Thanks for Nothing

Here comes Thanksgiving in America, 2012. I bought a new spiral notebook and a whole bag of pens in preparation. It's going to be kind of a big deal this year so I don't want to forget anything.

During these long dull days after the debauchery of Halloween, and before the sparkling of Christmas*, it is popular to concentrate on the good things. And why not? Is gratitude and humility in the face of a livable life ever out of season? Those things for which we are all thankful are subjective: relative to what we have, and what we feel entitled to have. My mind wanders from all of the things I appreciate in my life, outward, to a larger thing that I believe enables it all to be as it is. And so, I find myself most thankful for nothing.

*or whatever you call that time of the year right before January, when you have to spend time with your grandma, overeat,  and pretend not to be disappointed by gift-wrapped pajamas.

Oh, gentle reader, do you know how many times I nearly bored you to death with descriptions of How We Homeschool? Or How I See Things? I am ashamed of how many files I have where I start to describe My Take on Educating My Little Ones; in which I come to hate the sight of my own blah blah blah, kids need this, kids need that, I see things this way and that way. Wake up! Come back!

But you wouldn't have been right to come back. That blather is boring and irrelevant to your life. So, this thing, this nothing of which I am about to speak, isn't really nothing at all, but a very useful something, which anyone can appreciate.

Wake up! Come back!

Now, I'm no math instructor, but I have been married to one for a while, so I'm pretty sure I'm a math expert by now. I hope, at least, I can explain zero.

We, as humans, haven't always understood such a thing as nothing. Let that sink in for a second. Once, there was no nothing. When you're talking about anything in life, you're talking about something. But what if you need to hit the old space bar? Take a "rest," musically speaking? How would you convey nothingness without it being filled by something else? You make a beautiful little bubble around it. A little dot of nothing. Protected, defined, definitely there, and definitely something, but very decidedly not.

That is my way. No way. The Tao of Homeschooling? Yick, but maybe. Make no mistake, it doesn't involve a lot of feeling like not doing anything, so video games. There is a BU Motto, a modus operandi, if you will, a mission statement, of sorts:

Discover your passion(s) and get really good at something.

I heard a lady on TV, a few years ago, say, "The secret to happiness is to find out what you love most and become an expert at it." When I heard that, it quickly moved into my top favorite quotes and a core value in my life -just as we made the move to homeschool all of the kids, all of the time.  As we have loped along, in pursuit of that ideal, the value of Nothing In Particular has made itself clear. That's where I come in. I stand guard at the perimeter and make the spaces happen, in our time, and in our home. I do little to orchestrate activities, rather feeling my role is to try to make sure nobody is too lazy, gets hurt, is overbooked, or burns down the house. Sometimes I clean up afterward, but making them do it for themselves is all part of the magical learning environment we call L-I-F-E, so I'm worming my way out that one too.

It wasn't as easy as it sounds, all of that lackadaisical letting go. When you are raising young children, there is a strong urge to involve them, and yourself, in things; to get out of the house, or bring other people in, to check out museums, parks, playgroups, besides school and sports. I enjoyed the years we spent that way, when our oldest two were young, and have had passing shadows of guilt that, while we still love our friends, family, and outings, we haven't made that sort of activity much of a priority as homeschoolers.

For me, this has been a particularly difficult instinct to trust at this time, because finding opportunities for socialization is usually at the top of the to-do list for parents who decide not to send their kids to school. Still, I can't help but suspect I am right in shrugging off that pressure for now. My self-appointed position is Serenity Enforcer. The phone is off, and a respectable portion of our time has a nice thick line drawn around it. Maybe this is what I think is best for my kids right now, and maybe it's just what I think is my best.

Here's what has happened in that doggedly defended space over the last couple of years: poetry written in the condensation collecting on the laundry room windows, math made into ocarina music, impromptu circus tricks on the front lawn, and doll fights whose resolutions can only be called "Shakespearean." What has bubbled up in our big empty cauldron has been a meld of art, academia, emotion, science, intellect, engineering, and athleticism, all roiling at the rate of natural human development. It feels like the whole world is here in this void we have carved out for ourselves.

I know I'm just speaking as me here. And you are not me, nor should you be. I am Xtreme. Our whole life is one big zero most days, and it wasn't always like this, nor should it have been, nor will it be forever. But understanding that, in any life, a peaceful little pocket of absolutely nothing isn't going to happen on its own, is the first step. When you know that you can finally take the lead and find places to draw a zero, crawl inside it, maybe with a kid or four, and see what happens next.