SCHOLA: The Good Life

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

The Good Life

What do you consider it to be? Are you living it? Would you make any major changes? What would they be?

How would I answer those questions?

Hmmm. The good life for me would be surrounding myself with my kids and husband, enjoying each other doing whatever it is we choose to do as a family. Travel, running a farm, whatever. But we are not there yet. Right now we are obligated to complete the tasks necessary to take us to the next step. And the next step seems so pointless. We're heading back toward suburbia. We've made some great moves financially, protecting our futures, or at least cushioning them a little -- unfortunately, at the expense of our present. Change is not something I am afraid of, as those of you still reading SCHOLA after any length of time already know, but there are some very big changes that must be made around here, and I'm worried; worried that it may be too late. Our family is fractured. Jorge is still working his ass off on the east coast, though thankfully not commuting daily. (He bought an Airstream and parked it over there for accommodations during the week. He boasts about being a fat, balding, middle-aged man living in a trailer, truly at the top of his game.) Some kids are in school, and one is shuttling back and forth with her father. My hours at work coincide with school so the majority of us are home at the same time, but once we arrive back at the house and I start doing the single mom thing, everybody is off in a different direction with friends, computers, or television. Not what we wanted. At all.

Is it Survivor: Guatemala, or the latest National Geographic issue on "The Next Killer Flu," or a need to bring this shattered family back together, or maybe a longing for the days when Jorge and I lived much more simply, or the likelihood of a 10-40 year period of increased hurricane activity, or rising fuel prices? Likely a combination. Or maybe, as I mentioned to another blog buddy (yeah, you're getting scraps today, sorry about that), it's PMS, but I feel a strong urge to run away -- down to Belize, down to operate a jungle lodge like we planned so many years ago.

Of course I'll have to wait at least until we close on this next property.

The Good Life? To live intentionally. To act and not only react. To choose a path rather than have it chosen for you by default. We've been actively making choices, just the wrong ones. We are living someone else's life.

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SCHOLA 101

schol' a: 1) An intermission of work, leisure for learning, learned conversation, debate, disputation, lecture, dissertation. 2) A meeting place for teachers and pupils, place for instruction, place of learning, school. 3) The disciples of a teacher, body of followers, school, sect. 4) An acronym for my tortuous blog title "Secular Classical Homeschoolers' Odyssean Learning Adventure." 5) How my Boston cousins pronounce "scholar." 6) Someone who studies at 10 o'clock for a dilla or a dolla.

These are the blatherings of an introverted, autodidactic, champion of The Enlightenment raising three daughters. At one time or another we have homeschooled, public-schooled, Catholic-schooled, cyber-schooled, unschooled, and even threatened boarding school. We have been inspired variously by The Well-Trained Mind, A Thomas Jefferson Education, and Climbing Parnassus, tempered by the writings and wisdom of Charlotte Mason, John Holt, Benjamin Franklin and Michel de Montaigne.

I try not to get wrapped up in labels, but we are secular and we are classical-ish.

We travel. A lot. Sometimes to the other side of the state and sometimes to the other side of the planet. Join us on our journey as we search for our home, navigate the waters of self-education, lounge with the lotus-eaters, and bash a Cyclops or two.