Confessions From Neverland

I have no idea what I am doing. Truly. I mean it. I really do not have a clue. Here I am living in this strange, little place, just me. I’m staring at the giant Rand McNally U.S. map I hung on our homeschool room wall (to make us look smart), staring at my island. Geesh, I’m really out here, aren’t I? The northern tip of a remote place on the east coast. I don’t know anyone- a few people I’m starting to know but no one really knows me or my children (except for the mosquitoes, they love and know every inch of us). I have pulled them from public school and am now a homeschooling Mom. That usually generates a tight-lipped smile and eyes filled both with doubt and pity from whomever I might be speaking with- terrified, judge-y whispers as I walk away wondering how on earth my babes will ever be able to take a standardized test again. I don’t know. Maybe they will suck at those. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they will be thinkers and dreamers and inventors and soulful citizens of the Earth. They will be kind, though. I promise you that. Kindness and compassion first at the Ferguson Academy of Excellence. Jay made that up. We are, in actuality, more like the Ferguson University of Chaotic Kindness.  (F.U.C.K.)

It is a bit of chaos here. I am the only adult in the household during the week. (I fall to my knees in humility and admiration for single parents. They deserve beautiful massages and energetic pixies at their beck and call. You are awesome. I love you.) I am learning new curriculum and trying to make lesson plans, cooking healthy meals (latest tally is 2 vegetarians, 1 vegan and 2 people who eat air, watermelon and Oreos, sigh), being an adult, doing laundry, attempting to stay engaged in the world and creating my own at the same time. Phew.

There is this beautiful song I know but haven’t heard in awhile. It popped up on my playlist while I was walking the beach today, and it struck me in one sweet, poetic rush.

“Neverland is home to lost boys like me, and lost boys like me are free.”  (Ruth B.- Lost Boy)

Ah, now Peter Pan. There’s a guy I can get behind- someone a bit reluctant to conform. I love that. Maybe I do know what I’m doing- a little bit, sometimes, only on Tuesdays. I do feel pretty free. We are reading Swiss Family Robinson and To Kill A Mockingbird and stopping for joke breaks and yoga breaks and beach walks and the bigs are teaching the littles and the littles are listening, enraptured by algebra and new words. We are all finding a fresh, invigorated love for the dusty, inky books at the library. There is too much iPad and there are too many weird Minecraft videos, but I try to balance all of it with seashell-collecting walks, chores and careful conversations about the world we live in and the world we want to live in.

“He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe.”

Well, now.

I’ll be here- tripping over lesson plans, laughing, maybe crying a bit, wondering if I’m doing it “right”, yelling every now and then, in my cloud of pixie dust, screwing it up at every turn- believing in the very best.

“Soon enough we reach Neverland. Peacefully, my feet hit the sand.”