plastic, rectangular container with a snap lid. In the pouch, which may once have been a leather carrying case for a pair of opera glasses (it has a zippered lid and a carrying strap) are the following:

A small blue pocket notebook; a tiny Swingline stapler with two little boxes of staples; a pad of yellow Post-em notes; a pocket copy of the New Testament, along with the Psalms and Proverbs, courtesy of Gideon International; one of those hand buzzers that were around when I was a kid, that you conceal in your palm when you’re about to shake hands with someone; a small pack of cards from some word game (“l. Igloo, 2. Glassy, 3. Snuggle, 4. Twilling,”); a pack of coupon tickets which can only be redeemed at Showbiz Pizza; a small box containing the Masonic trowel that Tom has given her; a ball point pen; a plastic whistle; a 1990 quarter; an aluminum medallion (“Knights Go Back To The Future, 1991″); a clear marble; a key chain ornament advertising Union Bank; a plastic cricket; and three more small band-aids.

Tom Sawyer would be proud. And perhaps just a bit envious.

Lofty’s Swiss Army Knife (Saturday, 7 March 1992) And now back to her knife.

Not too long ago, Lauren gave herself a good demonstration of how malleable life’s circumstances can be, if only one’s desire and intent are clear and strong. The fruits of her focus hang from her belt in a place of honor.

I smilingly recall the Christmas just past. Adam has given the kids some presents. Sage and Christopher get Swiss Army knives. Lauren and Myra receive magnified and lighted viewing lenses for studying small natural objects.

Both items are nice, but there’s a bit of gender bias in the decision about who should get what. The boys get the knives; the girls get the lenses. I know there’s disappointment brewing. Lauren has already lost a pocket knife and has been longing for another. Sure enough, after the presents are opened, Lauren manages a polite “thank you” for her viewing lens, while casting covetous glances in the direction of Sage’s new knife.

The next day she half-heartedly tries out the viewing lens, but quickly loses interest. Not only is she heart-sick over the knife she didn’t receive, but she can’t get the light on her viewing lens to work. The battery doesn’t fit into its compartment.

She brings it over to show me. After confirming that the battery is the correct size, I help her jam it into the compartment. It’s a tight fit, but the light goes on O.K., so I hand it back to her.

A moment later she drops it with a yelp and starts sucking her finger.

“That thing burnt me,” she exclaims.

I pick it up. Sure enough, it’s still hot. Part of the plastic has even started to melt!

To make a long story short, we show the lens to Adam, who agrees that it’s defective.

“It has a money-back guarantee,” he adds. “I’ll ship it back to them.”

Then the wheels begin to turn. There’s some hurried consultation and in a few moments Adam turns to Lofty.

“Do you want them to send you a new, replacement lens?” he asks. “Or should we just get a refund and order one of those knives for you instead?”

Lofty’s eyes light up like a sparkler. Before a word is spoken, Adam gets his answer.

The next two weeks are an agony of waiting. Lauren’s attention is riveted to each and every incoming package. Finally it arrives. Joyfully she rips open the box and carefully examines all the different blades and tools. Then she lovingly ties it to her belt loop and slips it into her pocket, where it’s remained ever since. The rest of us are happily impressed by how cooperative the universe can be at times.

Lofty's goggles and knife leash

George Carver’s First Knife (Saturday, 7 March 1992) As a postscript to the above story, and a further confirmation of a cooperative universe, Lauren recently asked Joyce to read her some more about George Washington Carver. Joyce is initially reluctant. Last fall we had read two long biographies of Carver and Joyce wants to turn to someone else.

But Lauren pleads for more Carver. So I prowl through a packet of materials that Tuskegee University had sent us and come across The Man Who Talks With the Flowers, by Glenn Clark. So Joyce surrenders and starts reading pieces of it to Lauren. Almost immediately they come upon the following story, which I’ll share in full. Clark is questioning Carver.

“Could you describe to us your methods when you meet a problem?”

“I never grope for methods. The method is revealed the moment I am inspired to create something new. I live in the woods. I gather specimens and listen to what God has to say to me. After my morning’s talk with God I go into my laboratory and begin to carry out His wishes for the day.”

“Can you recall your first answer to prayer?” I asked.

“One of my most surprising answers to prayer came when I was a little boy of five or six. I had no pocket knife, and how I longed for one! I was very mechanical-minded. And of all things–a boy without a pocket knife!

“So one night I prayed to the Father to send me a knife, and that night I had a dream. I dreamed that out in the field where the corn rows joined the tobacco rows there was a watermelon cut in halves. One half was all gouged out. The other half, plump and full, was leaning up against three stalks of corn, and out of it stuck the black handle of a pocket knife.

“The next morning I could hardly wait till I got through breakfast before I scampered out to the cornfield. There where the corn rows joined the tobacco rows I saw a watermelon cut in halves, one half was all gouged out and the other half, plump and solid, rested up against three stalks of corn. And sticking out of it was the black handle of a pocket knife.”

Lauren, of course, is enthralled by the story, relating to it directly and empathically. None of us had heard it before; the other two books hadn’t mentioned it. Directly following this story is another question for Carver.

“You have the habit of talking to a little flower or a peanut and making it give up its secrets to you. How do you do it?”

Carver’s response is profound:

“You have to love it enough,” said Dr. Carver. “Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets,” he continued as if talking to himself, “but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also–if you love them enough.”

