Ba

I hope that it is clear enough by now that I just mostly show up in this space to muse about identity and all of the surrounding considerations of who I am and what the hell I am doing with my life. Maybe I need to change the blog description to something more like that… At any rate, for months (ahem, maybe 20 or so. conservative estimate) I have been floating in and out of a particular liminal stasis. Part dark night of the soul, part trying not to force an outcome. At any rate, I have been waiting on some clarity, some kind of sign from the Universe about what exactly the next thing might possibly be. What is the next chapter of my life? What are the bits and pieces that will make up the whole of who I am in this next phase and place of being? But, no answer, really no insight whatsoever has been forthcoming and the waiting has left me more often than not nostalgic and depressed.

Signs are funny though. Many times they arrive all at once as though spontaneously delivered from some source with the force of possibility. But often that sudden arrival has been built bit by bit, one thought, one conversation, one dream, one remembering, one discovery, one letting go, one forgetting, and one forgiveness at a time over the course of a secret stretch of weeks or months or often, years. It is funny, but even after all of this time of being taught and in turn teaching by means of “a blinding flash of the obvious”, (thank you Christina), is still really just that. Sudden, and Blinding in its bright clarity. We can see something once it is here, and not a moment before.

What the hell am I talking about anyway? Jeez Meg. More specifics for more relatability. Ok. Got it.

I received my most recent lightning bolt last Monday morning when I saw a post shared by an old farmy friend of mine back in Viroqua Wisconsin regarding a flock of sheep looking for a new home down the hill from where I live outside of Morrisville, Vermont. Like, right down the hill. As in, I have been driving past these sheep as I shuttle my bigs to and fro every day for months. And I was like: Oh those could just be my sheep. And yes, I know, no just about it and I promise I will get into all of that. But in the moment it just shook me. Like this thing that has always been an earnest interest of mine, since the very beginning, at varying degrees at varying times throughout the course of my adulthood, but there nonetheless. I have even rearranged aspects of my life at different points to more easily accommodate the vision of sheep. If I am honest, it is a big part of why we chose country over town in our move to Vermont.

It triggered some serious self-reflection for me. For months I have felt at a real end of things. Like something is dying and I have no idea what is going to rise up out of the ashes. And all of that makes sense. I have felt unrooted and untethered since we made our big cross country move, for some clearly obvious more macro reasons as well as a few particular to me and my personal identity. For the last decade or so my primary identities have been structured in and around teaching yoga and being a homeschool mom. Every part of me filterd through these two aspects. Teaching as I once knew it feels gone forever and I am not necessarily eager to resurrect that even if I thought it were possible where I currently live (a story for another post perhaps). Similarly, how I experienced homeschooling changed forever when we landed here and Maple began going to public school. I couldn’t quite put my finger on that exactly until a conversation I had with a home ed mama friend of mine in which she related how difficult the transition to public school has been not for her son who is going, but for the younger brother that he left behind who has until now, never known a day without his older sibling. That is how it has been for Eider. For me too in some different ways. And certainly if COVID hadn’t taken a massive crap on everything that made homeschool fun and wildly more social than folks ever believe, maybe it would have been easier to hang onto the gold with him. But it hasn’t been and in my awareness of the end of our time learning together in this way, I have been grieving the loss of a part of myself. That loss along with no longer feeling like a public yoga teacher has been leaving me wondering what to do, what is next, who I am now, who I want to be.

For the last year or so, I have been succumbing to the New England value system and thinking that I could restore or even discover anew my own worth by going back to school and getting a higher degree and throwing some letters up after my name. They got me, those Northeastern academics. Ha. Almost. The trouble with that though, which is the same trouble with every other hair-brained idea of what could be next for me in my life is not only the $100,000, but also the fact that everything I have considered doing doesn’t do anything to land me here, in the place that I live now, on this land within this community in this context. It’s just another etheric option that jettisons me out into space or through another airport and off into the world somewhere else. Which, if I am honest, is good god so fucking hard to do even for someone who does a decent job of paying attention (and you can read my last post for more of that struggle if you like).

No. I am not doing myself or my discontent any favors if everything that I am looking forward to is about somewhere else and something else. Yes, I know I am being hard on myself here. I am doing a good job. I said when we moved here that the beginning bits would be all about focusing on my kids and helping them in building up their lives here and it has and I do and that is its own reward in a certain way. And yet, I need my own identity and my own individual sense of purpose interwoven with passion. So, sheep. At least, in part.

But not the flock down the hill. Something more planned and more thought out and more suited to my particular intentions and desires. I cannot throw us into this. Even though that is always my inclination. Cart before horse. Whoops. So, I am busy doing what I do and finding mentors and guides, and digging into the examples of what I don’t want along with what I do, and hopefully, by the late spring, there will be some sheep out grazing on our hill. I am sure I’ll share all sorts of details about that as it unfolds for those that are interested. I imagine there are more than a few wooly friends in my midst. Just an idea.

Oh yeah and by the way the other thing that I figured out this week is that I HAVE A WHOLE OTHER KID that I can decide to homeschool or not. I mean, I knew that but for some bonkers reason, I have been telling myself that if Eider is done then I am too and Wilfred will probably go to school. Well, turns out that I do want to homeschool my little- at least, that’s what I think right now- and holy shit I actually have an idea of how to go about it compared to when we began over eight years ago. Horse, then cart baby! Ha! This may seem obvious to you but please let me assure you that this entered my awareness like a shooting star. Bright and unexpected and with a trail I can follow.

So, at this moment, I still feel the grief of what is changing and what is or has already ended. But I am also feeling more grounded and hopeful and alive than I have in a long time. Like I am here now. And my eyes are open. And what needed to die in me has died and the ground feels fertile with the possibility of what comes next. As my mentor/shepherdess/pal back in WI says: Babes and sheep are the best. Yes indeed.