Firsts

This year was the first time that our first day of school picture was taken in what seemed like the dead of night. We have to arrive at school by 7:05 am daily; otherwise we face traffic and the possibility of not finding a spot in the lower lot. It has been a week of other firsts, including our first terremoto. There was a 6.8 magnitude in Pichilemu (3 hours south from us) that we experienced on Thursday afternoon with tremors that night. Rich’s students all jumped under the Harkness table before he even registered that it was an earthquake.

Through these firsts, I am learning a lot about our individual strengths, breaking points, and ways of learning. It is the first time that we have a full time nanny and a driver. The driver picks up the kids at their classrooms and takes them to our neighborhood gate. The nanny meets them there and watches them for two hours. She does not speak English, but Max says, “We work it out.” She cleans our house, watches the kids, and prepares our meals. It feels both super indulgent and absolutely necessary at the moment.

Earlier in the week, Max was watching older kids play soccer in front of our house; after a few hours he came inside asked me, “How do you say, ‘Can I play soccer with you in Spanish?’” Now, I routinely look out the window and see him playing with kids of all ages. Mia has adopted a stray cat; she is thrilled to have a pet for the first time and feeds it responsibly twice a day. If I told her that she had to do it, I bet I would end up feeding that cat. However, she has not missed a feeding because she empowered herself to do it. So, I then asked the kids what they think needs to happen before we leave each morning. We made a list together, and I hung it up on the refrigerator. Now, Mia and Max are striving to be responsible for these tasks without my asking; they refer to the list and help each other.

Rich has to learn various design programs including Rhino, Rhinocam, and Adobe Illustrator to teach design using laser cutters, cnc routers and 3D printers along with mastering programming language such as Arduino. There have been many moments when I can see that his job is incredibly daunting and overwhelming. His mountain of work feels endless. When he starts to tackle some of his work, any of it, bit by bit I see him making progress and developing confidence. What is really remarkable is when the learning is interesting to him how those hours of work seem to bring joy.

For all of us, being struggling learners is providing us with perspective that we rarely think about. Max has had such strong friendships at Brookwood, but being a new student will help him to develop empathy for other new faces in his friend group in the future. He was so grateful when a boy named Kiernan sat down with him on the first day. He was sitting alone. Now, they are fast friends. Kiernan is a Chicago sports fan, which Max says, “That’s okay. It is a different conference.” I bet that Max would similarly help someone in the future in that same position.

For my part, Rich is giving me driving lessons for stick shift car. I am having a number of instances when I stall out, the gears grate, the car shudders, or we slide back down the hills; Rich does not panic. Sometimes, he just pulls the parking parking brake. Even when the smell of burning rubber fills my nose, he does not get upset that I am wrecking the car. If he did panic, I would panic even more. If he did get upset, I would not want to drive the car. He just is helping me to see that is part of learning. If I put the brake and clutch on, then I can reset. Also, he never says that the task is a hard one. The area is incredibly hilly; cars drive fast; signage is confusing. He just says that one day I will be able to do it. Mostly in these initial first weeks, I am seeing that I should not let the lows feel too low and when there are highs realize that they are just fleeting, too. For example, my frustration is around how much we are spending on food; Rich says, “Just take it out of our peace-of-mind fund.” This is an imaginary fund that he has to make mistakes not feel as tragic and to cover things you just cannot worry about. This weekend we visited a local outdoor market with friends. Finally, I made my first deposit in that peace-of-mind fund finding lots of fresh vegetables, nuts, quinoa, salmon, and dried fruit at reasonable prices. As Paula Cole, singer of “Where Have all the Cowboys Gone” (also a former Brookwood parent) says, “The older I get, the more I see that there really aren’t huge zeniths of happiness or a huge abyss of darkness as much as there used to be. I tend to walk a middle ground.”Here’s to a year finding the middle path and celebrating heaps of firsts!

The older I get, the more I see that there really aren’t huge zeniths of happiness or a huge abyss of darkness as much as there used to be. I tend to walk a middle ground. Paula Cole