Re-Tracing Our Gender Lines (Tuesday, 17 March 1992) Today, on Joyce’s birthday, I’m wanting to trace back Lauren’s gender lines. Genealogy can quickly become labyrinthine. It also has a strong patriarchal bias. Perhaps a less complex and less sexist approach might be to delineate someone’s mother-line and father-line. Lauren’s father is Robert. Robert’s father is Caleb. Caleb’s father is Henry Wilder. And so on. This is a fairly easy line to trace. It goes back twelve generations to Pasco, who arrived on the shores of Salem, Massachusetts from England in the early 1600s.

Lauren’s mother-line, however, is less easy. Lauren’s mother is Joyce. Joyce’s mother is Lilly. Lilly’s mother is Dana. Dana’s mother is Melly. And there the trail (at least for me, for now) grows cold.

These mother-lines are fascinating, precisely because they’re so obscure. In our patrilineal culture, a girl takes her father’s name and a woman takes her husband’s. Women don’t have surnames, only given names. Slaves, too, had no surnames. George Washington Carver, for example, took the surname of the family which owned him.

Neither slaves nor women have their own names. Women have maiden names and married names, but both are men’s names. What does it mean for a woman not to have her own name? How does being nameless lodge in a woman’s psyche? How does it affect her sense of identity and continuity, her connections with the past?

It feels important to offer to Lauren (and to other girl-children) whatever slender threads of a mother-line that we’re able to spin out of the scanty records that we have or can find.

Can I Do It For a Million Dollars? (Saturday, 21 March 1992) Lofty is telling Joyce what she would do if she had a million dollars.

“I’d buy a horse. And a saddle and bridle and everything. And I’d buy the materials and have someone build me a barn. And then I’d buy all the fencing to fence in the pasture. And enough hay for the horse to eat in the winter.”

She pauses and looks at Joyce inquiringly.

“Do you think I can do it for a million dollars??”

Cold Lava (Saturday, 21 March 1992) Another of those peculiar synchronicities today. Lauren awakens with a dream about ice-cold lava flowing slowly across a highway. Then this afternoon she receives a postcard from her aunt Heather, who is visiting her uncle David and aunt Karin in Hawaii. The picture on the card shows molten lava from one of Hawaii’s volcanic eruptions. The lava is flowing across a coastal highway. Lauren is startled to see the card. It’s the first time that she has either dreamt about or received a postcard about lava.

Bedtime Story (Friday, 3 April 1992) Lauren’s riding another wave of reading enthusiasm. After we finish the evening ritual of reading our bedtime story, and Joyce and Lauren climb into bed, Lauren reads aloud from one of her books. Currently we’re being treated to several pages nightly from The Cat in the Hat.

Won’t It Be Wonderful (Wednesday, 8 April 1992) We awake to a beautiful spring day. Lofty and I walk out of the house and up toward the shelter. We’re on our way to pick up my mother, Hope, at the airport. Lofty takes several deep breaths, drinking in the aroma of the earth. Then she says, “Won’t it be wonderful that Hopie will be able to come here and smell this smell?!”

The Bomb in the News Station (Wednesday, 8 April 1992) Lauren has a dream about being at Blue Mountain (a local alternative school) with a bunch of kids. She’s having a good time playing with them. Somehow, though, there’s a news station attached to the school, with a bomb in it that’s about to go off.

George Washington Carver’s Way (Saturday, 18 April 1992) Tomorrow we’re celebrating Lauren’s eighth birthday, combining it with an Easter egg hunt and Sunday morning pancakes. We’re expecting a big crowd. Fortunately, the weather forecast is favorable. We’d have to move into crisis mode if all those kids and their parents had to somehow cram into our small community shelter.

Lauren’s helping Joyce dye Easter eggs, using various natural ingredients that Joyce has learned over the years will produce all those softy, lovely earth colors. Toward the end of the process, Lauren wants to try a dying experiment of her own. So she gathers some grass and onion skins and various other substances, mixes them together, and adds an egg to the mixture.

Nothing happens, except the faintest tinge of some drab color.

Disappointed, Lauren asks, “Won’t my experiments ever work?”

“Well, you can learn everything I’ve learned,” Joyce replies, “and then you can study all the different books to see what other people have learned. Or,” she adds after a pause, “you can try George Washington Carver’s way.”

Lauren, of course, rises to the bait.

“What way is that?”

“You can ask God to help you figure out what experiments to try. Then you can be quiet and listen.”

A long silence ensues as Lauren mulls over this unorthodox option.

Doing What You Like to Do (Saturday, 18 April 1992) After Lauren finishes dying the Easter eggs she comes down to the house to help me figure out what games to play during her party. It’s mid-afternoon. I am experiencing my usual mid-afternoon energy slump and am moving toward my usual brief-but-sweet mid-afternoon nap.

Lauren reads my mood instantly. After we’ve decided on a few games, she asks me, out of the blue, “What do you like to do?”

The question startles me, not only because it’s out of context, but also because it seems like an “important” question. My body can feel the importance of the question, as though its one that we should be asking ourselves and each other more often.

So I share several things that I like to do.

She nods, and then asks, “What else do you like to do?”

I pause, reassess, and add several more items to my list.

She nods again. Waits a while. Then says, “What would you most like to do, right now?”

