En Route

Fade In:  Night on the freeway.  Raining, wipers streak against the windshield.  KLOVE plays softly on the radio.  Red break lights illuminate faces in the car, boys getting restless in the back seat, mom anxious to get through the congested Portland traffic to pick husband from work.

Raph:  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII love you, Mom.

Mom:  (sigh)  I love you too, Raphie.

Raph:  I love you AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH lot, Mom.

Mom:  I love you a lot too, sweetheart.

Raph:  Okay, stop talking now, Mom.  It quiet time.  Quite time NOW.

Back On the Horse & the Holiness of Garbage Trucks

I've been a naughty blogger.  Sporatic at best.

I actually created an epic photo video from the summertime to compensate for the vast drought of posts here for four months, and after hours and hours editing that masterpiece, YouTube nixed it because it detected the contents I used regarding copyrighted music.  Not like I would be trying to make money off it, just a digital scrapbook with sound, that's all.  I had given all the props right there on the video to each artist, and I even tried to make my blog private and YouTube was still all "no way, you filthy, rotten music stealer."  I totally get it, I really do love musicians, and value their art and craft, and really do have respect for their rights and all that.  But COME ON!!! That video was going to be the coolest thing since sporks, man!  So, currently it's vaulted in my computer, and hopefully I can alter it and share it here one day.  With uber cool reggae music nonetheless.

In the meantime, I thought I had better get back on the saddle with this blog and continue to chronicle the events of my family so one day my boys can read it and (hopefully) appreciate their childhood through my eyes, and draw new insights into adulthood and parenthood through my words and experiences.  We're still seeking miracles here, and it's still very messy.  So the show must go on.

Today was an average day where we took Papa to work and then rushed home to eat breakfast then dive into school.  And as we were trying to back into our driveway to get it all started, the garbage truck was blocking our route.  As my right turn blinker ticked away, we watched that giant truck extend an arm with perfect agility and clasp with two robot fingers onto our garbage can.  Somehow, for some reason, it was hypnotic, and we three each absorbed the slow, mechanical movements as it heaved the garbage off the roadside and hold it over the massive hole on it's top, releasing a week's worth of diapers, cat litter, laundry lint, and other unspeakably nasty things dismissed in a family's trash.  And it occurred to me that the man driving the truck was good at his job, and I waved at him, as did the boys, as he drove down the block with a kind smile on his burly face.  

I couldn't help but smile as well, and I suddenly wanted to hug that man.

What if we didn't have garbage trucks?  I know what that looks like first hand.  When we were in Senegal 5 years ago, we were mesmerized by the raw and rustic beautiful of sub-Saharan Africa.  But the population isn't capable of affording food or medicine or clean water to drink and wash babies in, let alone the luxury of a sanitation department to collect and dispose of waste.  And the land was decimated by not only poverty but filth as well.  And even way out in the bush, far from the cities with their weak but running sanitation efforts, the beautiful, iconic African landscape was ruined by trash.  Plastic sacks wrapped around and hung from ancient baobab trees, and soda bottles or cans lay where they were dropped or where the wind had swept them.  Little bits of cellophane fluttered like butterflies from branches of acacia trees, and donkeys lumbered around with plastic wrapped around their legs or suctioned to their mouths as they tried to graze around it.

Somewhere between Baba Garage and Theis, Senegal in 2009:  I took this shot from the van as we left the villages, the long road into the city, the airport, and home.  Sadly the trash litters the bush as far as the eye can see.

And I'm not saying this with any elitist Christian pity, or ugly American arrogance.  It's only an observation, a contrast of cultures and circumstances.  I mention Senegal because today I wanted to hug my garbage truck driver, I wanted to yank him out of that odoriferous beast with its didactylous arm, and squeeze the prunes out of him because he did his job well, and he did it with a smile, and a friendly wave at a mom who was anxious to get the long day going, and two little boys who were enchanted by the truck he operated with such ease, for making it look easy, for lifting three dark fingers in a small salute to us, and smiling inside that scruffy beard as he drove our trash away.

El Grito Festival '13

I love a full house.  Aaron and I are both from large families (I'm the oldest of four, he's the second of six) and so we rather enjoy being smooshed in close quarters with lots of people around, it's a norm for us, a cozy thing packed with nostagia.  I love the sounds of children rushing about and playing, and people lounging in the living room chatting, at the dining table recounting stories, or (as it happens in my house) hanging it the kitchen grazing around light conversation and laughter.  People and food just go together in my mind.   And since I've become a Villanueva, music has become part of that perfect equation, too.  These Villanuevas are really, truly, deeply, musical.  The improv jams they have sitting around a living room is remarkable, not to mention the extradinary variety of instruments they procure to do so.  I'm so blessed to have my boys exposed to such wonderful cultural and musical influences.

So when our brother in law in Spokane, Nic, told us he landed a gig for his Latin band, Milonga, at El Grito in Pioneer Square in our neck of the woods, and invited Aaron to play rhythm guitar with the band, it sent a flurry of excitement around the family.  They were buzzing.  They were bubbling over.  Tom and Rachel had just moved to Olympia from Cincinnati, and were eager to go to the concert, but needed a sitter for their beautiful two year daugther, and wanted to share one with us.  (The gig was from 9:30 to 11:00.)

So we invited them over for dinner and offered them the boys room to sleep in, as well.  I've always dreamed of a stocked guest room, something where guests can just plop down, kick off their shoes or whip off that bra and feel at home.   But these days, we relocate the boys to a makeshift bed on the floor of our closet in our room, and offer their room to our guests.  This summer we housed a dear writer friend of ours as she came from Eugene to the Willamette Writer's Conference, and she loved having a room of her own for three nights while here.  So it works for everyone:  we get to love on our guests, our guests get to feel at home, and the boys still have a place to sleep.  After Tom and Rachel responded with an elated "yes!" it just made sense for me to invite everyone here for dinner.  Now, bear in mind, that's nearly 20 people, including kids.  Everyone replied "great! what can I bring!" My answer, knowing this family as well as I do, is always wine.  Bring wine, folks.

Our dear friend Suzi, a woman of immense faith, stayed with us during the WW Conference in August.  I met her in my screenwriting classes last year, and it was so easy to love her.   She said she wanted to take what her daughter calls a "selfie" on her cell phone, and I'm so glad she did.  She's not only a very encouraging friend of my writing, but she's a amazingly gifted writer as well.  I hope to see her movies on the big screen one day. 

Then Mel, Aaron's other sister who lives with her hubby and baby boy in Spokane announced they would even be making the 6 hour trip down and wondered if they could crash here after the concert.  Without hesitating, we said of course!  Then we dandied up the office studio, and apologized for not having enough pillows and blankets, but the space was theres to have for the night.

The boys at their table in the playroom.  Their cousin's daddy is the band leader, Nic.  

My rule of thumb when hosting a dinner party for 15 people or more is keep it simple as can be, especially when there's kids.  And since we're scraping by right now, I needed to be real about the bottom line too.  So I cheated and just bought two gi-normous Marie Callender lasagnes, six bags of salad, more wine (because it's 20 people) and beer, and loads of tortilla chips with salsa, and not the wimpy kind, y'all, after all these are Villanuevas we're talking about.  Rachel was bringing bread, bless her.  And I did make a huge peach cobbler to smother with vanilla ice cream, so it wasn't all cutting corners out of bags and boxes.  Plus I love the smell of something sweet and cinnomony baking when guests arrive.

And it was a nice dinner, everyone loved the lasagne and the musicians got out their goodies and rehearsed a bit, and as soon as our sitter arrived and we loaded up and caravaned to Portland for the show.

What I love about Mexicans is that they know how to have a good time.   

This mariachi band was on stage when we got there and the crowd was practically slobbering with delight.  They were awesome.  I could see Aaron off stage warming up and by the look on his face these guys would be a tough act to follow.

Warming up, handsome guy!

Pride.  The music was BLARING and everyone was dancing!  It was a real fiesta!

I wish I had a camera that could have captured the raw energy here.  It was thumping and everyone at every age was there to party.

I've been blessed to grow up with my sister in laws over the last 20 years.    

It's midnight here, and are they tired?  No.  Is there music going?  Yes.

Mel is special to me, since she's the one who told her big brother to call me all those years ago.  Now she's a mommy of an adorable little tike, and he was a real trooper up so late.

Handsome music man! 

