I hope you like the title of this blog. It came to me as one of those unnoticed idioms which you dismiss as a superficial attempt at humour, but only afterwards realise your brain was actually trying to send you a message. But we'll get back to that in a minute...
We have been doing a lot of soul-searching lately, on a lot of subjects. Top of the list is currently the kind of life we want for our beautiful daughter. You see, for a long time, I didn't see. Well, I thought I saw. Don't we all? The part of me that likes to be right (which is, let's face it, the most ME part of me), was pretty convinced that what I was looking at was the whole picture. You know, kind of like looking through a window from a short distance away...you might see open fields and clear skies and think, "I see the world out there," but really, you're only seeing a small piece of an infinitely larger reality - a chunk, a 'glimpse' as those in real estate like to put it (and we all know what that means when we read it, right!). What you're really seeing, frankly, is a hell of a lot of wall and glass and, if you're lucky, a splash of colour which, in time, you may come to call "the whole world," because you've forgotten that any more of it exists than what you can see. (Seeing is believing, anyone?)
As so many adults do (and have been trained since childhood to do), I mistook the view for the destination. I wanted so much to believe in that view, too, because hell, it was the ONLY view, after all. When you're faced with so much wall, a window is a lovely thing. A refreshing possibility...the potential for a greater existence.
For a long time, I have loved the window. Justifiably so. It is easy to lose oneself in a beautiful view. Windows offer potential, too. The view itself can prompt much discussion, thought and planning. It can take you in directions you hadn't previously planned. Nothing better than a glimpse of what lies just over there to interest you enough to want to start a journey...to get you up out of your chair and really study the view.
The great thing about windows (I'm going to run with this theme today...I like it a lot!) is that they offer more than just a pretty prospect. They let in light. You can open them up and breathe clean, sweet air...air that fills you up and cleanses your mind and smells of things you never dreamed existed. And if you only dare poke your head outside...wow! What a world! What a universe! And all that is required to explore it is to pluck up the courage to unlock that big, imposing door and take your first tentative steps forward.
And in that spirit, and with all the hopes, fears and excitement of explorers in a brilliant new land, so we have taken our first tentative steps into the world Radical Unschooling. Already, it feels so right that I wonder why I was ever content with just the window.
Long time, no see.
But the view is SO worth the wait!
