EXPLORING THE WORLD OF HOMESCHOOLING

Saturday, August 11, 2007

MIA No Longer

Having a blog is a lot like having a pet or a houseplant. Neglecting it brings a guilty feeling. I'm back to water my poor little withering plant, this time from California. We're here visiting the inlaws (see Grandpa with Amelie, above), and since the inlaws are crazy in love with their granddaughter and willing to spend countless hours entertaining her, I should have lots of time for things like blogging. But instead I have been buried alive under a landslide of freelance work. This is both good (having money is nice!) and bad (I have all kinds of strange body aches from hunching over this computer).

I don't want to whine about not having enough time. Isn't it funny how time is a kind of currency in our culture? We're all flat broke; nobody has enough of it. And we're always talking about it. I even heard a retired man recently remark on being "pressed for time." There's a good article in this month's Yoga Journal called "Strapped for Time? Try Radically Changing Your Relationship to the Clock." I read it eagerly, wanting to feel time-rich. The author suggests that we start thinking about time in a new way, focusing on not just chronological time (clocks and deadlines) but also extraordinary time ("a state of intense focus, of being in the moment...what musicians and athletes describe as being in the zone"). In other words, make time when you can for activities that let you do this (creativity, gardening, sports).

What if you simply can't make space for these things? Then you can cultivate "timefulness practices" (like mindfulness practices), such as becoming more aware of the time between activities and taking a break instead of just rushing onward to the next task. And here's one piece of advice I really liked: Spend time with someone who follows their own rhythm, like a child. Kids live in the moment and teach us to try to do the same.

Is it possible that homeschooling our kids can help us heal our relationship with time? I like this idea. I will try being on Amelie time for a little while.


No comments: