storymama

Getting Started with Storytelling, Part 1

I started telling stories about five years ago when my daughter attended Waldorf kindergarten on the other side of town.  Of course, the presence of her amazing teachers and all the stories they told inspired me, but it was actually the drive that got me storytelling.  

What to do with the daily forty-five minutes we spent in the car?  We could listen to music, think our own thoughts, space out...But, being the idealistic gal that I was (am?) I thought we should do something more special and intimate.  After all, we'd be apart all day.  Shouldn't we feel our togetherness while we could?

So I started telling her an ongoing story about two Imps of my own invention.  They were called Outty-Out and Lighty-Light and they lived in a small English village called Oxbow Crossing.  Their adventures ranged far and wide, taking in fairy stories, seasonal festivals, English folk traditions, jokes, house building, gardening, dragons, candle-making, music...whatever came into my mind.  I never planned them out.  It was come as you are.  Some were great, some fell flat.  Others were just strange.  But it didn't matter to my daughter.  She loved them all and asked for her imps every day.

Those Imps worked some kind of alchemy on our year.  An empty, mind-numbing time in our day became a rich time, a golden moment.  Together we watched these characters unfolding in their wisdom and vanity, their bold misadventures and reparations, their friendship and frustrations.  Through their activities we saw ourselves more clearly and the culture of our family began to take shape.  And storytelling took root in me.

As a parent, storytelling has endless uses:

To pass the time when you are waiting

To comfort a child who is upset

To make a magical, peaceful bedtime

To impart a lesson gently, without confrontation

To wean children away from media influence

To celebrate a holiday

To impart values in an open-ended way

To teach family history

To create engaging homeschool lessons

To make em laugh 

To get to see that look of wonder on their faces and remember how much you love them

To get them to sit quietly for five minutes when you are about to go nuts...

Yes, it's really, really useful.

So how do you do it?  How do you start telling stories if this is all new?

Tell the stories you know.

I find that the easiest stories to tell my children are stories of things that happened to me in my own childhood.  These bits of my history, framed as stories, are easy to envision because they are my own memories.  And they are easy to share, as this kind of storytelling borders on simple conversation.  We humans naturally tell each other little stories of our experiences: our day, the funny thing that happened at the grocery story, the dream we had last night...

When I'm really tired at bedtime and not feeling particularly creative, I'll fall back on a childhood story.  Something like this: Well, when I turned ten years old I got a bike for my birthday.  I just loved that bike!  It was blue, with streamers on the handlebars and a banana seat.  I used to spend hours riding that bike around our little town, sometimes with my brother and sometimes on my own.  One day, I decided to explore up a road that I had never been on before...

It's amazing how easily the story will unfold and shape itself into something even better, more interesting and charming and memorable, than the memory I started with.  Not that I change the facts much, but somehow in the process of the memory becoming a story it becomes so much juicier, for me as well as for my children, listening under the covers.

Make it up as you go along.

While making up a story from scratch may seem daunting, I actually think it's easier than learning and telling someone else's story.  Because it came out of you, it's easier to remember and you don't feel you have to live up to someone else's vision or mimic their language.  

You can start really, really simple.  Here's one way: you invent a character.  Maybe it's a little gnome who lives under the tree in your backyard or maybe it's a funny old giraffe who escaped from the zoo or maybe it's a little boy and girl who are just the ages of your children (fancy that!).  Whoever it is, it will be someone that has some obvious character traits that you can draw upon (I once told a series of stories about a dog you loved ketchup beyond all reason- the possibilities were endless) and is someone your child will like and relate to.  Then you can tell a series of stories about this character, following  him through the days and weeks, drawing ideas from what is going on in nature, in your family and community.  What does the giraffe do when it snows?   How does the helpful gnome care for the baby bird that fell from his nest?  Once your children know and trust your character, you can try using your stories to help your children reflect on events in their own lives in a gentle way.

 

Once you've decided on what sort of story you will tell, pick a time and a situation that feels natural to you.  An ordinary time might be great: after dinner in the living room, while taking a walk together, in the car. If you always read a story book at bedtime, you could try following that with a told story.  Turning out the lights and lighting a candle can create an feeling of intimacy.  