After the show, after the stage was cleared and the instruments and amps loaded, Mom and Dad went to their hotel room in Vancouver.  Nic, Rita and their little boy went home to stay with Tia Cris.  Everyone else came home with us.  And after a show you can't just go to bed.  Not in this family!  No, you go home and rummage through the left over lasagne, and grub, and reminisce.  So we all came home, slipped into our yoga pants, or sweats, and poured more wine, ate more munchies and gabbed until 3 am.  I loved that time together.  The next morning I was up at 7 making breakfast, because I told everyone it would be served at 9 am sharp, and like dinner, it was wonderful having the house full of family one more time before they all departed for their homes.

It happened by accident.

I was told two years ago when I bought my camera that it had a video feature, but I had never been able to get it to work.  I thought that since I bought it off the floor at Target (discontinued) for a killer sale price on top of a hefty markdown, that the video was just a dud.  But then at the concert, the music was so great, I was motivated to just start pushing buttons and see if perchance a video recorded.  It wasn't until I got home that I realized it had!  I have no idea how I did it, but despite the grainy, badly focused image and humming audio, it captured!  And all I could say was woh.  Aaron was having so much fun up there!  I've never seen him play like this, as it's such a departure from Bach and Villalobos, classical musician that he is, but he sounded good and looked good, too!  I loved this song, so I'm glad it recorded.  I was so excited and proud of Aaron, and grateful he had this awesome experience.  (Change the video quality to 720 when viewing it.  Big improvement in images!)

The Last Real Cowboy

I spoke with him last week.  He couldn't speak well, and he was no longer able to swallow food, and it was so clear that there were only days left.  Aunt Jodie had rummaged through the boxes of old photos in the closet upstairs and made copies for us grand kids, I had received them in the mail, wept at the image of my late grandmother, who could have been a silver screen siren, had she not been a battered, neglected housewife of an alcoholic cowboy.  As I flipped through the old photos, most of which I hadn't seen before, I stopped with a gasp at a shot of him as a young and reckless teen, dark and handsome in a rouge and dangerous way, and it occurred to me what an enchanting net he must have cast on my grandmother back then, on so many young girls at the grange dances, at the school sock hops, and eventually the rodeos, and bars.  Called a "dark" German, Hebrew to be sure, but that was all hush-hush for at least two generations before he was born, the little secret that arrived with our first ancestor from Wurtenburg, Prussia.  But goodness, he was a looker, my old grandpa in his day.  And so I called him, just to let him know I thought he was a heck of a lot prettier when he was younger, to rib him a bit, which, with him always translated to love. 

"I hardly recognized you," I lied, nearly yelling into the receiver because I knew he wasn't wearing his hearing aid.  I could hear him laughing, a faint, breath-like panting to let me know he caught the sarcasm.

"Yat," he agreed weakly.  "I suppose."

I couldn't talk long, and he couldn't endure much, laborious as it was to just communicate.  Just long enough to say I'm thinking him, and that I love him.

After nearly three long years of battling prostate cancer, he finally passed this morning peacefully in his bed in his own home.

My earliest knowledge of him wasn't really a face, but an energy.  A stark contrast to Grandma, who was bubbly, goofy, and affectionate, he was sullen, withdrawn, unreadable, distracted.  We four grand kids were careful around him.  He gave us our first horses.  He expected us to work the farm, and had better learn early how to ride, herd, cut, brand, rope, de-horn, and grow beef cattle like everyone else.  But riding with him was fun work.  He was a real cowboy, just like in the movies, and when we rode with him, we were in the movie too.

How I remember him when I was growing up.  Grandma and Grandpa with my dad and aunts in 1980.

I've always loved old photos, the ethereal, haunting images of a moment in history captured in a flash. I love them and hoard them when I can, so my kids can know their roots, the legacy they inherit, and also so I can remember, too.  It's hard to imagine my dad as a little boy with chubby cheeks and pudgy hands, smooth skin, and warm brown eyes like those of my own young sons.  It's even harder to imagine my grandpa fresh in life, even smiling, at the same season in life that I'm in now.

This must have been a wedding in 1956, because my great grandparents are wearing flowers, and everyone is dressed up.  My graceful grandma Luster in the center is holding Aunt Jodie, and my dad is in the back with his arm around Grandpa.    

But when I see him here, in fuzzy black and white images, I can find it around his eyes.  He suffered.  He struggled.  He had deep, damaging wounds.  He didn't have wisdom on his side, but goodness, he had experience.  He was born between miscarriages during the early years of the Depression.  His life was one shaped by strife and hunger.

Grandpa with his firstborn, my dad, in 1954.  

Some of my friends agree, but something happens when you are a mother of boys.  Suddenly, as if by a fragile invisible thread, all the boys in the world are your children.  Especially little ones about the same age as your own or younger, I feel responsible for each of them.  Aaron and I had an experience this summer that spurred us to seriously consider serving in foster care, or even adoption.  We have all this love to share, and there are so many, many little boys who desperately need it.  My grandpa was that little boy.

My grandpa here in overalls, offering flowers beside his older brother Dave and younger sister,  Zelda, in 1940.

I may have never had a relationship with him, but then he held his first great-grandson, Andres.  And I watched in a postpartum haze some profound and cosmic event unfold before my eyes as Grandpa held my brand new son in his arms for the first time:  he smiled.  For me at 28 it was the first time I had seen that man smile.  And for a man who scowled at me as a kid as a both a salutation and warning, he started to call me every week to check on "that boy."  We nurtured a fledgling relationship with Andres as a bridge, and once, well into his fight with cancer, we even talked for over an hour on the phone, and I treasure that conversation with him.  And then just after his 80th birthday this summer, he decided to be baptized, shocking all of us.

I'm so grateful he was able to meet my boys.  I'm so glad they helped him heal whatever had broken him so badly, so grateful that he and I became pals through them.  And while today I'm sad and grieving and missing him already, there is in a wide open field a new peace, and a new life without hurt or grief, regret or shame.  Only endless oceans of the ever-present glow and warmth of perfect and abundant love, grace, and renewal.

Jearl Heitzman, age 9 months, 1934.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14

Andres' 1st Animations

At 4:10
The Adventures of Calvin is an adaptation from Andres' favorite comics, Calvin and Hobbes, where our beloved protagonist imagines everyone around him as an enemy, especially his mom (now I wonder what Frued would say about Calvin)...and with his trusty sticky darts ("gun"--ugh!  but he is a boy after all!), defends himself against the overwhelming foe!  Disclaimer:  sound effects are more violent than actual video.

At 8:08
The Andres Show is an avant garde piece with postmodernism aspects as well as echoes of classic beatnik elements, and as Andres himself told us, "it's a sing along."  It's fun, creative, and pushes limits of visual storytelling.  So, we encourage you to sing along if you dare!


Book Animation from PORTLAND COMMUNITY MEDIA on Vimeo.

Muck

The summer has been a difficult one from the get-go.  A good one, but difficult for lots of reasons I'm still working through, still choking on.  And today.  Today is one of countless days that I wish I had a mom.  I would call her up, ask about the farm, chat about dinner menus, and share this horrible day with her perhaps as I cry a little about it, wanting her nonchalant laughter to pour over me like salve, a soothing encouragement, compassion from a mother to her daughter regarding this bond we share, this thing called motherhood.  I would ask her many, many questions.   So I slip back into the recesses of my imagination and pick up the phone.  I dial her number, listen to rings, and pauses between rings, and hear myself breathing on the receiver.  And then it's her voice.  Her warm and so familiar voice that is trekked into my most primitive memories.  No stand-in or surrogate will work today.  Some days I'm a mom.  Today I'm a daughter needing one.  Today, like countless others over nearly five years, I just miss my mommy.

Homeschooling: The Journey Continues

My friend Sarah has a pair of jeans that I unintentionally complement her on each and every time she wears them. They fit her perfectly in cut and length, and look great with whatever else she's wearing.  However, if I ran to the store and bought her jeans in my size, I know for a fact that they wouldn't fit me as well as they do her.  They're her perfect fit, not mine.  (I'm still looking for my perfect jeans...another story for another time.)   Thank goodness there's hundreds of brands of jeans to select from.

