Learning consent

We don't use a curriculum, but sometimes I do put lessons together.
They aren't very formal, but I still lead what we are doing, discussing, working on, etc.

We have been looking at consent recently.

It has brought up great discussions...
on using sex for power
on respecting women's choices of dress and sexual expression
the importance of men/same gender consent

I am very proud of my daughter. She really reflects on things and thinks for herself.
She was recently put in a social situation where things didn't seem strange to her at first, but afterward it made her feel very icky. She came to me about it. We took time to reflect on it, discuss things together and then came up with an action plan. We decided that she would open up dialog about what made her feel icky with her friends and learn how to have those conversations rather than have me lead them or have them with other adults. (For safety's sake, I did let some adults know about what was going on. I want to make sure I am helping keep space safe and also set an example that we do call out things we don't like in our community and hold the space safe for everyone.)

We were informed about a movie called The East which has a scene where the characters play "Anarchist Truth or Dare" which is Truth or Dare based on consent. Sounds fabulous!!! I have googled and googled and can't find anything about consensual truth or dare. I think we should make a zine about it!!

Learning Good Consent Zine

Something's Brewing

I can't help but think that we are at the beginning of something so huge.
I feel revolution brewing.
Ferguson is in national headlines and real dialog is beginning about race and class (and the militarization of our police force).
I have friends who are in Ferguson as street medics. The world is watching and the world is responding.

Some days, I am just moved to tears about all of this. Part sadness, part fear of the mess we are in and how it will get worse before it gets better, part hope that things are changing and excitement for liberation.

I hear other countries are sending their war reporters. I don't think we can call it war because it is actually genocide. One group has their hands up and one group is heavily armed and firing on them. It has become glaringly obvious that while we train our military that they fight other countries for our, the peoples, rights and to protect us from enemies who wish to take our freedom away; our country trains it's police officers that we, the people, are the enemy and they fight to protect rich politicians and corporations.
Although I am non-violent, I understand that when all other means have not brought results it calls for drastic measures. I know that when people are attacked and feel like they have everything taken from them they will fight back. We are there. The POC and the poor are at their breaking points. It is a courageous act and I say to the people of Ferguson: Don't give up. Don't back down. I stand with you in solidarity. Your son didn't die in vain- we will stand beside you and make this world a better place for your children.

Early on I saw a video of Mike Brown's mother's emotional response to the racist murder of her son. My heart broke in a million pieces. It broke because I recognized my white privilege. I too lost an 18 year old son, but he passed silently and peacefully in his sleep. He wasn't shot dead by police in the street for jaywalking. I never had to worry about that happening. I can't imagine living with that fear everyday. He didn't have his name slandered because pot was in his system or because he allegedly stole cigars (none of which warrant 6 shots including one in his head). I was told my son's life mattered, she was told hers didn't. I can't live with this and except that. I am standing on the good side of history and won't be silent. I will teach my children. I will tell my friends and family how I feel. I will follow the narrative that my oppressed brothers and sisters write out.
I came across this blog post by manic pixie dream momma and it put my swirling thoughts perfectly in order. I creeped around her past posts and I have much respect for the issues she brought up about attachment parenting being so much easier for people of privilege. I have witnessed this first hand in the Homeschool community. The privilege is strong in homeschool. It often makes me, and my daughter, feel alienated- not because we don't have privilege, because we certainly do. Privilege has degrees and while I have more than others, there are others above me. (This really needs to be another post because I have A LOT to say about this.) In my political/spiritual/life beliefs, I try to recognize my privilege and keep it in check. I know it exists. I try to never judge. Dealing with race, racism, sex, gender and sexism, class and classism isn't comfortable and it isn't easy. Sometimes it will hurt. Sometimes I will make mistakes. But I am always willing to learn from those mistakes. I will apologize first always. I will listen. I will ask respectful questions. And then I will shut the fuck up and listen again. Then I will pass on what I learned to my children. I know not everyone is up to this hard task, but I hope that is slowly changing.
We (my family) participated in a Solidarity with Ferguson Rally last Friday. It was a week ago today. Here is a wonderful recap of the action. It is an action I won't forget. It was very powerful. It had many magical moments for me, but the biggest was seeing people join us from the sidewalk in the street. The second was what this act of solidarity and reclaiming of power did for my daughter. She did not hesitate when it was time to hit the street- she jumped right behind the banner, even helped hold it for awhile. She also grabbed the bullhorn at one point leading the group in a chant. Third, was seeing a friend of mine experience her first "taking the street" march. I could see the fear and worry in her eyes even though she didn't want to show it. I saw her stand on the sidewalk as we blocked the intersection of Franklin and Columbia and express her concern about what the police would do. Then I watched her become more comfortable and inch into the street as she realized that, in solidarity, we had each other's backs. That moment when you realize that The People united are a powerful force is a magical one and I'm glad I got to experience it with her. We are true comrades now.

