Since I’m a homeschooling parent, many people have helpfully “checked in” over the years with advice: I must not to be overprotective, and should ensure that my children have many experiences out in the world! It’s a terrible idea to plug my kids into video games or devices in an effort to keep them indoors and “safe” - kids must interact with others, especially peers! They need physical activity! They must learn to take risks in order to fly! They need to learn from many teachers!

Dear Family,

The lockdowns began with clear intentions: “flatten the curve” for six weeks or so, reduce stress on medical facilities while they ramp up facilities and staff, and learn more about the virus. Six weeks passed and we accomplished those goals…yet nearly a year later, lockdowns remain in place with no clear roadmap ever stated, just a growing assumption that We Will Do This Until We’re All Vaccinated.

This feels SO fundamentally wrong.

Dear Family,

“Our planet is poorly equipped for delight. One must snatch gladness from the days that are.”
- Vladimir Mayakovsky (from the poem "To Sergei Esenin”)

——

A Zen teacher saw five of his students returning from the market, riding their bicycles. When they arrived at the monastery and had dismounted, the teacher asked the students, “Why are you riding your bicycles?” 

The first student replied, “The bicycle is carrying this sack of potatoes. I am glad that I do not have to carry them on my back!”

Dear Family,

Late in the evening on his Uncle Jake’s birthday (October 7), Kai Terran Amaral joined his family in a celebratory and slightly riotous homebirth that his Mama is profoundly grateful is Over.

“In all things purely social we can be as separate as the five fingers, and yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”
—W. E. B. Du Bois

Dear Family,

Mom noted today that I’m not doing anyone any favors by spewing anger concerning the COVID lockdowns. She said it more nicely than that, but I kinda got her drift. Love is better than hate and Little Pitchers Have Big Ears and all that.

“Forgiveness. The ability to forgive oneself. Stop here for a few breaths and think about this because it is the key to making art, and very possibly the key to finding any semblance of happiness in life.”

Dear Family,

Dear Family,

"The notion that we need the same type of economic system for all areas of life is ridiculous. For big things like cars, airplanes, computers, etc, capitalism is appropriate and works very well. For public services, education, utilities and (I believe) natural resources, a kind of socialism is the appropriate model. But for things like food, farming, clothing, low-tech manufacturing, etc, the best model is free enterprise (which is different from capitalism)."
—Sally Fallon

——

Dear Family,

"In those years, people will say, we lost track

of the meaning of we, of you

we found ourselves

reduced to I"

—Adrienne Rich

——

Dear Family,