rest position feet in line, scroll in front that’s mighty fine. check your bridge cuz it should be, peeking out at you and me. now it’s time to take a bow, ichi ni and san is how.
When we were in the process of moving from Wisconsin to Vermont in 2019, one of my closest friends and a fellow home-ed parent, when reflecting on the plan for Maple to begin eighth grade in a public school in our new home, said something along the lines of “I bet once Eider begins school, and this little one is old enough, that they will go to school too. I can see you choosing not to home-school this third child.” I have thought about this small, innocuous comment so many times over the intervening years. I’ve sat with it. And in the beginning, I think I even really considered the possibility of that reality. But as time has unfolded, and in many ways as I have remembered myself at different ages and stages as a mama, I am more excited to have Freddy home with me through his early and middle education than I ever remember being with the bigs. This enthusiasm has only grown as I have witnessed both of my homeschooled kids thrive in their own big and magnificent ways in high school. It has been such a massive reward and boost for all of the years we endured not really having a sense of how we are doing- the plight of many a home educator.
The other piece that I keep reflecting on when I feel myself getting pumped to be Fredzo’s primary educator is that there are a sweet few things in my life that I have prepared myself for ahead of time. Almost everything has been me responding to a stimulus or jumping in when an idea is still in its hair-brained stage and far from hatched. I certainly haven’t come to much in this life with an established set of values and a whole lot of trial and error under my belt. I have such a good sense of things now. Especially having lived in Vermont as a home educator for three years before Eid began school. I have a lay of the land and a hologram of a possible map inside of my head that I feel so fortunate to live into with our littlest.
And no, we are not really starting on things yet. I am still on what I like to think of as my sabbatical. He is whole-heartedly enjoying his two big days at Forest Preschool and I just feel so grateful every day that we are able to give him this experience. I do not mess with any sort of “curriculum” plan for a 4-year-old. Indeed, I will try my darndest to keep that out of the equation for as long as possible, instead keeping an eye on enrichment and joy and learning how to learn.
Earlier this fall, Freddy began a weekly violin lesson. He has been interested for ages, witnessing his big brother practice his instrument since conception. I think that it must seem so regular to him. Having walked the road of musical education with Eider for the past decade, I have a sense of the path and the progression and so it has felt both natural and casual to take steps with Wilfred. Violin, and the Suzuki world in general, is something that we fell into in Madison, completely unplanned and unprepared. I had no idea what we were getting into and as is often the way it is the things that catch you by surprise that end up being absolute gold. Indeed it is the Suzuki community in Madison; the program, the teachers, the culture; that are the things I miss the very most about living there. In a lot of ways, my introduction to that pedagogy marks the beginning of my deeper understanding of myself as a yoga teacher and then later of home education and my approach in that space. I have learned more about practice and its development and implications through Eider’s musical education than I have anywhere else.
When we first walked into Eider’s teacher’s home studio what caught my eye immediately was a banner on her wall that read: Practice Makes Progress, a quote from Shinichi Suzuki. As obvious as it seems now, I had never heard practice referenced in that way and I was certainly intrigued. In the decade since I have found the roots to the truth of that conviction, in all of its straightforward simplicity, to have become so rich with meaning in my own life and in the lives of all my people. Especially Eider. Having grown up with lessons every single week of his life; for many years weekly group lessons and annual institutes and now weekly orchestra rehearsals; I have watched him apply what he knows to be true about practice to every single part of his life. For a while that looked like building mastery in Apex Legends, but in more recent years I have watched him apply his trust in practice to make progress to his love of history and especially as of late his passion for the sport of lacrosse. He knows what it takes to develop real skill at something. It takes practice.
In yoga, practice is often referenced as something that we become established in when it is done regularly, and with devotion, over a long period of time. That is the context. I have experienced the truth of that in my own life, indeed it is the framework for everything but perhaps that is either so obvious that it doesn’t bear mentioning or it is beside the point. But if you want to really witness this concept made manifest, watch someone, yourself or another, learn to play music.
When I was wavering in my commitment to getting Wilfred started on lessons because I was overwhelmed with scheduling and driving and the expense of it all, even though my kid was clearly signaling his readiness, it was Eider who emphasized the importance of this path for his brother. He helped me to hold the course even when I struggled to find any teachers in our area who would begin lessons with a kid under the age of six, knowing that beginning when they demonstrate interest is so crucial. Eider reminded me that it wasn’t about becoming a great musician but about all of the other things you learn and become along the way. It is the direct experience of learning to live a life of practice and how that becomes something inside of you that can be applied to almost everything you want to learn and do in life. As our old luthier said to me once: Suzuki doesn’t guarantee you build an amazing musician, but it sure does help you to grow an incredible human being.
So Freddy has started his own journey, with his tiny 1/10th violin. I am remembering so many bits and pieces here and there that I learned with his brother as I supported his journey, now with much less stress and a lot more faith than I held in those early years. I know how to encourage without pressure and I have developed enough musicality of my own over all of these years that I can see what he is doing well and witness that with love and celebration in a way that was once outside of my understanding. He is taking to it with all of the interest and attention and stamina that we had a hunch he would and I can see the way in which this practice is constructing a scaffolding that will hold up so much of what he endeavors to explore in the years ahead. So yes, for this and so many more reasons I am over the moon at the opportunity to create the container for another child’s education. With far less trial and error and far more trust than I could have imagined in our first go-round.
It is in this mood that I feel this journey beginning for us. With a greater conviction in the power of this path than I could have ever known before I had lived it. I feel so lucky to embark from here. So thrilled at another opportunity to be with and support one of our children in this way.