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miep at 10:41am on 05/09/2013
miep at 10:41am on 05/09/2013Hello, blank screen. Hello, first day of Waldorf Kindergarten*. Hello, all by myself in the morning, at home, with the few hours until pick-up time spreading out. Hello, anticipation. Hello, nervousness and new ideas.
This summer was so different for me, from anything that came before. This is the first summer since I was three-years-old, save one, where September didn't see me heading off to school as either a student or a teacher. Our little boy, now 4 1/2, went back to school this morning. I dropped him off, and I came home. Now what?
I do have a new part-time position at the sweet little shop where I did some storytelling events last winter and spring. I'm excited about the possibilities in this. Mostly, I'll be helping customers select and purchase crafting supplies, toys, and home goods, and teaching children and adults to make beautiful hand-crafted toys and decorations. There will also be some story-telling, because there must be storytelling.
Over the summer, I have become more tentative and cautious about presenting myself as a storyteller. Partly, this has been because I have not had a lot of opportunities to tell stories, aside from a few little ones for my son. Lately, he has wanted to read a storybook at bedtime, rather than hear me tell Boy and Cat stories, and I'm not fighting it. I think we were both feeling a little tired of our dear, familiar story-friends, and while they are resting in storyland, perhaps some new adventures can arise. Partly, too, I have felt humbled by the real storytellers I know of, people who are stretching the story mantle to cover more and more topics and to reach more and more people. My own impulse has been one of retreat, of nesting and settling in, rather than outreach. It has been a time of contraction, rather than expansion.
So here I am, on September 5, writing for you, and I feel a little lost, a little adrift on a very smooth, quiet sea. Where shall I sail? Each island in the distance is lovely; each has its own dangers and its own treasures buried in the sand.
What am I going to do here, in my little boat? I'm going to study my map. I'm going to trust the sea and the winds. I'm going to let my boat bump onto the shores of those islands, wander around a bit, nibble sweet fruits and splash in the sea. And I am going to work.
Some of the work is going to look like work: tutoring, shop-keeping, home-making, writing. Some of the work will look a little more like play, and like puttering. And some of the work needs must be the search for work itself-- networking (ugh, that word), applications, study... That is what is allowing me the time to let my boat go where the wind takes it: this ongoing search for work. Because, you see, if I don't look for work, I don't get unemployment, and if I don't get unemployment, then the search for work gets more desperate and less focused on finding right work and more focused on getting any work.
I am toying with the idea of coaching. When I mentioned it to someone dear, she laughed a little, saying, "I don't think either of us is in a position to coach anyone," but perhaps that is a good place to start. Honesty. Authenticity. But what would I coach anyone in? Even coaching in parenting and Waldorf sometimes feels a little hubristic. But I do it. I do it, because the kind, kind women I meet with have told me that it is helpful. And I want to offer that container to others, that space of storytelling and sharing and striving.
*Kindergarten, in the Waldorf schools, is used in more than one way. As the word is used by some, my son has already been in Kindergarten for two years, as he has been in a Waldorf early childhood program, separate from his parents. He will be 5 in December, and this is his first year in the "Kindergarten" at his school; before this, he was in preschool. He'll stay in this class for two years, entering first grade in 2015.
This summer was so different for me, from anything that came before. This is the first summer since I was three-years-old, save one, where September didn't see me heading off to school as either a student or a teacher. Our little boy, now 4 1/2, went back to school this morning. I dropped him off, and I came home. Now what?
I do have a new part-time position at the sweet little shop where I did some storytelling events last winter and spring. I'm excited about the possibilities in this. Mostly, I'll be helping customers select and purchase crafting supplies, toys, and home goods, and teaching children and adults to make beautiful hand-crafted toys and decorations. There will also be some story-telling, because there must be storytelling.
Over the summer, I have become more tentative and cautious about presenting myself as a storyteller. Partly, this has been because I have not had a lot of opportunities to tell stories, aside from a few little ones for my son. Lately, he has wanted to read a storybook at bedtime, rather than hear me tell Boy and Cat stories, and I'm not fighting it. I think we were both feeling a little tired of our dear, familiar story-friends, and while they are resting in storyland, perhaps some new adventures can arise. Partly, too, I have felt humbled by the real storytellers I know of, people who are stretching the story mantle to cover more and more topics and to reach more and more people. My own impulse has been one of retreat, of nesting and settling in, rather than outreach. It has been a time of contraction, rather than expansion.
So here I am, on September 5, writing for you, and I feel a little lost, a little adrift on a very smooth, quiet sea. Where shall I sail? Each island in the distance is lovely; each has its own dangers and its own treasures buried in the sand.
What am I going to do here, in my little boat? I'm going to study my map. I'm going to trust the sea and the winds. I'm going to let my boat bump onto the shores of those islands, wander around a bit, nibble sweet fruits and splash in the sea. And I am going to work.
Some of the work is going to look like work: tutoring, shop-keeping, home-making, writing. Some of the work will look a little more like play, and like puttering. And some of the work needs must be the search for work itself-- networking (ugh, that word), applications, study... That is what is allowing me the time to let my boat go where the wind takes it: this ongoing search for work. Because, you see, if I don't look for work, I don't get unemployment, and if I don't get unemployment, then the search for work gets more desperate and less focused on finding right work and more focused on getting any work.
I am toying with the idea of coaching. When I mentioned it to someone dear, she laughed a little, saying, "I don't think either of us is in a position to coach anyone," but perhaps that is a good place to start. Honesty. Authenticity. But what would I coach anyone in? Even coaching in parenting and Waldorf sometimes feels a little hubristic. But I do it. I do it, because the kind, kind women I meet with have told me that it is helpful. And I want to offer that container to others, that space of storytelling and sharing and striving.
*Kindergarten, in the Waldorf schools, is used in more than one way. As the word is used by some, my son has already been in Kindergarten for two years, as he has been in a Waldorf early childhood program, separate from his parents. He will be 5 in December, and this is his first year in the "Kindergarten" at his school; before this, he was in preschool. He'll stay in this class for two years, entering first grade in 2015.