When your moment comes, take a deep breath.  You are about to give your child a gift of great beauty and value, no matter how awkward you may feel at this moment.  Be bold and the story will come to you.  Go for it!

Once you get a feel for the rhythm of breathing and speaking and for following the thread of the story, you'll be inspired to go deeper.  Chose your favorite fairy tale and learn to tell it.  Buy a collection of stories for your child's age group and tell a new one every month.  What about a special story for a child's birthday?  Or a story to deepen the magic of your favorite holiday?

In the my next post, I'll explore ways of choosing and preparing stories for telling and how to set the stage for your tale.  I hope you'll join me again!

2014: A Love Story in Yarn

I know it's a little late for a Year in Review.  What can I say, we've been a bit distracted round here.  

We're night-weaning Eden.  Hopes for unbroken nights of sleep glimmer before us like heat on the highway, but right now we're in a black comedy of midnight bed-hopping, 2am buttered toast, and morning tea at 5:15.  Robby looks ashen (sorry, sweetie).  I don't know how I look because I gave up looking in the mirror around the time we night-weaned Emmet (he's six now), but I'm sure it's not good.  

Back to the year in review.  Hmm...There's been plenty of introspection here, deep gratitude and uncomfortable truths.  It has been an unforgetable year in all senses.  But, you know, tonight I'm going to keep it simple and write about something from this year that gave me pure, unalloyed joy: knitting.

Knitting, I love you.  You do it all.  You calm my nerves without side effects.  You clothe my family in warmth and color.  You afford me the joy of small, secret yarn purchases before picking up the kids from Grandma's.  You satisfy my need to be productive even when sitting on the couch watching Downton Abbey.  Thank you, knitting! I really don't know what I'd do without you.

I knit all the time and pretty much anywhere, including at stoplights.  If I pass a day without having a knitting project to pick up, I feel noticeably adrift.  The only time I don't feel like knitting is when I'm really sick.  This is how I know I should be in bed.  No desire to knit?  Time for bedrest.

When I find a pattern that I like, I tend to knit it several times.  I like to get to know it from all sides: I try different yarns and make little changes in the pattern to see what happens.  I also like repeating patterns because I start to memorize them and can refer less often to the pattern, which is helpful for someone who knits while nursing and reading picture books aloud.

Here are some of my beloved patterns from last year:

(All links are to patterns on Ravelry, a free networking site for fiber folk.  You can find me on Ravelry here.)

Taking the award for most frequently knitted is the Quynn hat.  I made this hat for my three children, my friend's child, my brother, my sister and myself. It's easy, satsifying and really cute.  And it keeps your ears warm.  My favorite iteration (first, below), for a sweet birthday girl, made use of many of my odds and ends and leftover bits to create the candy-colored stripes.

I also spent a lot of time with the Greyhaven Cowl, making it four times and loving it more each time.  This  pattern taught me to knit lace.  I started out with stitch markers between each repeat of the lace pattern, holding on for dear life.  On the second go, I decided to forgo the markers and found it easier to see the pattern and intuitively find my way through.

This pattern, I really, truly love.  The Griffin is a totally clever and snappy vest for kids that features one of my favorite yarns, Kureyon by Noro.  Delightful knitting, with new colors always coming along to keep you interested.

I entered the cold of November with matching Lyalya balaclava hats for the boys.  (Which was nothing compared to my friend who knitted one for each of her three children and their dolls!)

And for myself...

Madigan in Malabrigo Rios, and a couple of Cupcakes.

As I assemble these photos, I remember not only the joy of finishing these projects and seeing them worn, but the times and places in which I was knitting.  The Madigan on the road to California, the Lyalyas on the tarp at co-op day, the first Griffin in the spring, obsessively knitting after bedtime.  It's all in there, wrapped in the stitches.  What riches! It's been a great year.


 

 

 

 

A Story to Tell: Saint Martin's Light

I stand in the dark, waiting.  

Tucked into a narrow canyon in high mountains, I am surprised by depth of the darkness.  It's so thick it seems to take on form.  I can almost touch it, like some kind of fabric: velvet or felt.

I can hear bells ringing far below, small and silvery.  Then singing, sounds made strange by distance, rising and falling and slowly resolving into songs I know, sung by familiar voices.

My people are coming.  With handmade lanterns of all shapes and colors, they are coming singing and laughing.  Now they see the lanterns hanging in the tree above me, the table draped in silk, the tiny paper footlights.  They leave the trail and shuffle and crunch through the bushes to the chairs set out for them.  Whispers.  Giggles.  A chair and small child tumble over and are righted.  More whispers and giggles.  Then settling.  Quiet anticipation.  

I begin: Once upon a time there was a man named Martin, who was known far and wide for his wisdom and kindness...

This story is special to me.  It's about St. Martin, who is celebrated in darkest November in many parts of Europe (and at Waldorf Schools everywhere). It was written by Reg Down, creator of the Tiptoes Lightly books, and can be found for free here.  

For two years, I told this beautiful story before our homeschool co-op's Lantern Walk Festival.  The experience of telling this story lives in me so strongly: speaking these words to my children and my dear friends' children, all bundled in hats and mittens, firelight on their faces and darkness all around...The  images took root in my family's collective heart and have served us in ways we never could have anticipated.

This year, for our third Lantern Walk, I was inspired to celebrate our love of this tale with a marionette show.  I had never done a puppet show in the dark before, but the thought of this story coming to life out in the woods, in the dark, just set me on fire.  So I set to.

The play developed in a wonderfully organic way, beginning with the puppets.  Since taking a  workshop with Suzanne Down last winter, I've been adapting her needle-felted rod puppet technique to making marionettes.  I'm finding needle felting quicker and more expressive than sewing.  

Here is Martin.  He looks a bit like my husband around the eyes.  And why not?

And here is the Lady who appears to him on the mountain. She has crystal beads sewn into her braid and here and there on her dress, which were quite sparkly in candlelight.

Which brings me to lighting.  This was really fun!  I made eight little footlights, each holding a votive candle.  Here was my process (the little circles are for gluing to the bottom):

Placed strategically on the tables (there were three of different heights, to create the effect of a mountain journey), they lighted the action in a mysterious, wavering glow.  The tables were covered by dark clothes and decorated with rocks, gnarled branches, and evergreen twigs.  Yes, all this was carried up the canyon by the generous hardy fathers of our homeschool group.  "It seems we are bringing the rocks to the mountain," was their only smiling comment (that I heard!).

 

Revisiting this story and the Lantern Walk ritual for the third time as homeschoolers and fifth time as a family, I find I appreciate these things even more deeply than when they were newly-discovered wonders.  The simple act of repetition- of visiting the same emotional soil each year as the earth turns into a new quarter- creates a deep resonance.  What originally felt fun, but sort of extraneous or even bizarre (you make puppet shows for your kids?), now feels necessary.  It's part of our bedrock.  

Settling In

This month we slipped back into homeschooling.  That's kind of how it felt.  More than a big push, it was a gentle slide.   Yes, I stayed up late for a couple of nights attempting to memorize the King James version of the Creation word for word (what was I thinking?) for Ida's first block on the Hebrew Scriptures.  But in contrast to our many adventures and canceled plans of recent months, coming back to homeschooling felt like coming home.

Our homeschool room spent July and August as a free-for-all playroom where elaborate games once set up could stay for days and days.  I gave up on seeing the floor in there and delighted in the wild creativity of summer.  Now the toys are back in their baskets, the floor is swept, a new homemade chalkboard is in pride of place: a space is created for the unfolding of this special experience we share.  Now I remember why this my favorite room in the house.  It holds my highest intentions for my family, our most earnest selves, our hopes for each new day of learning.  We fill it with beauty as best we can: songs in praise of the light, poems full of tenderness and power, painting, drawing, and stories. 

Of course, sometimes our best falls short of my ideals.  Homeschooling can be a sort of feedback loop: it amplifies the beauty of family life and also amplifies the challenges and conflicts.  Some days we harmonize and flow, some days we're all bumps and edges.  On the rough days, its surprising easy to blame this crazy choice- homeschooling!- for whatever challenges are coming up.  Sibling rivalry, perfectionism, thwarted expectations, just plain grouchiness...I remind myself that these are part of family life however we chose to school.  Spending so much time together brings these challenges to the surface in a big way, but also gives us tons of time to work on them.  We progress: find solutions when we can, accept when we can't, learn to laugh more and share more.

As a homeschool teacher, it is natural to me to create quite a bit of structure.  Having a plan and sticking to it reassures me.  It also reassures my kids, who like to know what to expect.  It helps them trust me and this whole homeschooling venture.  However,  I'm working right now to balance my love of form with a good dose of flexibility.  I'm working on trusting the pace of my children, even when I feel that we could be moving faster, doing more.  I'm really looking this year, trying to see clearly who each child is today.  What is needed now, this morning?  It might be what I planned or it might not.  I'm sort of okay with that.  

At two years old, Eden can be counted upon to bring us down to earth and keep us honest.   Whether he's singing along with circle time (delightful!) or throwing Emmet's crayons and pulling his hair (umm, not delightful!), Eden is always an enlivening influence.  Here he is, hard at work on his first painting.  I carefully selected the golden yellow for his first paint color- so cheerful!  The green was his choice.  As the room echoed with his incredibly loud screams for "Green!"  I hastily mixed this sort of algae-colored green.  Well, it is what it is.  He was satisfied.

If I had a mantra for this season, or an intention to post over my kitchen sink as my friend does, it would be Settle In.  I've never been much for settling.  Settling down...Settling for less...These phrases quickly stir me into a feeling of impatience and frustration.  But Settling In: this I can do.  I've got my knitting.  I've got my kids.  I've got my true love coming home at five.  I have what I need.

 

The Lucky Ones

A month ago today my daughter was found.  

She was standing in a meadow. The pocket of her dress was full of eucalyptus nuts and dry grass.  Her shoes and socks and pants were soaked with morning dew.  She was cold and hungry, thirsty and scared.  She was safe.

For 22 hours I did not know where my child was.  That changed me.   While hundreds of people searched and called and strategized and watched and prayed through the night, I waited not knowing.  I passed a night without her and I didn't know if it would be just one, or the first of many.

As someone who practices gratitude and simplicity, I thought I had a handle on the preciousness of everyday life.  But, really, I had no idea.  I am now living a second chance at my same ordinary, beautiful, exhausting, unknowable life, given back to me as a gift from a merciful God.  May I never forget.  May I never take any part of this life for granted.

Dear friends, those of us who have the privilege of getting annoyed at our kids, of snapping over laundry on the floor, food uneaten and sibling fights: we are the lucky ones.  At the end of an exhausting day, may I always remember: being able to pull a blanket over a sleeping child is a gift.  Being called back to a bedside for a glass of water, finding a small boy in my bed at 2am: these are luxuries.  In the safety of my messy home, with my three healthy, messy children, I am blessed beyond my comprehension.

My family received so many prayers that night.  Tonight I send those prayers on to those parents whose suffering has not been relieved as mine has.  To the parents who cannot provide basic safety, warmth and nourishment for their children.  To the parents whose children are suffering.  To the parents whose children are lost to them for any reason on this earth.  My prayers are yours always.

 

Changes for Storymama

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness. -Pearl S. Buck

For me, the most challenging decisions are those that I make between two really good, exciting, beautiful alternatives.  Perhaps when I'm faced with this kind of decision I ought to think, "Gosh, I really can't lose here!  I'll just pick one.  No big deal."  Instead, I find myself tortured by that fact that after I make my choice, one of these good, exciting, beautiful alternatives will no longer exist.

I do love change, in many forms.  I love moving my furniture, painting my walls, trying a new recipe.  But making big changes to a life that is already full, satisfying, and lovely...no!  I question, resist, cling and grieve.

Such has been my springtime.

Yet, somehow, I have chosen a change.  Goodness, it's so big.  Every person in my family will be deeply affected, as well as about half the folks in my community.  My little engine has leapt the rails is chugging off into unknown territory, with the train cars of my loved ones bobbing along behind.  

Friends, I have a job!  Beginning on September 2, I will be the first grade teacher at the Santa Fe Waldorf School.  I'll have a beautiful class of 17 bright-eyed little ones, a lovely classroom with red curtains and pink walls, a much bigger chalkboard, and a much bigger....well, everything.  I'll have a salary.  And an alarm clock.  I'll be wearing a watch and professional attire and I won't be nursing my toddler while teaching form drawing.  

My children won't be in my class.  Thanks to tuition remission, they will be in the classes of other teachers: wonderful, creative, inspired, experienced teachers.  They wil be thriving, I am sure.  But, dear God, I am going to miss them.  Sometimes I think I'll hardly be able to bear it.  Perhaps only those of you who have homeschooled will understand this, but it's just really hard to think of teaching to a class that doesn't hold my own children.  Nevertheless, this I will do.

Why?  There isn't an easy answer.  If homeschooling wasn't working for us it would be easy to explain.  If I were burned out, frustrated and just plain done, it would have been an clear choice.  But I love homeschooling!  I love our classroom, our rituals, songs, and verses.  It's a privilege to be teacher to my children and get to witness their unfolding, their struggles, and aha moments. And I love our community.  Our homeschool coop is a thing of pure beauty, a group in which I feel completely at home. And it's not a purely financial decision.  Yes, we are broke.  But we've been broke for years.  We're good at it. So why?

The only real answer is that it is in me to do this.  That's all.  There is a teacher being inside me who wants expression, even if many other parts of me protest and say, Not yet!  Yes, I do want this.  I want to be a teacher at a Waldorf school.  I want to learn more, grow more, encompass more.  While I wouldn't say that I am ambitious, I know that I am greedy for learning.  I strive.  Which is not to say that there is no more learning for me in homeschooling.  I have am far from a master of this work.  I could continue to homeschool for another decade and still find growth and learning.  The challenges are so real and the rewards are so deep.

But here I am, ready for a change.  In November, it will be a decade since I quit my former teaching job to devote my full attention to mothering, homemaking and, later, homesteading and homeschooling.  These ten years have changed me beyond anything I could have imagined.  I am deeper, steadier, and happier.  I am more direct, less fearful, more creative and courageous.  I live in a web of vibrant community and deep abiding family love.  Perhaps it is this level of safety and security that I experience in my life that allows me the sense of freedom to take this bold step.

In a few hours we leave for California where I'll be training at Rudolf Steiner College.  The van is packed (almost).  Everything fits (almost).  We will be gone for seven weeks. 

Wish me luck.  I will keep you posted.

 

photo by Rebecca Kunz

From the Shadows

Last weekend we cleaned out the garage, a project of such grandiose awfulness, I am still feeling exhausted six days later.  Boxes were opened that had been gathering dust since we moved into this house nine years ago.  Cobwebs were vacuumed that had long ago left behind their pliant youth and solidified into unbending towers.  Formerly useful objects, tucked away in safe places and forgotten, presented themselves and were dealt with, patiently and conscientiously in the morning and then with a growing sense of desperation as the day progressed.  

Physically it was gruelling. The bending and sorting, the lifting and hauling, trips to the dump...my muscles still protest their unaccustomed usage and I had only the easiest of jobs, with Robby covering all the heavy lifting.  

But worse was the humiliation.  Wait a minute!  Aren't we reasonably organized people?  What is all this crap?  How could we let this outpost of our home become such an Underworld?  Most painful for me were the precious things found either ruined or past their date of usefulness, especially a pair of beautiful sheepskin boots, a present to Eden from his grandparents, that I searched for all winter to no avail.  Now that spring has arrived...here they are!  His feet will be too big for them next year.  

We were looking straight into the Dark Side of our life and not liking it one little bit.  

I've been living in the echoes of this experience all week.  Alongside my distress (guilt...self-judgement...misery...) I am also feeling the rightness of this kind of project at this time of year.  Like so many seasonal folk traditions, the Spring Clean is both emminently practical and deeply spiritual.  The work is dirty, there is upheaval, things are uncovered that we prefer to keep hidden, but these little deaths make way for beginnings.  As the trees burst into white blossom and the garden is washed with green, I bravely look into my darkness and hopefully bring something...anything...to light.

In my inbox this evening, I found a pearl from among the many that Lynn Jericho liberally and regularly shares with her mailing list. (If you are not on her mailing list, I highly recommend joining in).  

