Wednesday 3 March 2010

Around the corner

This blog has begun to feel like a burden. I know that my mother and mother-in-law and brother’s family in the US read it and keep up to date with my family. I use it as a memory-jogger when I write the children’s birthday cards or review the year. But it has begun to feel like a chore. I feel a heavy presence of an invisible readership expecting things of me, things I don’t feel like delivering right now. I crank up the pressure on myself and live in a fantasy world in which people criticize me for not doing what they want, for failing in some way, for not being as good as they expected. Perhaps I am just not as good as I expect. I would love to be a writer. Do I have the skill? I’m not sure. Right now, though, I know that I don’t have the time. My focus is called to be elsewhere. I believe that I am called, to invest all that I have and all that I am in raising my three children. Immediately, I can hear the criticism, am I a ‘helicopter parent’, hovering over my children, micro-managing every part of their lives? Am I living my life vicariously through them? Would I just not cut it in the world of employment?
A while ago, someone I trust very much told me that I needed to be a place where I was content to be forgotten, to be insignificant. Well, I don’t know about content, but I guess I’m curious to see what God might have in store for me in the secret places of obscurity. Not a position of leadership in the church, not a speaker or a writer, not most the popular or most contributing volunteer at the local community run. Doing nothing for my reputation or to influence how others will feel about me. And letting go of the blog for a while seems a part of that. I might drop in from time to time, if the mood takes me, but for now, I’m letting go of the expectations I place on myself to post regularly and I will wait to see what is around the corner.

Monday 1 March 2010

Choir Concert

We spent yesterday afternoon at our choir concert/sing-through. We thoroughly enjoyed The Otherwise Choir last term and were disappointed (but understanding) when the end-of-term Christmas concert was cancelled. It was not possible for our beloved choir mistress to lead us this term and so we have been choir-less. Yesterday's get-together was a much belated full-stop to the term's work.
It was good to see old friends and to be re-affirmed in the community of home-edders that I am part of. We are a disparate bunch and, although we meet up at various activities occasionally and have much e-group contact, it is a heart-warming feeling to be together and participating in something communal.
Many of the choir members brought additional contributions: violin, trumpet, drama and song. It was fascinating and encouraging to me to see older children, who have never been to school, so accomplished and assured. It was fun to see the children, ranging from around 5 to 15 playing and laughing together afterwards.
My three each chose to read a poem, (my middle son, in fact, read two poems, one of which was his own compostition, and the beginning of a story he's writing,) and a number of people were kind enough to offer compliments on their performance. It was one of those moments when I have to remind myself to step back and appreciate what has happened. Through countless afternoons of tea and baking and poetry, all of my children feel comfortable with verse and confident to read aloud and I truly believe that the years of 'chapter books', the hours I have spent with them on the sofa immersed in classic children's books and more modern literature, has allowed a love of language to take root and to grow.
It is hard sometimes to see the progress made as my children learn and grow and it is occasions like Sunday afternoon when I see them shine and I can allow myself to feel that Home Ed is working for us and I am doing a good job!