Without thinking, I reply, “I’d most like to take a nap.”

“Well, that’s just what you should do. You should do just what you’d most like to do, no matter what it is, because that’s the best way to get your energy back.”

I bow silently to my teacher and follow her advice.

Part Two: On Loan From the Universe
(continued)

Winter 1991

Tom and Lauren

A Family Vignette (Thursday, 5 December 1991) A beautiful vignette this evening, of life in our new form of family. After supper, Joyce goes off to the village meeting at the Institute for Sustainable Living. Marlene’s at her weekly gathering with Harry and Doris. The rest of us are sitting around in the community shelter by lamplight. Kent’s in the kitchen, reading the current issue of Harrowsmith. Ron’s near the stove, reading a book about dream-work. I’m on the couch, reading an old issue of Whole Earth Review. And Lauren is in Tom’s lap, in the rocking chair, listening intently to stories about his youth, for which she seems to have an insatiable appetite, and which he loves to share. Everything’s warm and cozy and family.

First Day at School (Wednesday, 11 December 1991) Mary invites Lauren to accompany Sage to Blue Mountain School yesterday. She goes and has a good time. It’s mostly a pre-school play group. I’m sure she’ll want to go back again. So the question of schooling is broached (necessarily so) and we begin to dance our way toward understanding.

They Don’t Need Those Things (Thursday, 12 December 1991) Just as supper is ending, Lauren gets out the Body Boggle game and tries to interest folks in playing it with her. Marlene and Joyce are away for the evening, the former to Harry and Doris’ and the latter to a gathering honoring the women elders of the wider community. So Lauren has only the four men to coax into her energetic game, and most of them are tired out from a full day’s work.

She resolutely goes ahead anyway, explaining what the various players are supposed to do and asking who wants to be which player. “I’ll play the spectator,” says Kent.

She glares at him and turns to Ron. “I’ll be the cheerleader,” Ron suggests.

“No!” Lauren replies in an exasperated tone, clearly frustrated with these old fogies. “They don’t need any of those things.”

Having cooked the meal, and therefore being exempt from the after-dinner chores, I choose to play Body Boggle with her. I’m surprised by how energizing it is, as I stretch into the necessary contortions, spreading out my hands, feet, and head to touch the letters of the words she spells for me.

So having yielded to my daughter’s desire to play, despite my fatigue, I find myself with more energy than I had before I started. An important lesson to remember.

The Infiltration of Garlic (Sunday, 15 December 1991) It’s fascinating to see small but nevertheless dramatic changes slowly being incorporated into our lifestyle. Take garlic, as an example. The first person I recall using garlic medicinally was Irene. She’d chew on a clove occasionally when she felt a cold coming on. We thought it was rather crude, socially, for her to pollute the room with the stench of garlic.

I believe Kent was next, some years later, to give garlic a try. Joyce, Lauren, and I followed suit soon thereafter. And the other night, Stan was talking about how he had tried several cloves to ward off an impending cold. And it worked. Doug, having never tried garlic himself, was encouraging Stan to use it.

So gradually, a small but significant piece of the alternative lifestyle becomes established– because it works, and because it meets a real need, despite the social taboo against its use. It’s a good little parable.

Naomi Dancing (Sunday, 15 December 1991) Lauren dreamt of Naomi last night. She says that Naomi was dancing, that she had dark skin (“like an Indian”), and that she was wearing a dress made of patches (“like a patchwork quilt”). Naomi was at the party last night. And she was dancing quite a bit, which neither Joyce nor I mentioned upon our return.

Beyond the specifics, however, it feels as though Lauren was picking up on something while she slept. The party was significant for the neighborhood. I can’t put my finger on why, other than to say that an event like that was needed, that the need was met, and that Lauren’s dream images capture the feeling-tone of the need having been met.

In the dream, Naomi (who is generally rather reclusive) was dancing. She had skin like an Indian (tribal activity). And she was wearing a patchwork dress (the neighborhood as a patchwork quilt). The specifics are clumsy. Yet the feeling-tone of the party and of the dream do seem to match.

Sleepy-Time Encounter (Monday, 16 December 1991) Lauren falls asleep on the living room floor tonight as we’re getting ready for bed. Joyce has already climbed under the covers. I’m brushing my teeth by the stove.

Suddenly Lauren opens her eyes and smiles at me in the strangest way. The smile is bright and wide, but she is clearly asleep. And her face is different. It’s as though someone else is smiling up at me through her sleeping features.

I kneel down beside her because it feels like she’s wanting to tell me something. She reaches up, still smiling, entwines her fingers in my beard, and pulls me down until our faces are almost touching. Then she closes her eyes, relaxes her grip on my beard, and “goes back to sleep.”

I finished brushing my teeth and carry her to her bed.

Important Things to Say (Friday, 20 December 1991) The community has had a visitor for the past couple of days. He’s an elderly man who is a monologue conversationalist. It’s hard for anyone to get a word in edgewise, and especially so for a child. At one point, Lauren tries to enter the conversation. She wants to tell him something, chooses her opening well, and speaks clearly and in a loud voice. He either doesn’t hear her or he ignores her.

She sits back on the couch, looking rather discouraged. So I lean over and say something about how frustrating it must be for her.

“He listens to what other people say,” she exclaims, with no little heat. “But he won’t listen to me.”

