A Leap in the Darkness... take one!

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.” Henry Miler

Starting this blog is a leap for me. I have never been a blogger, despite my apparent predilection for using the internet obsessively. A writer of sorts, I suppose, but definitely not a blogger. For many, many years I wrote, freehand, train of consciousness, pen and paper journals, the classic "morning pages" a la Julia Cameron. I wrote a lot. Prolifically. And mostly badly. In fact, so much of my writing over the past 15 years or so is so unreadable that I wince whenever I accidentally run across some of it while sorting through the stacks of paper and old journals I have managed to drag along with me through years of moving and rearranging and periodic purging of junk. Full of angst, boring, repetitive, negative, or alternately hopelessly optimistic, most of it is embarrassing at best, excruciating at worst and certainly nothing I would post on a website for mass public consumption. Not that I can't write, and write well. Just that I haven't consistently done so in a journal format before. This is why I balk at the idea of blogging. Putting my very personal writing out into the world in such a public and permanent way is very intimidating for me, but at the same time, very exciting.

The thing is, I love to write. I miss it, now that I spend so much time plugged into the cyber world and since I have little and bigger kids at home that take up so much of my time and energy. I want to write, yet I just don't find myself drawn to the pen and paper act of writing anymore. I find that I love the ability to rearrange my thoughts, to cut and paste, delete, rethink, reword and rework ideas that the keyboard provides. My last few years of university might have been wasted time, but for the discovered ability to write well, clearly, and with passion about subjects that interest me, something I don't think I would have done without the necessity of working on the computer that school created. I found my voice in a surprising way, pouring heart and soul into carefully crafted papers destined for nothing more than a quick read and a prof's encouraging commentary. "Great writing, you find the heart of your subject well". "Very elegant, would that all young mother's could tell their stories as well"... Yet without the force of a deadline or an assignment, I seem to find myself mostly voiceless. Searching for inspiration and coming up dry.

Until recently that is. Over the last year I have been reading a lot of online writing, lists and blogs and groups. Reading a lot, but not writing much. But somewhere in the last couple of weeks, I found myself, seemingly out of nowhere, feeling inspired to channel all the pent up creative energy into something to help in some way make the world just a little bit better. Tall order I know, but of course, that has always been my modus operandi, hence the feel good mushiness of my prior attempts at writing. But this feels different. Not just wishy washy dreaminess, but a real, distinct and deepening passion. It's a bit of a relief to be honest. I'd almost given up on myself, thinking I'd never find my passion, my way to contribute to the world. And, to be equally honest, I didn't really find it. Rather it found me.

That is where the quote comes in. Of course I have always been one for unplanned leaping, and although things may have looked bad midleap, most have turned out pretty well in the long run, with a few exceptions. But this last year, since discovering unschooling, was beyond the usual acrobatics for me, although in truth, the fact that it was a leap at all is a pretty sad reflection on the state of our culture. But sad or not, the fact is that in our part of the world, deciding to treat children with the same level of respect and kindness you would treat an adult, trusting them to make choices for themselves and to learn in freedom and joy rather than by force is one of the biggest leaps in the darkness there is. There are few models, lots of confusion about what it looks like in practice and a whole lot of people who are waiting for you to fall flat on your face. All in all, it is not a leap I would have made by choice. In a sense it was more like being pushed (thanks Terran!). But I love my kids fiercely, so when the choice was to jump or to fall, taking them down with me, I aimed in the general direction of the voices on the other side (thanks unschoolers!) and I jumped.

I landed squarely in the middle of deschooling and man, it was not pretty. I had to wade my way through the thick muck of inner and outer voices that told me, no screamed at me, that unschooling and the kind of trustful, peaceful, joyful and kind relationship I want to have with my kids was not only impossible but actually undesirable and, worse, totally selfish. I had to start to see my role as a mother differently, to question the whole idea of what a "good mother" looks like. That was tough. Growing up with some pretty messed up parenting (no offence mom, I know you did your best), I was really attached to the idea of being a good mother. I was incredibly idealistic about what that looked like, although I had already let go of a lot of those ideals by the time I got to the leaping, mostly out of frustration and burnout, since it takes a lot of effort and energy to say no all the time. I had traveled a long way from my image of motherly perfection, so it wasn't as hard as I thought to let go of most of the rest. Far from the TV free, veggie, organic, firm but fair hippie mama I dreamed myself to be, with the sweet, respectful and well mannered but interesting and conscientious kids I imagined I'd have, when I decided to let go of those things, I still found myself closer than I had ever been to the kind of relationship I had always thought I'd have with my kids.

I still have a long way to go. I still make a lot of mistakes and have a lot of questions. I am still pretty darn scared a lot of the time, since I haven't really touched down from that leap yet. But what started out feeling a whole lot like falling has started to feel a lot more like flying. The voices from the other side are starting to drown out the ones in my head, and I can make out the ground over there now. It looks really bright and sunny and the natives seem friendly. And best of all, I can't, by the furthest stretch of the imagination, ever picture myself going back. I have, as the quote suggests, grown into this new way of being, and my world is forever changed. And I am so, so glad.

Which brings me back to the beginning. This blog is my way of saying thank you to the voices on the other side and adding my voice to theirs. Over the past week or so I have been joining the many unschoolers on the fantastic unschooling groups I belong to in responding to posts, ever since the writing bug bit. I may not have the experience, but I think I have a way of putting ideas together that is clear and direct but kind and empathetic. I think I can help others understand this path and to trust themselves to take the leap. I may not only write about unschooling, although I am pretty sure it will be a focus. What I will write about is how to challenge long held beliefs, fears and doubts, how to leap and what that looks like from here. I hope I can keep it up, we'll see how it goes with a toddler and my big guy needing my energy. And I hope what I write can inspire others the way some of the amazing unschooling writers like Ren and Joyce and Meredith and Anne Ohman and so many others have inspired me. Wish me luck!