For Holy Saturday, she shares the vision of each of us descending into our own tomb, our shadow side of neglected gifts, hurts, needs, and feelings, and bringing compassion to our darkness.

Can your luminous I consciously descend into the pit of self-hatred, bringing self-compassion and self-forgiveness to the suffering parts of your soul? Can this spirit-filled self reach the bottom of the pit and shine warmth and light into all the darkest crevices?

This is not a dramatic deed. It is a tender deed arising from within your Holy of Holies.

All the Hosts of Heaven watch you with awe as you do this.

That is my favorite line.  All the Hosts of Heaven watch you with awe as you do this.  Can I feel a loving presence, a compassionate witness, even as I gaze at my most unholy corners?  How healing to try to do so, in some small way.

Returning to the garage, I am happy to say that we uncovered treasures as well as disasters.  

Robby's old violin became Ida's new obsession.

Emmet has worn Robby's old engineer suit every day this week.

And the Easter decorations box was unearthed in good time.  Things are looking up.

Blessings on your springtime beginnings.

 

Redefining Eden

Tonight I am wondering:

Did God really have to cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden?  Or did He, perhaps, simply leave the gate open?  Once the first humans (being human) saw the gate ajar, would they not, sooner or later, have walked through?

About two years ago, I named the baby in my womb Eden.  I heard the name clearly one day as I lay in bed with my burgeoning belly.  The name announced itself and that was that.  Fortunately, it seemed to fit.  At least, it fit the direction of my mind at the time.  

In the weeks approaching Eden's birth, I was thrumming with longing for a Garden, a place of union with nature, of simplicity and purity.  I saw myself giving birth to this baby and raising it in a place of great safety and nurturing, removed from any flavor of modern suffering and disconnect.  Flowing water and golden light on cottonwood leaves.  A bower.  My own Eden.

When my fantasies of actually picking up and moving to such a place bumped up against the realities of New Mexico real estate, I set about creating a bower in my backyard.  We put up a privacy fence around our patch of scrappy lawn and began watering it the grass copiously through the hottest part of the summer.  We planted an apple tree.  The birth tub was going to go right there, in the garden.  

My older children had been born beautifully at home, but this birth was going to go beyond simple homebirth.  I was going for complete non-intervention.  No ultrasound.  No worrying about dates and nudging things along.  No poking, prodding or cutting of any kind.  We even planned for a lotus birth, so the baby's umbilical cord would not be cut, but simply dry up and fall away in its own time.  

Well, Baby Eden had other ideas.  In fact, Baby Eden has been, shall we say, redefining Eden since before his own birth.  In the end, he was born by cesarean in a hospital in Albuquerque, an experience for me of beauty and surrender beyond anything that I could have imagined.  He gave me my first lesson in the power of the Eden within.

Baby Eden is now a fearsome and delightful toddler of twenty months.  He is possessed of a fiery and fearless exuberance that fills me with equal parts pride and alarm.  If there is something to climb, he'll be on top of it before you can say Jackie Two-Sticks.  If a rocky precipice presents itself, he'll exclaim with delight and head for the edge.  If our garden gate is left open, he'll cross the yard and be through it and heading for the street in about 4.5 seconds.  If I am planning to keep this boy in my sheltered bower, gazing at the cottonwood leaves, it's going to be an uphill battle.  And, really, the same can be said for my other children.  Though they are more measured in their exploration of the world, one day the world will be theirs.  I can and should shelter them now, but my fences are matchsticks in the face of their destinies.

These children: they are so little, but so powerful. Their futures, stretching before them, guide me in directions unfamiliar but inevitable.  And for all my resistance, I know the rightness of growth, of danger, of an embracing love for the world.  As I see it now, if Eden is union-consciousness, what part of our world does that not include?  The Edenic mind knows no fear, no separation.  Can a fence, literal or spiritual, contain that power?  And if Eden is All, does it not also contain the Fall? The garden, the apple tree, the wall, the gate, the windswept plain...do they not exist together in beauty and perfection?

On many levels, I am sensing that the gate of my family's Garden is open.  We have been living a sheltered life of great beauty, a life I have created with love, hard work, and the convictions of an idealist.  I love it more than ever and long to stay and stay.  The new spring leaves have never been so green.

