Letter to my Children: Thoughts on Somatic Capitalism

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Letter to my Children: Thoughts on Somatic Capitalism

Dearest Beloveds,

Over the last couple of years, depending on circumstances and audience, I would dust off this joke.

“The history of the world could be written as - I don’t want to dig my own potatoes.”

And then I would pause for laughter.

I am retiring the joke. I have dug fewer than 1% of the potatoes I have eaten in my lifetime. It doesn’t feel as though I am the right person to say it. It also feels, given that I am trying to dismantle the overstory of capitalism from my cells - too tragic.

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Letter to my Children: Paper airplanes

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Letter to my Children: Paper airplanes

“I can’t help not making paper airplanes. If there is a spare piece of paper, even if it has stuff on it, I just wanna fold it. I like folding ‘em. I like experimenting making new shapes.”

Dragon’s obsession is strewn all over our living space - as we eke out our final weeks of inside living before icy mud season dries up.

I have spent the last few weeks tripping across paper airplanes everywhere in our house. Small ones, big ones, bigger ones (4x4 papers), and even an attempt at a HUGE one (10x10 papers was too big for liftoff).

They make me happy (well, not the tripping, but the rest of it.)

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Letter to My Children: Somatic Capitalism

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Letter to My Children: Somatic Capitalism

Dearest Beloveds,

I am using the term somatic capitalism to expound upon the capitalism I am trying to unravel from my cells. Cells that have been very well educated in this model from a very young age.

What model are you talking about, Momma?

This model darlings, the model of education as stated by this ungrammatical and embarrassing sentence on the official website. The United States “ED’s [sic] mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational education and ensuring equal access.” There are so many parts to that ridiculous statement I want to tear apart.

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Letter to My Children: Thank you Redwall

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Letter to My Children: Thank you Redwall

“Bean, I am going to read a chapter of Triss to your brother. Do you want to join us?”

“Could you read really loud from his room?”

“Of course!”

Settled into Dragon’s big chair, I open to our spot in the well-loved library book. Then I switched on voice memos to record the latest Redwall installment for your Yoto.

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Letter to my children: Thank You Notes Ripples vs Cultural Etiquette

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Letter to my children: Thank You Notes Ripples vs Cultural Etiquette


“Okay, my loves. Before we play with our new games today we need to write thank you notes.”

Here it comes.

Bean collapsed onto a chair. “Moooommmm, I hate writing thank you notes. No one else has to do it. We never get them from anyone else.”

Right, it is not so often that I have such a clear choice of passing along the snarky judgements of my mother or choosing a more generous interpretation.* Think think.

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Letter to Dragon: Hand Puppets

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Letter to Dragon: Hand Puppets

“Which one is the easiest one for you to teach Momma?”

“Jackson - the bullfrog.”

“Jackson, not Jeremy - the normal frog?”

“Jackson.” Immediately, Dragon moves both hands and holds them up for me. “This is Jackson.” He then untwisted his hands and slows down his finger movement as he narrated along for me to follow him.

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Letter to my Children: Hanging the Cheerleading Wall, Again

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Letter to my Children: Hanging the Cheerleading Wall, Again

Dearest Beloveds,

The older I get the more it feels as though life is both a carousel and a huge onion being unpeeled.

We have the yearly carousel: holidays, birthdays, seasons. We plant seeds for winter greenery. Our bees swarm in June. Every year we split and stack and move firewood to burn in the woodstove.

We have the daily carousel. Once Baba said to me plaintively when he was in the throes of dementia, “I thought we just DID the dishes! We need to do them AGAIN?!”

“Yup Dad, every day… sometimes three times a day.”

“Oh.”

And we have the carousel of psychological and spiritual challenges.

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Home Appliances: Fast Fashion meets Planned Obsolescence

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Home Appliances: Fast Fashion meets Planned Obsolescence

“What do you mean they don’t make the parts for the oven when it is older than 8 years old?”

“Well, at that point most people want to redecorate their kitchens and there is something better on the market.”

“You mean you are selling me an oven that will only last 6 years?”

“Yes. What card would you like to use?”

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Letter to Bean: Front Seat Sitting and Straight Talk

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Bean, your hand reaches over from my peripheral vision as I am driving and reaches towards the radio controls. “Mom, I don’t like the song.”

Oh my gosh, Bean is changing the channel and sitting in the front seat! What is going on?!

“Bean, it is really weird for your Momma to not have you in the back seat anymore.” And have volition over the radio and also not have a full front table for me to spread out my stuff.

“Mom, I am over 4’9”. That is the rule.”

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Letter to Dragon: Tx u For Yuer Splng

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Letter to Dragon: Tx u For Yuer Splng

Dearest Dragon,

Your lovely teacher quickly realized (though she never called me out on it directly) that I had been coddling you with spelling words when we were homeschooling. I would spell out the words you wanted to write. I took away your ability to try - by spoon feeding you the correct spelling.

Mrs P., very quickly nipped that in the bud (glorious woman). Over the course of a month or so she weaned you away from such hand holding and you are now forging ahead with writing regardless of accuracy. (Hooray Mrs P!)

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Letter to my children: Limbic Hijacking

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Letter to my children: Limbic Hijacking

The bus squeals as it comes to a stop at the end of our road. I am clutching the mail for the day. Dragon, hops off the bus and proudly announced. “Momma, I made it to level six!”

Is he talking about the computer game? “That is so exciting, level six of what?”

“Mooom, of Gravity Run!”

You are SEVEN! Your brain is barely functioning. Why are you playing video games at school?!

“Of course! Congratulations!”

“My goal is to get to level 20.”

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Eating a Porcupine

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I woke up on a recent Saturday morning excited for what the day would bring. For over three years Dragon and Bean have regaled me with their nature camp stories: carrying fire in mushrooms, bobcat dodgeball, making birchbark canoes, dying cloth with black walnut pods, whittling dos and don’t, fox ears, owl eyes, etc etc. Last month’s adult class included whittling and cordage made from the inner bark of basswood - right in line with what I expected from my children’s stories.

The second session we were greeted by a porcupine who had recently (that morning most likely) been hit by a car. Not only that, but we had a guest teacher who has spent the last few years becoming quite adept at tanning and processing roadkill. It seemed as though the Universe was nudging us in a certain direction.

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