A Locomotive at Breakfast

what if homeschooling is where you fully pursue wonder?

Wondering Together, Part 2

I pace the office carpet, barefoot, with my pink phone held up to my chin. I am voice-texting a friend, leaving her a cry for help. “As I move from writing my book to needing to market it, I feel out of my depths,” I pause and scrunch my toes into the carpet. “I feel silly, almost. Here I am, with a dream realized, and yet it is hard for me to maintain the wonder and magic of being creative at the moment.” I breathe in slowly and hit send. 

Lifting the phone back up, I add, “It also feels hard to hold this dream and continue to homeschool, you know what I mean? Everywhere I turn I feel I will be letting someone down. I don’t know. It’s all dark and twisty in my head right now.”

After leaving this one, I plop onto our office sofa. I look down and see she’s responding, and I hold steady. When the message pings, I eagerly play it. She reassures me this is going to be a growing process, and that it is natural to feel uncomfortable. She also prompts me to think about our homeschool life. 

“If the book arena has switched to business, what if your homeschool is where you fully pursue wonder? What if?” She lets it hang there and I nod my head. I can feel what she means before seeing it play out. It is a tangible feeling of excitement, I stand and I notice the energy radiating up from my grounded feet to the smile twitching at my lips.

***

The next week I see Ryan dressed for work, but slowly preparing his breakfast in the kitchen. “You’re still here this morning?” I ask, glancing at the clock while scooping Hunter in my arms and carrying him to the table. “I have an appointment, so I’m heading in late.” 

“Daddy will be having breakfast with us!” I shout with glee and Hunter claps his hands while Evelyn runs from her room to wrap her arms around Dad’s waist. “Really?” she asks. “Really,” he says and kisses the top of her soft brown hair.

“That means you’ll be joining us for our poetry study.” I wiggle my eyebrows at him and he smiles back, “Ooh! Remind me who we are reading?” I pull our book, Poetry for Young People: Walt Whitman down from our homeschool cabinet. “Mmm,” he nods. “Exciting stuff.” Evelyn helps to bring over the rest of the food while I nestle in to find the poem of the morning. It is To A Locomotive in Winter, and the notes describe it as a recitative or one that is a “formal oral presentation, usually made before an audience.” I clear my throat dramatically, but that doesn’t feel like enough. 

The message from my friend rings in my ears…what if homeschooling is where you fully pursue wonder?

I push my chair back and climb atop it, wobbling for a second while the kids laugh and Ryan’s eyebrows raise only slightly. He didn’t marry a musical theater major for nothing. He is more accustomed to a creative surprise now and then. As the kids gasp, I realize I may have tucked this piece of myself away the past few months as I’ve been locked at my keyboard, fervently typing away at my manuscript. I hold the book up high, the art of the steam engine drawing us in before the words do.

For the next few minutes, I read each line with expression. I make my cadence pick up like the wheels of the train slowly pumping along the track. I raise my voice on “By day the warning ringing bell to sound its notes,” and lower it softly on “By night thy silent signal lamps to swing.” When I finish, the family erupts in a smattering of applause, and I step from my chair a bit out of breath, flushed with the exuberance of a mini performance on a no-longer mundane Monday.

Hunter pushes himself back from the table. “I have something to say!” He cries in his four-year-old voice. “Oh yes?” Ryan asks. And Hunter nods, pulling me from my chair so he can now stand upon it. I help him climb up and he tells back what his mind and heart gathered from the poem. His is an abbreviated tale of a train climbing through the mountains. When he finishes, we clap once more. “Anyone else?” I ask and Ryan and Evelyn shake their heads “No.” But we do talk about our favorite lines and language we encountered. 

Ryan likes the line where it mentions the train as an “emblem of motion and power— pulse of the continent,” and we talk with the kids about how trains were once a powerhouse of travel and industry. We remember traveling on them across Europe and in Morocco. This prompts me to pull open my laptop and we watch several YouTube videos on different kinds of trains. Soon, Ryan must head into work and as we all usher him to the door, he pauses and squeezes my hand. He doesn’t say anything, but I do. “It was time for some fun,” I say. But I realize too late, as he closes the door, I meant to say “It was time for some wonder.”

As I lead the kids back to the table for math and spelling, I vow that this is a place where we shall pursue wonder. While I feel like I have always done this, I haven’t always noticed it. Noticing and then writing about it are key elements in helping me to feel supported and motivated in my next right step. 

I think how these separate roles I hold, from writer to teacher, spouse and friend, daughter and mother, are made richer by flexing my grip on what each needs from me.

My worries about how I can release a book in the world and uphold our homeschool aren’t quelled today, but I have been able to reframe the aim. By continuing to create alongside my family, I can engage this playful part of myself and that helps keep my efforts with the book fresh. I pull open the math text and settle into a review. As I sip my coffee and finish my breakfast, I write to the side of our math homework, “Wonder can be chased, created, and enjoyed.”

Pssst! Hello dear reader, this is a new series I will slowly be adding to, Wondering Together, where I document some of the moments I wish to hold dear about life and learning alongside our children. Our family supports whichever education choice and style fits your family and is cheering you on. I hope you find a spark of wonder here that you may take into your day!

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5-7-5, where a family writes haikus together

Locomotive at Breakfast: Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash