Letting Go

Following tracks in the snow at monthly class.

After a four-hour class outside in the snow where our boys followed tracks, scouted a porcupine den, made porcupine quill necklaces, and then huddled around a fire inside a teepee style stick/bough/leaf debris shelter their teacher sadly shared with the students and parents that the series of monthly outdoor classes for homeschoolers we've attended religiously will be ending for good after two more sessions.  We were already planning to leave the class after one more session to pursue our own traveling adventure, but it was disappointing to hear that others wouldn't have the option of this valuable learning experience in the future.  Nonetheless, I resonated with our teacher's rationale: he and his wife wanted to focus on building their education programs in their immediate community which would require letting go of this excellent class over two hours from their homestead.

I admire the courage our teacher, Chris, had to stop doing something that is good in order to pursue a vision that is great.

Slowly detaching ourselves from the life we've built in our local community has been difficult.  Leaving a good job with a good paycheck and some great people was the right thing to do, but that doesn't mean I don't wonder what life would be like if I had stayed.  Preparing to sell our house--the house where our children were born and so far raised--is emotionally difficult, especially for Shelly.  The boys too are reluctant to give up the yard they've made their own by adding forts and blazing trails.  Knowing that we're not going to see our local friends as often over the coming months and perhaps years is possibly one of the most difficult elements.  Though we can keep in touch with friends, it'll feel a bit different to be geographically removed.  If there's an "easier" thing to let go of it's probably our stuff.  We continue to give away and sell things in our house to pare down what we own.  It's another part of letting go.

So it's a good time for us to be reminded that we do all this to pursue a dream.  We're heading on a year-long adventure with our family.  It wouldn't be possible for us to do this while I retained my job.  It wouldn't work for us to fund this year while still holding on to a mortgage.  And of course traveling necessarily means putting some distance between us and our home community.  Thanks, Chris, for reminding us that sometimes letting go of good things is the only way to continue on the journey towards the great future we know will be right for us.

Our journey is uniquely ours, along with its challenges.  But what good things do you struggle to release in order to fulfill your dreams?

Sucking the Marrow

Thanksgiving has come and gone with the requisite overeating, time with extended family, and good cheer.  Now it's on to writing Christmas cards, trimming the tree in our back yard with peanut butter pine cones, and anticipating the holiday ahead.  While the boys in the house hope for snow or at least cold enough temps for snowmaking at our local ski area, none of us is excited about the day to day challenges of wintry weather.  So too our emotions are mixed about this holiday season.

We'll all miss "Papa" this year.  This will be the first Christmas our family will celebrate without Shelly's dad playing some part.  His August passing seems so recent that we can still hear his voice in our heads and picture him in our house.  We feel for "Nana" who won't have the same companionship she's enjoyed for almost half a century.  There's no way around it, there'll be some sadness this year even as we celebrate the holiday.

And we suspect it's our last Christmas in Peterborough for a while at least.  We'd be lying if we said we're glad it's our last time to see Santa arrive on the fire truck to light the town tree and our last time to stroll down the street to the Werth's family Christmas Eve party.  We're not certain these are lasts, but it's highly likely it's our last Christmas in this saltbox we've called home for 9 years.

But where there's heaviness in our hearts this December, there's also joy.  Shelly and I are both fortunate to be home every day with Baxter and Atticus, learning by living.  We are excited to be able to ski together as a family this year more than ever before.  Travel has allowed the boys to see their grandparents, great grandparents, an aunt, an uncle, a cousin and other extended family in addition to friends who are like family to us.  Later this month we'll have time together with more of our extended family.  In loving family and friends, we are very wealthy.

And we are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead for our family.  Jumping off into the unknown brings its own stresses, but it's the way we are taking control of our lives. We're chasing a few dreams: living internationally as a family where we immerse in the culture and learn the language; experiencing the grandeur of our own country; and actively participating in a mostly self-sufficient homestead.  We'll have chances to experience each of these things in 2014.  For that, we're grateful and excited.

In his own way, Henry David Thoreau eschewed convention at Walden Pond:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. . . . I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. . . ."

Our 2014 experiment will be thrilling and challenging.  But we see no better way to honor those who've gone before us than to live today deliberately.  It's the only day we know we have.