Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Conversations

One of the lovely ladies I sometimes get to ride with has found my blog and came to the barn the other day exclaiming, “Wooowee, CG, you taught me how to butcher chickens! I just found out all that old stuff was on [the blog] and I said to my husband, come here and see CG cutting this chicken’s head off.” I asked her if she’d found the pig killing yet. She hadn’t, so as a shortcut, here and here and here’s how we lost a pig.

Someone I know less well asked me about homeschooling. We talked in general terms for awhile as she worked around to asking me what she wanted to ask me and I worked around to hearing what she was asking me. Sometimes this communication thing is tricky. Eventually she said this child in her life had just not figured out at all how to retain and recall information of any kind ever. I think, looking back on it that she meant to ask me how you can teach a child that but what she got from me was an immediate reaction response, “She doesn’t have any trouble retaining and recalling anything she’s interested in.”

She stopped. “You know, I couldn’t tell you what, if anything, she is interested in.” Wow. Isn't that just too true of too many of us? How did what the school deems important become more important than what the person himself deems important? So much so that we cannot even touch what it is we think is important? I just think this is so endemic. Even when a person has a really good sense of what her priorities are, what makes her heart sing, it is still difficult enough to navigate a track to that. No wonder people are entirely lost in their lives when they don’t even know what they themselves are interested in for themselves. Couple that with a desire to avoid meaningful work and no wonder spiritual malaise is epidemic.

Ok, so another conversation was with the farrier. I don’t get to see him very often but he is one of those truly interesting characters. He hunts with a long bow, for instance. Besides, it is probably pretty difficult to make your living shoeing horses and avoid being an interesting character. But what we were talking about was sort of survivalism, which he’s long been interested in, and he mentioned that people think he’s crazy because he stores food. I said, “Oh, really? We just put in several hundred pounds of wheat, rice, the like.” “Oh, I don’t have that much,” he said while looking at me sideways. Made me know how far out on the edge we are, and made me laugh.

Edit: Ooooh, and I almost forgot an important one, with La at a homeschoolers hanging out in the park day. A more than amply fleshed woman was there with far fewer than too few clothes on. As she passed us, La simply said, “I’m not that sexy anymore.” Yes, that is it. I’m sexy -- I’m just not that sexy. Makes me laugh.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It always makes me feel a little bit sick to my stomach for a few seconds every time I find out someone's reading my blog without me knowing it. Just shy that way.

That second lady sounds like me, asking about myself.

And as for the farrier, does he have a family of six who work and eat like you guys do?

Anonymous said...

i love alan watts - found your blog by searching for "the wisdom of insecurity" - i see you have not updated in some time - hope all is well.

- a friendly stranger

laura said...

my mom has been asking me about homeschooling my neice. not me doing it...but her. i told her i'd help her with whatever she needed. the thing is that my sister has said in the past that if she let her be homeschooled she would not want it done the way i do it, no unschooling.

fine.

but the thing is. if she looked closely enough at her child, she would see that unschooling is exactly what that little girl needs. just exactly.

but she won't see that.

Ren Allen said...

I'll never forget running into one of the homeschooling Moms in Pensacola at Books-a-Million one day. We had children playing in the Yu-gi-oh league.
She stood there and had the gall to tell me that unschooling would never, ever work for HER child because he has NO interests. argh.
He's right behind us excitedly playing and trading Yu-gi-oh cards, his eyes alight. But he had no interests. yeah.
That's the problem in trying to explain unschooling. People are seeing their schooled children and seeing nothing but struggle and lack of interest.

They can't value any and all interests, so therefore unschooling sounds crazy.
I'd rather hang with the crazies. Makes me feel semi-sane.:)

Anonymous said...

If you think amply fleshed people wear too little in TN, do NOT come to SW Florida. ;-)

That's a beautiful garden.

We have some boniatos coming up now, and have been harvesting a zillion tomatoes, with more planted. Cut in a new bed alongside the chicken coop, set a passionvine alongside the chicken run, and am even now just taking a break from painting today.

Busy busy.

It's 95 degrees here. The paint turns to paste almost before I can get it on the house. For real.

Glad to see your goat is coming along OK. I loved your use of the word "goatfully".

CG said...

Ah tf, you make me want to hug you.

We used to have a condo in New Smyrna. Well, the folks, not me. So my brother went down there one year, stood on the balcony, looked down at the pool, took a swig on his beer, and said, "Oh, man, wrinkle city."

It's 95 here today. And tomorrow. Whew.

Anonymous said...

“You know, I couldn’t tell you what, if anything, she is interested in.” puzzles me. I couldn't tell you what, if anything, my children AREN'T interested in.

Anonymous said...

thingfish like hugs