“Adults don’t do a real good job of listening to kids,” I reply.

“They sure don’t!”

Then, after a pause. “And you know what, it’s sad that they don’t.”

“How so?” I ask.

She looks over at me, as the monologue drones on in the background, and says, “Because kids have important things to say.”

Is the Community Poor? (Sunday, 22 December 1991) Rose and Wes came for a visit this morning. Then Rose came back this evening with Shara to go caroling with us. Walking into Light Morning, she asks Shara, “Is the community poor?”

“What do you mean by ‘poor’?”

“Well, Lauren doesn’t have a TV and can’t watch the cartoons on Saturday morning.”

Then, after a moment’s pause, she adds, “But she has the woods that she can play in any time she wants to.”

Another pause.

“I think Lauren’s way is better.”

Double Special (Monday, 23 December 1991) A nice warm time with Lauren after lunch today. She has come over to sit in my lap after she has finished eating. When it comes time to do the chores, she is so cozy and contented that she begs me not to get up. So I relinquish the chore routine and we continue to cuddle for a while.

Then this evening, while she and I are walking over to visit the Days, she says, “You’ve been really special today.”

“How so?”

“Well, you’re always special. But today you feel double special.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah. It must go back to that time we spent together after lunch. That was real special.”

New tools for Christmas

Resistance to Change? (Thursday, 26 December 1991) Someone gives Light Morning a used couch. Before any of us have seen it, we are considering whether or not to keep it and, if so, for the community shelter or for one of the guest houses. Lauren is deeply opposed to the idea of having it come into the shelter. She doesn’t want it to take the place of the old bedspread-covered couch that we’ve been tolerating all these years.

I find her attachment to the status quo, her resistance to change, interesting. The rest of us are enthusiastic about replacing the current relic. She, however, is lobbying hard to leave things as they are.

Then we all go out to the parking lot to take a look at the couch, which is in the back of Tom’s truck. We quickly realize that it’s not in good shape, and dismiss the notion of it coming into the shelter. All of us, that is, except Lauren, who does a 180 and starts urging us to bring it in.

I suddenly realize that what she’s exploring isn’t so much a resistance to change, but rather the dynamics of group decision-making. When the adults are all interested in replacing the existing couch, she opposes the idea. And when the adults shift their position and decide against it, she shifts her position and favors the idea.

Tommy Knows (Friday, 3 January 1992) Lauren and Tom went to Roanoke yesterday. They did some laundry, had lunch at Show Biz pizza, and went to see Beauty and the Beast. Both of them had a good time. This morning Lauren says to me, in passing, “Tommy knows when I like things. I don’t know how. He just does.”

Sometimes I Can’t (Saturday, 4 January 1992) Lauren was rough on Joyce tonight. Not listening or being responsive to her needs. Joyce went down to the house early. As Lauren and I leave the community shelter later, I suggest that maybe she hasn’t been very tuned in to where Joyce is. She gets defiant and huffy and distant at first, looking down at me from the deck of the community shelter to where I’m standing on the ground below.

When I re-affirm my feelings that she hasn’t been respecting Joyce’s needs, though, she suddenly shifts gears. Coming over to me, she leans her head softly against mine. “Sometimes I just can’t,” she says. “As I get older, the cant’s are fewer. But sometimes I still can’t.”

Her turning instantly turns me. I’m deeply moved by her recognition of her limits and can easily empathize with her bumping up against the hard edges of those limits now and then.

Flexibility Is the Key (Thursday, 9 January 1992) With home schooling, flexibility is the key. My being able to read “the signs of the times” is crucial. Lauren clearly signals her interests and disinterests. If I am ready, willing, and able to follow these “highway signs,” we will both have an easier, happier, and more educational experience than if I don’t.

This afternoon, for example, coming down to the house with some pressing project or another on my mind, I find Lauren sitting on the couch surrounded by musical instruments. I have just barely enough grace to surrender my plans and follow her impulse to do music. We end up, all at her initiative, learning “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on the recorder. She has me practice it with her at least at dozen times.

Then she runs into her room, gets her blackboard and chalk, and writes out Mary Had a Little Lamb: A Recorder Duet by Lofty and Robert. She asks me how to spell the words she’s unsure of. Finally, she draws a lamb and a little girl at the top of the blackboard.

After carefully putting away the blackboard and the instruments, she arranges with me how we will surprise Joyce with the blackboard and then play the duet for her when she comes down. Which we do. All of this unfolds with such spontaneity and grace that I am staggered by the ease with which she has “studied” music, art, handwriting, and spelling.

And all that was asked of me was a willingness to be flexible and responsive. To give myself to the educational opportunities of the moment. To be open to “the signs of the times.”

I Wish This Day Had Never Come (Wednesday, 15 January 1992) When Lauren awakens this morning, the first thing she says to Joyce is, “I wish this day had never come.”

“You mean because the snow they predicted didn’t come in last night?”

“No! Because I was dreaming that you and Dad got me this little gray horse. And then I woke up.”

Tamper Tentrum (Sunday, 19 January 1992) Richard and Jacob tried to spend the night with us last night. Jacob went to sleep OK in Lauren’s room, but a while later he woke up and wanted his mother. He got to screaming and raising quite a ruckus. Richard finally capitulated and took him home.