But I feel it.  The gate is standing open.  What does it mean?  Where does the path lead?

I don't know.  But I do know that once the gate is open, it is only a matter of time until we walk through.  

First and third photos by Erin O'Neill

Don't Wake the Dreamers

Sometimes at night I feel like Noah.  My bed is a ship, awash with storm-driven water, tilting precariously, crammed elbow to armpit with sleeping creatures.  Sometimes I lie awake and listen to the tides of my family's breathing, knowing that sleep is my most dearly beloved friend, but somehow unable to release the nets of my daytime mind. 

Last night I was lying thusly in my boat when I heard five-year-old Emmet, from the starboard side over beyond Robby, begin to talk in a bright voice, full of certainty and excitement.  That clear little voice at 2am can only denote that my boy is, in fact, asleep and talking from the depths of his dream.

"Ida!  It's the most beautiful flower!"

Robby, also asleep, began to shush him with a groggy urgency born of 9 years of sleeping with children.  "Shhhhhh!!!"

In a burst of nighttime emotion that I can't fully explain now, I immediately began to whisper my protest. "He's asleep, Robby!  You can't shush a person who's sleep-talking!  He doesn't know that he's talking.  And besides, I want to hear what he's saying."

But the moment had passed.  There were no more rhapsodies about flowers.  Shushing subsided into snoring and the waves washed the deck clean.  Once again, I alone was in the waking world, surrounded by sleepers, caught up in my net, thinking...

And this is what I thought: This little episode is actually an interesting metaphor for understanding my five-year-old son, and perhaps the young child in general.  One often hears of the dream-like consciousness of the young child and of the "waking up" process that begins around six or seven years of age.  But what if I thought of Emmet as literally sleeping: sleepwalking and sleeptalking through his days.  As with the sleepwalker, I see his little body.  I hear his words and see him moving about, but what if I imagine that his mind is working on a completely different plane, one that I cannot access?  How would I then shape my interactions with him?

Well, you can't blame a sleepwalker for creating chaos for unknowable reasons: eating toothpaste, losing the keys in the sandbox, or (as my aunt famously did while sleepwalking as a child) peeing in the kitchen drawer.  It's all par for the course.  According to the folk wisdom, you shouldn't really interfere much with sleepwalkers at all.  You don't reason with them.   You really can't argue.  And you certainly don't wake them up.  Nope, you've got to just watch them, follow them maybe, move obstacles out the the way.  You've got to trust to their guidance.  Somehow they know, in their altered state, more than we do.  Their feet step truly, amidst the debris out in the garage or the sideyard.  At most: a gentle suggestion, a helping hand back to the warmth of the house...

Which makes me wonder (again, again) why I persist in thinking I can reason with Emmet when he is upset or stubborn.  Why I am constantly trying to talk him around, talking him out of this or that, talk him back into line.  Why I rely on words, words, words...when a gentle hand, the removal of obstacles, a hug would be so much more effective.  He's sleeping.  He doesn't know that he's defying me, frustrating my efforts and making me tear my hair. 

Besides, if I stop talking, I might get to hear what he's saying.  I might get a taste of dreamland.

A Story To Tell: The Boy Who Tried to Fool his Father

As storyteller for our homeschool co-op, I bring a new story to the children each month.  Since we meet weekly, this gives me time to develop the story creatively and for the little ones to dream into it a bit and see it come to life.  The first and second week I tell the story simply, the third week I bring the story as a puppet play and the fourth week the children act out the story with very simple costumes and props.  It is a fun and satisfying progression that also challenges me to find stories that are appropriate for both a puppet play and acting out and that will engage our range of children from three- to eight-years-old.

I tend to chose stories that are rather epic, with many characters, a journey, a transformation  Huts turning into castles.  Dwarfs into princes.  Angels and talking animals.  The whole nine yards.  I had such a story selected for February, but when it came time to tell it I felt that something lighter was needed.  We'd done five big stories already this year.  It was time for a little laughter and some ease.

I fell in love with this story from Zaire, adapted by Andrea Gambardella, which I found in this wonderful story collection from WECAN.  The humor is apparent, but the quality that actually decided me on this story is the wonderful sense of reassurance and safety that comes with the ending.