This is how I feel about contemporary educational options for kids.  I certainly wouldn't tell a family what is best for them any more than I would proclaim the jeans that fit me perfectly would fit others perfectly.  Some families feel quite at home in public school, it marries their values and lifestyle well, and fits them.  It doesn't fit us at all.  There have been times I wish it did, so I could enroll and walk away, showing up to volunteer on Fridays or bring cupcakes for birthdays, or even to just get a break from the rigors of parenting everyday all day long, or dealing with homeschool curricula.  But in the end I have to listen to that still, quiet voice within and go with my instincts.   Luckily for us, it's the best time ever for alternative education.  It's not just public vs. homeschool anymore.  Nowadays you can homeschool, unschool or hackschool.  The options are as numerous as buying jeans, and as confusing.

One friend praises her Sonlight homeschool curriculum.  For three years I've studied Sonlight's approach, and have even interviewed her kids, to see if this angle aligned with our values.  I may have even purchased it had it not been for the $900 bucks a year I would have to fork over.  But now I'm so glad that I didn't commit to Sonlight, even if the money had fallen from the sky.  At the end of the day, Sonlight wasn't a good fit for us either.

Andres' last day of school was Friday.  After a year with the FLEX Academy program, we had plenty of signs along the way that this program of a homeschool/public school hybrid wasn't working for us, and that we wouldn't return the next year.  He cried as he put away dishes after school Friday, lashing out a me, telling me he doesn't have to let go of the things he loves, and he loves the people at his school.  Maybe I was riding the fence when I enrolled him, worried about taking on the whole burden of responsibility for my child's education.  All those years in college studying pedagogy and educational philosophy, history, law, and application according to a public school paradigm has (I confess) skewed my ideas and personal opinions/values on education.  Learning is a science, and the role of school is hone skills and prepare our children for participating members of society.  But how these children participate is lost in the muck.  And for the 8 years I was teaching language arts in public school, I behaved like a pseudo scientist, researching and collecting data from test scores, reviewing my materials and curriculum plans, adjusting for differentiation and special needs and administrative interests, and responding to various studies and trends sweeping the field, always with the outstanding and over-riding goal of...improving test scores.  The student wasn't a whole person with gifts or dreams or spirits (yikes!--remember separation of church and state!?)  The student was a hypothesis.

So I knew what it was like behind the curtain of public school.  When it was my time to choose a path for my kid(s), there was no contest.  Homeschool?  Sure!--as long as I can have a dribble of public school ideals included to keep things fun and interesting, oh, and to "socialize" them, because God knows the only real way kids can be socialized is through public school.   (Is my sarcasm translating?) And it was fun and interesting for Andres at FLEX, he brought home cute projects and made some little friends, but there was a good deal of it not beneficial to his personal growth, or our family's lifestyle and values.  Even the stress of implementing FLEX at home in September was epic, being that it was a convoluted curricula with countless communication fails from his program and an overall lack of support.

No, FLEX is not coming around for 1st grade.  But what was?  I was getting anxious about it, and as I had listened to friends on their own children's educational pursuits, be it public or home, I found that my personal educational philosophy was surfacing for the first time, and not the scripted one I had to memorize for my student teaching application in college, but a real-life one that I discovered in the eyes of my boys, and the invisible future they will live.

I've learned that I don't want my boys to simply participate in society.  Most people do manage to participate in some capacity on some level, despite the degree of education they've achieved, after all we're social creatures, we need each other.  But what I discovered this year is that I wanted my boys to be whole people, and content in life in all circumstances.  Not prototypes, or experiments, or drones, or togs in the system, but whole and content.  I got that far in developing my philosophy when two interesting things happened this week.

1)  My dear friend Rachel and I attended Columbia Virtual Academy's Road Show (open house) where we could flip through textbooks of various curricula they offered through their program.  The nice lady who acted as my guide really didn't know how to help me, and she was floundering when up came Rachel, who is just now wrapping up her 1st grade homeschool with CVA, and shared with me a wealth of helpful and insightful information from the materials she had used this year, to how they implemented them, and what the kids did, how they liked it, etc.  She pointed out several items written by Susan Wise Bauer, a name I've come across countless times via the 50 or so homeschool blogs I subscribe to.   For the first time I was able to look at her work in real life (vs. online) and I loved what I saw.  Bauer aligns with the Charlotte Mason (CM) homeschool method, which I read up on long ago, and shrugged off.  But here is real applicable curricula, laid out clear and easily followed, and I imagined that it would fit us pretty well.  And knowing that Rachel had used it and loved it was the final sign I needed to commit to a plan.