In the morning, Lauren comments that, “Jacob really threw a tamper tentrum, didn’t he?”

Then she laughs at her own tongue twister and has to try several versions of it before coming out with what she intended.

Long Lost Brothers (Wednesday, 22 January 1992) I walk past Sage and Lauren this morning. They’re off in the woods a ways, chanting in unison, “We’re long lost brothers! We’re long lost brothers!” I have no idea what the context is or where the phrase has come from, and I forget to ask Lauren about it later.

I’m Happy! (Wednesday, 29 January 1992) We start working on the expansion of Tom’s cabin, Snowberry, today. David is focalizing. The rest of us are participating. At one point, as Joyce and I are clearing the new approach to the building, Lauren comes up to help. It’s a warm day for January, somewhere in the 50’s. Lauren has just come back from the house, having changed into shorts. She stands there in the sun, watching us work, and says, “I’m happy!!” It feels like such a true and healthy thing to say, that we all smile.

On Loan From the Universe (Friday, 31 January 1992) Lauren is growing up so fast. The years go sprinting by. Some day soon she’ll hop to the edge of the nest, test her wings, and fly. I’m realizing today that she’s only on loan from the universe. Feeling the tears rise up, at the thought of life without her. Strange tears, blending sadness and gladness.

Then comes the understanding, the visceral awareness, that not only Lauren, but also Joyce, and everyone else I know and love, are likewise on loan from the universe. Having not yet been faced with the death of a parent or the departure of a child, I am mostly shielded from the immensity of this mystery–that the universe asks us to return all that we’ve borrowed. And that the purpose of the loan isn’t to cling to those we love, but to use our passing moments with them to deepen our capacity to experience and demonstrate love itself.

More Bedtime Stories (Friday, 7 February 1992) Last April I listed the different stories that Joyce, Lauren, and I had been reading aloud as bedtime stories. Here is a more or less complete list of those we have read together since then.

Gifts of Unknown Things, Watson
Star Wars, Lucas
The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas et al
The Return of the Jedi, ibid
A Wizard of Earthsea, LeGuinn
The Tombs of Atuan, ibid
The Farthest Shore, ibid
Treasure Island, Stevenson
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Afternoon of the Elves, Lisle
George Washington Carver, Holt
Carver’s George, Means
Oversoul Seven and the Museum of Time, Roberts
A Swiftly Tilting Planet, L’Engle

“The Runaway Elephant” (Thursday, 13 February 1992) Lauren awakens this morning with a scary dream. It was triggered by the news account of a rampaging elephant at a circus in Florida. Having just been to the circus in Roanoke, Lauren related to the story directly.

In the dream, she is at the circus and an elephant gets loose and starts chasing people. We are all running away. Finally we are able to get into our car and drive back up the mountain. But soon the elephant shows up and continues to pursue us.

Upon hearing her dream, I remark that it sounds pretty frightening and that she must have wanted it to be over.

“Yeah, at first I did. But then I said to myself, ‘Hey man, it’s only a dream. Let’s see how it turns out.’”

An impressive touch of lucidity!

“Call Me Back When It’s Done” (Thursday, 13 February 1992) Lauren whimpers in her sleep early this morning. Later, after she has awakened, I ask her about her dreams. She can’t recall any at first, but then remembers one about Tom leaving Light Morning in the middle of the Snowberry expansion project. Apparently the pressure has become too much for him. His comment, on leaving, is, “Call me back when it’s done.”

[A note: Lauren was picking up on something here. A month or two later, the pressure does become too much for Tom and he takes off, asking us to let him know when the project is finished.]

Welded (Friday, 14 February 1992) Funny, the phrases kids pick up. It snowed this morning. I mention to Lauren that Sage will probably stay home today, rather than go to Blue Mountain school.

“I’m welded to going over there!” she exclaims. “And you can’t break a weld. Not unless you can break iron.”

Mommy (Sunday, 16 February 1992) When Lauren awakens this morning, her first word is a somewhat plaintive, “Mommy!” She doesn’t have anything special on her mind; just wants to check in with Joyce and see what she’s doing. Her way of checking in, however, triggers a rush of associations. I feel the depth and intensity of the connection between a mother and her child. What a difference between calling someone “mother” and calling her “mommy.” Like the difference between “father” and “daddy.”

Then I remember reading that when Jesus, during his agony in Gethsemane, calls out to his Father, he addresses him as abba. In Aramaic, abba signifies not so much “father” as it does “poppa” or “daddy.” It’s the word that a young child might use. And it conveys the same feeling-tone as Lauren calling for her “mommy.”

I then associate to the phrase “Mother Earth.” For a brief moment, I catch a visceral glimpse of how it might feel to have a relationship with the Earth like that which Lauren has with Joyce. To carry in one’s heart such an emotional intensity toward our home planet that we refer to it not only as “mother” but also, at times, as “mommy.”

A Fleeting Taste of Sweetness (Monday, 17 February 1992) Lauren has just bought a large flower pot so that she can transplant her small but growing spider plant into it. As the image of the plant passes through my mind, there comes what I can only describe as a fleeting taste of sweetness. Very subtle, like the faint fragrance of faraway honeysuckle.

I snuffle at the sensation for a moment, but it’s clearly not physical. Instead, it feels as though my body, at a cellular level, knows that plants sweeten the air in a room, and that this knowing has somehow been translated into a familiar, olfactory language. The “scent” of sweetness is delicate and transitory, yet distinct and pleasurable.