Here is my version:

Once upon a time there was a beautiful land far to the south where it was never wintertime, but always hot and green.  The trees of this land grew so tall and thick that if you were to climb one, you would be able to see a great, great distance and what you would see would be a canopy of green trees all around.  And in this land there was also a river that was so large that if you tried to swim across it you would be very, very tired when you reached the other side.  And in this land there lived many, many animals and many beautiful birds and butterflies and insects of all kinds.  This forest was full of life!

One day, a family came to live in the forest.  There was a father and a mother and many, many children.  The trees made room for them to build their simple huts and dig their garden.   Once the garden was dug, the mother and the older children were very busy in planting it and tending it and the father said to himself, "There is more that I can do to provide for my family."

He pulled some vines from the trees and stripped off their bark.  Then he braided the bark and knotted it into a fishing net.  He carried the fishing net down to the river.  He dropped the net into the water, placing a rock over one corner to prevent it from floating away.

By this time it was noon, so the father walked back to his hut for a rest.  As he entered the yard, his youngest child ran up to him.  "Father," he said. "I am going to hide and you have to find me!"

"No matter where you hide, I will find you!" said his father. "You can count on me."  Then he went inside to rest.

Now the little boy started to look around for a place to hide.  He looked in the garden, the woodpile and the bushes, but nothing seemed quite right.  Then he saw a peanut lying on the ground in the yard.  He said to himself, "I wish I could hide inside that peanut!" And it was no sooner said than done: he was inside the peanut.

Well, just then, the rooster spied the peanut and came strutting over and, in a flash, he ate the peanut up.

Then, a wild bush cat peered out of the trees, saw the rooster and ate it up in one gulp.

The dog saw the bush cat and came running over and before the cat could leap back into the trees he ate it up.

Now the dog was feeling very full and thirsty, so he walked down to the river for a drink.  As he drank from the river, a green python snake looked down from a tree above, slid down the branch and swallowed the dog.

Now the python was so full and so heavy that he fell- plop!- into the river and was caught in the father's fishing net.

Well, the father woke up from his nap, had a bite to eat and came outside again.  He began to count his children who were playing and working in the garden.  One was missing!  It was his youngest boy.  He began to look for him.  He searched and searched but he could not find the boy. Finally, he realized that the sun was beginning to go down and it was time to pull his net from the river.  As he walked the path to the river he thought suddenly, "Ah...I will find my boy at the river."

When he pulled in his net, what did he find inside it but a python snake with a very fat belly!  Inside the python, he found a dog.  Inside the dog, he found a bush cat.  Inside the bush cat he found the rooster.  Inside the rooster he found a peanut.  And inside the peanut, he found his youngest son!

"You see," he said.  "No matter where you hide, I will find you.  You can count on me."

I love watching the children's faces as I tell a story.  I know these dear children so well!  On the morning I first told this story, I saw some tender edges in our little tribe.  A new baby had been welcomed in one home that very week and in other houses, friends had weathered a painful friendship triangle.  As the story began to flow I felt the children expectant, wondering where this new story was going.  I was also wondering: would this be scary for the children?  Would they take it lightly, as it was offered, or would they worry too much about the fate of the little boy, swallowed alive?

No, all was well.  When the rooster ate the peanut there was surprise, then laughter and a sense of freedom as cat followed rooster and dog followed cat.  Is this our serious Mama Brenna, telling a story about animals eating one another?  But the sweetest moment was the ending, when the father finds the little boy.  Then, I saw a sense of deep peace on those little faces.    One might not expect a story that features a python to bring a sense of peace, but there it was.  The unexpected beauty of story!  

I wish all children that sense of absolute safety.  That deep knowing, that even if you are inside a peanut, which is eaten by a rooster, which is eaten by a cat, which is eaten by a dog, which is eaten by a python, which falls into a river, those you love will still find you.  No matter what.  Gosh, I wish that for myself.  And for you.  In times of struggle, may we remember that sometimes we have to allow ourselves to be swallowed up and dropped in the river in order to find that sense of trust, to hear that quiet inner voice that says, You can count on me.