But, trees are important

A few weeks ago, my landlord came over.

He is an older gentleman, almost 80. He has a fondness for me which can be a little creepy. He asked me out for coffee once and I joined him- he told me all about his family and it was quite a story. He was respectful and didn't cross lines, He likes "my old fashioned ways" and I think he's a bit lonely. His stories are full of disfunction and drama and being a prominent family in the area, I think he felt safe to share stories with me, wanting them to fall on someone's ears before he can't speak them.

On this particular day, he mentioned to me that they were clearing some land on the next road over and they wanted to clear all the trees on my property because they had "reached their maturity" but he was afraid it would be ugly and I would want to move out. He explained that the company was cutting everything and that my idea to just remove the pine trees was not an option, that everything had to go, the company could not selectively remove trees. He said they were selling them for lumber. I told him I would miss my lilacs, that I love my dogwood, and the two huge tulip trees were my favorite on the property. I told him that I would miss having my hammock out and my daughter would miss her slack line. He left shaking his head.

I decided to go see what was happening on the next road over. I had heard some trees cracking and breaking on the hill, but just thought it was from the storm damage site where they store the collected debris from road and the like. What I saw was heartbreaking.

A few days later he came back and talked to my husband. He told him that when it cooled off they would be coming to cut our trees. My heart started racing, my eyes filled with tears. I think my husband was quite confused by my reaction, but the thought of my trees leaving really hurt me. This land has such a tragic history with Jordan Lake and imminent domain and families displaced, the land changed and rearranged to man's liking that it broke my heart that they would hurt this little patch that I love and was trying to heal. I really can feel the sadness around here and my little rented slice was neglected and unloved and I did a lot of work to bring it to the happy place it's in now. I removed trash and uncovered old flower beds covered by decades of pine needles exposing hyper dermic needles, pellet guns and other undesirable things. Yes, really.

I called the landlord and his wife answered. I asked her if Mr was around and explained that he had stopped by and talked to my husband about tree removal and that I had a few questions and asked her if I could ask her or have Mr come back by or call later. She told me that she would have Mr call my husband and that I should let the men deal with this. I started boiling with rage from being dismissed but kept my cool and got off the phone.

I decided to go talk to the neighbors.  The landlords own a ton of property- 100s of acres. One road has small houses built from old tobacco barns which are very very cute, but now just have empty barren torn and chewed up land around them. I saw a young man watering his flowers and yard- obviously it was struggling due to the new sun exposure after spending it's life in a shaded moist forest. I told him I was a neighbor and that I really loved the little barn houses, but was curious what had happened to the trees. He told me that they "murdered them" but he was going to put in a garden and make the most of it. He said one neighbor was really upset but "what are you going to do?" I asked him about the neighbor and he didn't give me any info. I asked if he knew if anyone had contacted environmental groups and he just shrugged.

I decided to drive up the road on the other side of my house which is a trailer park. It has a very large hispanic community. The trailers were in such bad shape that the landlords gave ownership of the trailer over to the tenants for a super low price and then they just had to pay lot rent. The community has been helping each other to fix the trailers up but many didn't have steps at the doors and other things that I think would make these places unsafe to rent. I have distributed reclaimed food with FNB in the area and know one family well enough that I stopped by to ask if they had heard anything about their trees being removed. They said they hadn't heard anything and then things got weird. The lady was acting weird and had a strange look in her eye. She was desperate for $20 for whatever reason and I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I was very uncomfortable that she was trying to get me to buy things I didn't want and she really didn't seem like herself.

I feel so defeated. I can't understand needing to sell off these trees except for greed. I feel like my surrounding community is too desperate just trying to survive that they can't see why cutting down these trees is bad, it isn't even on their radar as a problem. My privilege provides me the ability to worry about the trees because I am not worrying about keeping the power on (although sometimes we do have that worry) or building steps to get into my house or repairing a year old leaky roof and getting rid of severe mold problems.

My biggest fear, knowing how greedy and how exploitive my landlords are, is that they will quickly sell the land off for fracking, and they are trying to get money for the trees to get all the profit they can. I am worried about how I can get my neighbors to see this problem and get them to stand up with me to fight back.

Good Reads

We love reading. All of us. If you want to know more about what we are reading you can follow our reviews and ratings on GoodReads.


Phaedra's GoodReads

Stormie's GoodReads


One of the things I miss from working in the library is knowing books very well. I was constantly keeping up with what was coming out, what was popular, what was being made into a movie, and what series a kid would need to put on hold if he wanted a chance at reading them in order. I knew the best early readers, I made themed booklists constantly, I could talk to any kid and recommend a book in our conversation by what they talked about. I loved getting the reading surveys that patrons would fill out about what they enjoyed reading and make them a personalized reading list of recommendations. I loved putting together book talks to present at the local high school. I love books.

