Dreamer, keep dreaming

We knew we would be moving here at about the same time that we knew we would be a homeschooling family.  I had a clear vision, a prescient waking dream: we would walk to a fabulous tea shop that was a gleaming gem of a local treasure, pull out our various books, and settle in for a good read after ordering scones and tea as the white-haired ladies out for a chat with their friends looked on with admiring and approving nods.

First, the tea shop burned to the ground.

Then I came to accept the temperament of my son, which was such that even read alouds had to be accomplished while he was in the bath for his wiggly, kinetic, driven mode of interacting with all of reality made bookish moments rare and the prospect of  alteration seemed laughably distant. Perhaps his wife would read to him on the couch.

Then came years of struggle with Sandra and reading, to be followed by years of struggling with her eyes in eye therapy.

And, to put a cherry on the whipped cream on this layered sundae of doom, Matthias was also diagnosed with eye difficulties.

The tea shop may be a charred memory, the scones sadly nonexistent, the date may be years later than I could have imagined, but the moment, was nonetheless real. Unbelievably warm weather tempted us outside for a walk, I offered Rainer’s library as a destination for our group silent reading time (a new addition to our days this January), and the moment opened before me. What a brilliant thing that Project 365 has taught me to wander with my camera in my pocket.

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