Perhaps this process is like the translators who work at the United Nations–the “Japanese” of my cellular knowing is magically transformed into the “English” of my normal sensory awareness. Maybe something similar happens when we awaken with a dream–the ineffable feelings of the night are translated into stories and images in the morning.

An Elegant Solution (Wednesday, 19 February 1992) Joyce, Lauren, and I have a wonderful problem-solving session today. The focal point is a cluster of frustrations about home-schooling. Joyce is feeling that I’m too busy to give home-schooling the amount of time it needs. Lauren is grousing about Joyce putting too much pressure on her. And Joyce, in turn, feels that Lauren is being uncooperative and unappreciative. Normal stuff, but important to attend to.

Without going into all the details of the session (the solution has to do with shifting from an implied and/or imposed curriculum to an emphasis on collective goal-setting), I can report that what we arrive at is not only satisfactory to each of us, it’s also exciting and liberating. It’s another excellent demonstration of the creative use of the E.T. (Effectiveness Training) approach to problem-solving, and follows hard on the heels on an equally cathartic session with Lin and Richard. Elegant solutions are transformative.

The Old Paths (Wednesday, 19 February 1992) Lauren and I are walking up the path from our house this morning. I’m was heading toward the community shelter; she’s on her way over to Sage’s. We part company at Merriwether, each going our own way.

A few moments later she calls to me, “You know, I like the old paths and the woods paths [meaning, respectively, the former logging roads and bushwhacking], because you can move around without being seen by anybody, and you can go wherever you want to go secretly.”

And off she tromps through the woods.

Taking After Her Uncle David (Thursday, 20 February 1992) Part of our family mythology as I was growing up was that my brother Ethan would squirrellishly hoard away all his money, while any cash that his twin brother David happened to come by would immediately run through his fingers.

Lauren seems to be taking after her uncle David. In Roanoke today, she has her Ninja Turtles money belt strapped around her waist, filled with dollars and quarters and nickels. Toward the end of the day there’s a new Barbie, a set of bubble-blowing devices, and a key clip for Sage’s knife on the front seat of the car, and her Turtle pouch has only loose change in it.

We get to the Co-op, where I finish setting up our new box of calligraphy. Lauren comes to the check-out counter with a few more “trinkets” in her hands. Her purchases are tallied up and she fishes out the last few coins from her pouch, borrowing a penny from me to complete the transaction.

I have to smile. She has taken it right down to zero and it doesn’t seem to bother her a bit. What’s money for, she seems to be saying, if not to be spent?

I Like the Japanese (Thursday, 20 February 1992) While driving into town today, Lauren and I get to talking about the Olympics. She is enamored of the young Japanese-American figure skater and is hoping that she wins the gold medal.

“I like the Japanese,” she says. “They’re always smiling and they’re always small.”

A cute comment from one of the little people. I forget, even after my dream about the Tall Ones, how different your perspective is if you’re four feet tall. I forget about the biblical observation that, “There were giants in the earth in those days.” Lauren obviously feels friendly toward the Japanese, at least in part because they are more her size.

Wild Horses (Thursday, 20 February 1992) We also get to talking about death. I forget how. Maybe she asks what I want to happen to my body after I die. I say that I don’t know yet; that I can feel good about either returning my body to the earth through burial, or having it burned.

Then I ask Lauren what she would like to have done with her body.

“Oh, I think I would like to have my body tied to the back of a wild horse.”

“Hmm. That sounds like it might be fun. But I don’t know if it would be fun for the horse when your body starts to stink.”

She giggles and agrees. Finally she decides that she wants to be buried under a field where wild horses graze.

“Then the grass that feeds off your body,” I say, “will feed the wild horses.”

She smiles and nods.

I Won’t Take Your Gaff (Friday, 21 February 1992) I overhear Lauren singing a little ditty to herself during chores after supper tonight. “I won’t take your gaff. I won’t take your gaff.”

I ask, rather nonchalantly, where the song comes from.

“Oh, I just made it up.”

I’m not sure who in particular, if anyone, she is singing to. It must be tough sometimes to live with a bunch of pig-headed adults.

Lofty’s Three Jobs (Tuesday, 25 February 1992) Lauren is talking about what she wants to be when she grows up. “I’d like to have one of three jobs: a cowboy who works with wild horses; a singer who writes her own songs; or an inventor, working with someone who can build what I invent.”

This is Fun! (Thursday, 27 February 1992) Lauren is reading me a story from one of her books. We set a goal of so many pages. But when we reach the cut-off point, she keeps right on going and reads through to the end of the story.

“This is fun!” she exudes. “I like to read.”

Then we start joking about my having to hide the bedtime story that I’m reading aloud, so that she won’t “cheat” by sneaking a look at the book and reading ahead of where we are. She says that the first book she wants to read is Riddle Master, by Patricia McKillip.

And the reason she has plowed ahead and finished today’s story?

“I wanted to see what happened. I didn’t know how the story was going to turn out.”

(Lauren’s Childhood at Light Morning)

Part Two: On Loan From the Universe

Sage and Lauren with marigolds

Autumn 1991

You Can’t Just Say No (Monday, 2 September 1991) Our new grain grinder has just arrived. A very expensive machine that we have high hopes for. It is beautifully designed, with a large flywheel that makes cranking it quite easy. Even Lauren can turn the handle with no trouble, which greatly thrills her. Now she’s able to grind flour like the rest of us.

Unfortunately, the output is far below both our expectations and the claims of the manufacturer. Having cranked on it for a while and seen the paltry amount of flour, and then run some trials with a timer, measuring cup, and scales, we are of one mind– the grinder will have to be returned.

This “we,” however, has not included Lauren. Her eyes fill with tears when she learns of our collective intention to ship back the lovely grinder that she can make flour with. All our reasons and statistics are meaningless to her. And I’m afraid that “we,” who place such an emphasis on consensus, have already made a “consensual” decision which has excluded the littlest member of our community.

Despite Lauren’s obvious involvement in the question, we have acted as though consensus is for adults only. We have effectively disenfranchised her from the decision-making process. She catches our drift and walks away in tears.

Shortly thereafter we at least have the grace to realize what a bunch of neighborhood bullies we’ve been. For a lunchtime chore, she and I go out to grind some flour on the two machines. I explain how we can’t afford to spend an hour on the new, slow machine in order to grind a day’s worth of flour. But, I add, we’re not going to make any final decision or take any action unless she feels O.K. with it, too.

She immediately senses my sincerity. Seeing that we have turned away from going over her head with the decision, she looks at me reproachfully. “That’s right!” she says. “You can’t just say no and walk away.”

I hug her and agree that she is right and we have been wrong and that we still have a lot to learn. Then we proceed to run our own tests on the two machines.

Mama or the Tooth Fairy (Wednesday, 4 September 1991) This morning I ask Lauren if she remembers her dreams. Last night one of her front teeth finally came out. It had been loose for days and she had been teasing us with it, pushing it back up into the roof of her mouth with her tongue, to make it appear that it had already fallen out.

Just before bed, however, she had suddenly squealed, “I got it!” And there it was in her hand. Under the pillow it went for the tooth fairy, and early this morning, while I was at the computer, Joyce stuck her head up the stairs and asked me to get a dollar [talk about inflation!] to put under Lauren’s pillow.

So this morning, when I ask Lauren about her dreams, she tells me that she has dreamed that she is watching and listening very carefully all night, “to see if it was Mama or the tooth fairy that would put the dollar under my pillow.”

I smile and nod, and neither of us says anything more. Both of us, however, can feel the seasons changing as another piece of the magical world of childhood is lost along with the tooth. There’s no nostalgia or regret; just the leaving behind of something pleasurable and comfortable, and the moving forward into the excitement of the unknown.

Pencil sketch and stickers man

A Sand Castle for the Queen (Friday, 6 September 1991) We’re set to leave for the beach tomorrow. Lauren awakens this morning and her first words are, “Daddy, put away the sun glasses so you can help me build a sand castle for the Queen.” Apparently she has just emerged from a dream and is speaking the dream words in her waking world.

Daddy’s Playful Without Adults (Thursday, 26 September 1991) Wes brings Rosie up for a play-day/home-schooling morning with Lauren. I’m planning to take the girls for a walk in the woods and suggest that Wes come along with us. Lauren, however, objects. When I ask why, she very perceptively states that if another adult is along for the walk I’ll spend all my time talking with the adult instead of playing with the children. Joyce then asks Lauren if she thinks I won’t be as playful if Wes joins the walk. Lauren immediately replies, “Daddy’s playful without adults. But with adults? Not much.”

Indian Mounds (Thursday, 26 September 1991) While Lauren, Rosie, and I are walking in the woods, we come upon an old pile of white quartz stones. I’m somewhat ahead of the girls, picking up hickory nuts, and I overhear Lauren telling Rose, “This might be an Indian mound. When an Indian died they put stones over him. So the Indian’s buried under them. It doesn’t sound too comfortable, does it? But the Indian’s already dead. It doesn’t hurt. Too much.”

Pencil sketch and stickers lady

How Do Deaf People Think? (Sunday, 29 September 1991) At supper this evening, Lauren asks Joyce how deaf people think. She has apparently been paying attention to how she thinks in words, and is wondering how someone who has never heard spoken words would formulate their thoughts. I suggest that perhaps a deaf person’s thoughts might take the form of sounds or colors. We’ll turn to Helen Keller’s life story sometime soon.

“Alysia’s Talking Head” (Monday, 30 September 1991) Lauren whimpers in the night, apparently with a hard dream. Before going to bed, we had read a scary part of The Earthsea Trilogy, in which Ged is attacked by a gebbeth. This morning I ask Lauren if she recalls any of her dreams. She says that in one of them she and Nathan and someone else are someplace where there are a lot of bodies. Then they find Alysia’s head on a table. But she’s still alive and can talk with them. “We’d better get you back on your body,” Lauren tells her, “before it’s too late.”

The Terrible Irony of Pinocchio (Thursday, 3 October 1991) A sudden realization of how ironic the Pinocchio story is in relation to Lauren’s home education. Pinocchio is lured away from school by some boys who appear to be having a wonderful time. Later, though, these truants are transformed into donkeys.