I hope to start doing more reviews again. I think I have a few on my old library blog http://darkfaerielibrarian.blogspot.com

I picked up a great book at the library this week, and I finished it in 24 hrs.

The Year of Learning Dangerously Adventures in Homeschooling by Quinn Cummings

This book is a memoir written by a mother about the first year homeschooling her 6th grade daughter. They took her out of public school because they were finding it difficult to meet her educational needs because she was super advanced in english and struggled in math and they saw her becoming increasingly more unhappy and even manipulative in the school environment. It is basically a story of their path to discovering what worked for their family. She points out that homeschoolers are your neighbors, but extremely.

Quinn's voice is humorous, honest and the language isn't dumbed down. (I even looked up a word while reading it.) It reads quickly and keeps your interest. It does a nice job quickly recapping the history of homeschooling, throws in nice facts and statistics and covers many different homeschooling philosophies, such as unschooling, radical unschooling, online schools, gothardites, fundamentalists, and Classical Education. Sometimes it was a little too cliche, but overall, a good look at all the different ways to homeschool out there.

What I really enjoyed was that it was not a "this is the right way to homeschool" book. It was a "everyone has their own path to discover " homeschool book. I really support that idea. Homeschooling is a learning process for everyone involved. In my circles, it's referred to as deschooling.  DIY is my approach to everything in life and I love the fact that this is celebrated in this homeschooling book. We should all be trusted that we know what is best for ourselves.

I related to this book. I laughed at myself a lot while reading this book. I had been in some of the situations she comically addressed in the book. To begin with, this past year was our first year homeschooling my 7th grade daughter. I, like the author, am in introvert and riddled with anxiety. My children are not. How do you deal with the constant chatter? Tune it out? When do the panic attacks stop or do you Day Drink in the bathroom? She has this anxiety about truant officers and principals telling her she is not doing the right thing and what she is doing is against the law. She fears she is messing up her kid, not doing enough, doing too much. She finally works up the courage to go to a homeschooling park day, puts on real pants and introduces herself to a group of Mom's who stare at her blank faced and then return to their conversation about carseats. (This one had me in tears while I was laughing at myself because this has happened to me, more than once.) After this incident she decides to find her tribe of homeschoolers and sets off to many different conventions and reading many homeschool family blogs. My favorite, and another place I found myself laughing so hard I was in tears was with her discovery of Unschooling and the "subspecies of Radical Unschooling". After looking at Unschool family blogs she decides she has never seen so many families who craft together and that unschooling must mean that you never have to eat a store bought chicken egg again by the number of families with chickens.

The one thing that bothered me was that she "infiltrated" the different homeschooling groups. I am a big fan of honesty and I am guessing that the communities she even wore disguises to are not too happy about this either. It seemed kind of like a gimmick for writing the book. Even yet, I love being able to laugh at myself and this book did that for me.

Highly recommended.

Porch conversations

Sips of wine while hummingbirds sip their nectar nearby chirping while we chatter.

2 years ago this place seemed so quiet compared to our downtown location in the heart of the city. Now we are craving less traffic and planes. I can't believe the noise that once seemed like silence. 

Cooking for Peace

As mentioned in an earlier blog, I have been taking a backseat in my FNB family lately.
Just recently, I started getting phone calls and being pulled into discussions about some inner working complications. It reached a head, and I was asked to come help because numerous people had left the group over the heated meetings. I'm not getting into all the dramatic details, but it feels good to be getting RFNB out there again. It feels good to be organizing again and I think a majority of the group feels that way too. I am trying to model how to be a good organizer- how to keep on top of things to make and reach goals and what it means to get shit done.

We have a long standing reputation on sharing food every sunday in Moore's Square. The city has made new rules about sharing food in public places and a lot of our problems stem from the new facility that the city provided for sharing food. Half of our group is very happy with the facility while half of the group is very unhappy about the facility. It is a very complicated argument.

I hope to post more on this as things develop. Right now I am trying to let the drama die down and focus on positive things… so, here is our first meal served at a protest in about a year. I am very proud of the small group that worked together to get this done. We didn't have anyone else willing to step up and collect stuff to distribute, couldn't get our banner or serving supplies and had a crew of 4. We made banners, and zines, and cooked and gathered. It was a long day, but really satisfying.

photo credit: Raleigh Occupare

Here I am with the homeschool teens in the group. How cool is that?! 