2)  My dear friend Sarah came over yesterday for Raph's birthday celebration (more on that another post!  how fun!) and shared with me some of her thoughts as she deliberated taking her son out of public ed, and going the homeschool route.  She brought up Charlotte Mason again (no surprise...the same names come around and around in this alternative ed culture, Montessori, Waldorf, CM, TJEd, etc...and Charlotte Mason has a vast following, with good reason).  Sarah mentioned Ambleside, a rich site with free curricula and materials, available for the CM method.   It's been years since I read up of CM, and now with some traction under my wheels in the homeschool department, I thought it was time to review her philosophies and see if it came close to my own budding view of things.

Sidebar:  When Andres was one year old, I knew a woman getting her Montessori teacher certificate, and I attended some workshops with her, curious as I was being a public ed teacher about this private school method.  I liked what I saw a lot, but I knew then it wasn't going to gel with our lifestyle or with Andres' personality.  And that particular woman had strong opinions about CM, not entirely positive ones at that, so I never really pursued deeper investigation.  I had been convinced (by that woman) that Doctor Montessori had discovered the magic method to reaching children, and Miss Mason wasn't even a mother, let alone a homeschool mom, and her Victorian-era rationale is out of date, out of touch, and backwards-thinking with diction like child "training."  (Maria Montessori would never dream of condescending to children with language like that.)  And that's the other thing with homeschooling.  For every praise a method gets, there's just as many in the way of criticism, which--while researching what to do with my child(ren)--the pros and cons have been very put-offish and added to my confusion, although it underscores my original point about individualized educational fit based on family needs, lifestyle, and values.

But God nudges.

Here comes Charlotte Mason again in face after six years of me shelving her method.  And this time I thought I had better respond to the nudge and look into CM one more time.  Because as my personal philosophy solidifies, so do the educational goals for my boys.

My family is mixed ethnically, so an all-American or anglo-centric approach isn't appropriate for us.  (That was one reason I shelved CM long ago, and looking so longingly at Montessori's great multicultural method.)  I don't want an overtly conservative, legalistic Christian curriculum that shuns the theory of evolution or fairy tales, although I do desire God and scripture to be not just what we do, but who we are in everything, including education.  I'm not impressed with pre-learner fads, like parents teaching their infants to read and/or memorizing math facts, since there's no evidence at all that these early learners have any academic advantage over students who learn to read at 6 years old (or 8 for that matter), which is what I assume these parents honestly believe (that or that their child is a prodigy), and for my objectives, learning reading, writing or math skills prematurely fails to demonstrate a correlation between that and becoming a whole person, or being content in life as an adult.   I want my boys to be open minded, able to see things from others' point of view in a humble and graceful manner like my oldest friend in the world, dear Shannon M, or my beloved friends, Sarah C and Sarah V, all having challenged me to open my eyes and continue to teach me the fine art of perspective.  I want school to be something that grows us closer as a family, synching bonds, and creating memories.   I don't want to "teach to the test," although I fully realize in this world subjugated by standardized tests they will have to eventually learn how to maneuver through those minefields as well.  I want them to be comfortable in their skin, have ownership of the things which make them unique and different.   And I want their education to include a deep respect for life, art, languages, culture, music, literature, and cultivate profound thinking and ideas.  These are my goals.  Now, how on earth to get there?  Is it possible?

But God nudges.  And in my research today on Charlotte Mason, I was struck by something she wrote to The Times in the early 1900s:

Anyone who wants to teach children needs to decide whether man is just physical, or something more. It can't be both ways, and even the most trivial detail of the school day will line up with one or the other of these two fundamental perspectives. One method is scientific education. The other is humane education. Both methods cultivate the senses and exercise the muscles, but for different reasons, and with a different goal in mind.

I feel that I'm being called down off the fence, and being made to choose.   With my goals and own personal philosophy surfacing, I must nail down a direction, and follow that still, quiet voice within me with heart, courage, and faith.

I don't believe in magic bullets.  I don't believe in one size fits all, utopias, or perfection.  But I feel that choosing an educational path is like jeans.  I think you can find a fit that matches your natural shape, and then break them in so that over time and with wear they curve where you curve, bend where you bend, and fit your beautifully unique form.