We, on the other hand, find that children are often lured to school by the prospect of finding playmates. In preschool and kindergarten, and even into the early grades, it’s largely fun and games. Inexorably, however, most kids succumb to the intense social and educational conditioning that readies them for a life of conformity to the norms and demands of the conventional culture. Essentially, therefore, it is school which transforms them into donkeys.

Through my eyes, at least, this is quite an ironic reversal of the Pinocchio story.

Making Rhythms (Friday, 11 October 1991) Lauren accompanies me on her bike this morning while I go for my morning walk. As we’re passing the pond she remarks, seemingly out of the blue, “Making rhythms is one of my favorite things. You can make rhythms with almost anything.”

“How do you mean?” I ask.

“You know, like 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. Or 1-2-3, 1-2-3.”

So we pause and beat out some rhythms on a nearby mailbox.

Then she says, “Sometimes I’m making a rhythm, like at night or in the community shelter, and you tell me to stop, but I’m so attached to it that I’ve just got to finish it.”

Gunplay (Friday, 11 October 1991) I’m transplanting onions in the garden this morning when I notice Lauren running around with a long, gun-shaped stick. She hides behind a clump of ornamental grass and then shoots at an imaginary foe. Her behavior amuses and surprises me. I played guns all the time growing up, but I don’t recall seeing Lauren doing much of it at all.

So when her play takes her past my garden bed, and she involves me in the game, I ask who we are and what’s happening. She says that I’m a farmer in the fort and she’s one of the guards protecting me. I flash to the story she and Joyce are reading about George Washington’s early career as a military officer, manning the forts in the same area where we now live.

Later, the cast of characters shifts to Star Wars. Still later, she mentions having watched GI Joe on TV this morning, which seems to have “triggered” her play. If there were other kids around who were into gunplay, perhaps she’d do it more often. But I don’t recall it being much of a draw when she gets together with her friends.

Lauren’s Perfect Kind of Work (Saturday, 12 October 1991) Lauren is hanging around while Ron and I are putting shingles on the roof of his new tool shed. For a while she is playing on the ground with the scraps of remnant shingle that we are discarding. Then she comes up onto the roof to see if there’s some way in which she can help.

Ron says she can peel off the strips of protective cellophane that cover the band of tar on each shingle. She does so for quite some time, thoroughly enjoying herself. Toward the end she says, “This is the perfect kind of work. It’s something that I like doing, and that’s helpful to you.”

This is precisely the kind of attitude toward work that we’re trying to foster, not only in Lauren, but in ourselves. We must set good examples, of course. We can’t encourage Lauren to enjoy her work if we’re not having fun ourselves. Nor can we be of much help if we don’t let her join our roofing project, for example, or if we don’t bother to find a genuine way for her to participate. Make-work is seldom fun.

Lauren helps us learn to work, as well. Enjoyable work is playful work, and children are the masters of play. Day by day, Lauren models her mastery for us, if we would but see it.

We come from the pole of responsible work; she from the pole of spontaneous play. Together we seek a common ground called pleasurable work, one that both eases Lauren’s transition into adulthood and that restores our own child-like delight in the tasks before us.

Teaching each other to work

A Christmas Poem (Sunday, 17 November 1991) Joyce recently wrote a short poem for the Christmas cards we’re sending out this year. Lauren got so caught up in the excitement of poetry, despite her previous claims of disliking it, that she fashioned one of her own.

Christmas is fun and Christmas is nice
The children are singing and playing with ice.
And when they’re all done building snowmen and castles
They all come indoors to give Dad a hassle.

When it is morning and the sun rises
They all get up early and open surprises.
With a jump and a hop and a skip and a twirl
They’re all out the door and away with a whirl.

All Right, Dude! (Saturday, 30 November 1991) We recently ordered some shareware programs, including a couple of educational ones for Lauren. She’s been working (that is, playing) with one called Googol Math. It’s an arcade style game. The goal is to maneuver a small figure through various openings, past obstacles, and then jump him up and bump the number that’s the correct answer to an equation.

For example, the equation at the beginning of a game might be 9 + 8 = ?. There are eight numbers spread out across the display screen. Lauren has to figure out the correct answer to the problem, and then move her figure to where she can bump into it.

There are different speeds and different kinds of problems–addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. You score points for how many right answers you get before your figure gets killed by bumping into the wrong numbers. There are also sound effects and on-screen feedback (“Perfect, Lofty” or “Lofty is the champ”) whenever a score is made.

Lauren’s having a grand time with the game. She’ll lobby hard for some computer time and then plug in her game diskette and go at it. We hear the beeps and whistles, along with occasional comments such as, “I accept the challenge” and “All right, Dude,” the latter presumably borrowed from Ninja Turtle lingo.

In the meantime, she’s getting friendly with the computer and is practicing her math drills.

As Joyce says, “There’s no way she’d sit still for that long with a set of math flash cards.”

Waiting in the wings is School Mom, a similar but more comprehensive educational software program, and FasType, which teaches touch typing. We will no doubt have to exercise some discrimination and see what programs grab and keep her attention, but it’s looking like the computer will be a helpful component of her home schooling.

Crossover Nightmares (Saturday, 30 November 1991) Last night Joyce dreamt than Lauren had been abducted by a group of people. Lauren, the same night, dreamt that Joyce had been abducted by a group of people. Both dreams verged on being nightmares. There was a lot of emotion in them for both of them. It’s a good example of what we refer to as “bleed-through dreams.”