The menu was small, but delicious, healthy and all vegan

the lemon-mint water was a big hit!

 liberated lentil salad with fresh garden herbs

reclaimed couscous salad with fresh garden veggies

We also shared mixed nuts and dried fruit, fresh fruit and assorted breads which was all reclaimed from waste. 

Cooking for Peace~ a collaborative art sign

Free Food Banner

The new banner

My heart is very full. And my belly. And I shared that with other people. Nothing could feel better than that :)   

The event was great. I am never disappointed with a march in Durham. They do it right: Drums, big banners, lots of noise, inspiring speakers, stops along the route. My daughter said she misses being in the street and I have to say, I agree. Nothing feels better than being surrounded by a group that reminds you that people are powerful. 

We also attended a documentary film on fracking earlier in the week, bringing snacks to share and offering the support of our group to any upcoming protests and meetings. Outreach. It's a good thing. 

Birthday Boy

We recently celebrated Dresden's birthday.
Now he is 5, and it really does seem like we crossed some magic line and things changed.

On Dresden's actual birthday, we had a family day. Dad stayed home from work and we did special things-  all focused on the birthday boy.
we opened presents…which were carefully chosen. He got a Davy Crocket costume, a real canteen and  new cowboy boots. We also went to see a movie. It was Dresden's first movie theater experience! He really enjoyed it. Afterward we had a cowboy dinner and cupcakes.

I feel 5 is the first year where a real birthday party can be enjoyed. Until 5 we only have family birthday parties. I had planned a cowboy themed party and invited 4 of his friends. We were going to pan for gold in his sandbox, have a lasso contest, watermelon seed spitting, cowboy hot dogs and beans (by D's request) and a piñata (also by D's request) with Ice cream and cake and stick horses as party favors. Unfortunately the 2 kids we knew best were out of town and 2 people never rsvp'd so a week out from the party in great fear that my little guy would be waiting for guests that never show, I decided to cancel it and come up with another plan. Our alternate plan far outshines the birthday party plan! So we went to Tweetsie Railroad in Boone for the weekend. It was THE BEST cowboy themed birthday party and I didn't have to plan any of it. Stress free and so much fun!!

We rented a little 12x12 cabin at Flintlock Campground. It was perfect for our cowboy weekend. I was very happy with the campground- in all my years living there I had never ventured on it's grounds. It was a nice discovery. We unpacked and made the place cozy, enjoyed a cowboy dinner that included homemade pickles from the garden. They were so good Phae and I drank the juice. Yum. We read about cowboy, old west, and railroad history before bed and slept to the sound of rain on the roof and the creek bubbling in the background.

The next morning we awoke early and had a quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee. We headed out in the steady drizzle of rain to be at Tweetsie when the doors opened. Dresden was dressed in his cow boy attire and was looking quite sharp. 

I'll admit it, as the first train pulled up and sounded it's whistle, I got a little misty and nostalgic. My first apartment was very close to Tweetsie and the whistle really brought back memories. My 13 year old daughter came at about 4 years old and seeing D's face light up like hers did (and my little brother's when we first moved to Boone when he was 4) was pretty special. Tweetsie is a treasure in all it's cheesy glory. And somethings never change:

the animatrons and mannequins still freaked us out

My old friend still drives the train, and another friend from college is apparently still wanted for a murder he committed.

We did everything there was to do at Tweetsie. We didn't let the rain damper our fun, and not only did we participate, but we participated to the extreme. 

Dresden got on stage and we all did the locomotion and the Hopper dance

We posed for pictures

We gem mined, rode rides and went to the petting zoo (Phaedra's favorite part). She also loved the shooting game. We were quite a sight all piled in the tilt-a-whirl laughing our asses off. We rode till the old parents were nauseous. 

we rode the train 3 times!

chairlift to miner's mountain

Phaedra takes aim! Make that piano player play!

We watched every show- which was Dresden's favorite part. When the Can-Can girls would walk by, Dresden would tip his hat and say "hello ladies". He obviously has a calling to work at Tweetsie one day, so we have to move back before he is old enough to get a job there. Good to know Theatre genes are passed on. With Theatre parents, he had no hope but to fall in love with the stage.

Dresden and the Can-Can girls at the Palace

Dresden with the cloggers

We spent 10, yes TEN HOURS at Tweetsie. In the rain. We win Best Parent Awards for sure.

one tired cowboy

CHEERS!

We spent our last night around the fire (because, of course, the skies cleared up as soon as we left Tweetsie) with Dresden playing his new Cherokee made drum and chanting. (He also spent ALL of his Birthday money on souvenirs including real metal spurs that jangle when he walks!) Our dinner was pineapple habanero pork tacos with fresh garden salsa! (My camp specialty) There was a small band playing in the campground common area and we made friends with our camp neighbors. 

Rhododendron in the rain. That means mountain summer.