Being Brave

I'm pregnant again, climbing up week 16 of my third pregnancy, and feeling confident that this one will make it. We've had ultrasounds, appointments, careful diagnosis of this healthy pregnancy, and that's a great relief, if not resolve for all the anxiety and uncertainty that is just the truth with being pregnant, and the added truth of pregnancy after miscarriage.

My son turned four about a month ago, and we told him about the pregnancy after the 13 week ultrasound that confirmed the health and well being of this baby. He was ecstatic and convinced that the baby growing inside of me is a girl. He alternately pretends he is inside of me or is the newborn baby, and talks frequently about wanting to hug and kiss the baby, and perhaps have the baby sleep in his room. He often hugs my belly. I know this will get more complex as the baby is more visible, and finally born in February.

This news has made it possible for Forrest to ask all kinds of questions. First he asks if daddies can have babies. Then, where is the baby inside of you? And what makes someone a mommy or a daddy?

As a bisexual queer cisgendered (mostly) woman who loves and cares about the liberation of my trans and queer friends and chosen family, I have started to imagine what it looks like to answer these questions in a way that includes all of us, that doesn't problematize the reality of biology that does not determine who we are. And I have begun to answer these questions in that direction.

Can daddies have babies?
Most daddies cannot have babies, but some daddies can. Most mommies can have babies, but some mommies cannot.

Where is the baby inside of you? Where does it come out?
The baby is in my uterus. I will give birth to the baby through my vagina. In order to give birth to a baby, you have to have a uterus and vagina. You and daddy don't have a uterus. Some daddies have uteruses. Some mommies do not have uteruses.

What makes a mommy or a daddy?
Being a mommy or a daddy is about loving a child, and choosing to be a parent. Anyone can be a mommy or a daddy, or a nana, or papi, or parent.

I have started to talk to Forrest about the difference between body parts and gender. I have started to be really explicit about the words for body parts and talk about how this is only one part of who we are.

I see Forrest take this in, and he doesn't look upset or confused. He changes the subject rapidly, as with all conversations we have, and circles around to it throughout our days together. Sometimes he declares-- Most men have penises, but not all men. Or he suddenly shares that he wants to wear a skirt like mommy. Or he gets confused about the gender of his classmate, and I suggest he ask his classmate what they identify as.

Am I making things too complex for Forrest? Will this damage him later? I imagine some folks might think so. But when I am with my son in nature, talking about the complexity of plant growth, or when I am trying to explain to him the complex and vast family we have chosen and been given through life and lineage, he doesn't blink. He just keeps on asking questions, and I keep on trying my best to answer. Mostly I just try to tell him that whoever we are is okay, and that we don't need to worry about other folks, or even ourselves, so much. That it's all good and all right. We get to be who we are.

Recently, I was walking in the woods with a family member. I was sharing my desire to make the categories of gender light for my son, and the process of possibility I want to hold for him. I told her that he says he wants to be a ballerina. I told her about his gentle nature, his heart filled desire for beauty and appreciation for it everywhere. I told her he asks to wear skirts sometimes, that I need to get on that and find him some skirts to wear.

She smiled and let me know that all of that would be gone once he started school and was exposed to other kids. Then he would get the message from his peers, and stop talking about those things. And I let her know that what she was describing made me want to homeschool my son.

I've heard a lot of talk about giving young people the education they need-- the resilience to handle harshness and criticism, the ability to function in highly competitive environments and difficult situations. If I hold this beside the desire to help my son explore who he is in a playful and possible way, I see a recapitulation of conformity and a continuation of the marginalization that I experience, that my loved ones experience. I refuse that in my life. I refuse to collude with my own erasure, and the erasure of those I love, in the name of resilience and mainstreaming.

And this includes my son, whoever he is, and whoever he will become. Maybe he will be a ballerina. Or maybe he will be a corporate lawyer (gasp). He did tell me yesterday he did not want to be an author, and he did want to be a big cat rescuer. I suggested he study zoology.

Open Way Farm: The Plan

From the wilds of a north-central Vermont winter, we are dreaming of peas. Dreaming of chickens, high tunnels, functional barns and farm stands. Dreaming of bright air and seasons long growth. We are dreaming, and we are planning.

I just completed round one of a business plan, projecting out three years for the farm, and projecting further in visioning the long terms potential for this land and community. Lucky for me, I have nine folks out there in the world who are looking at it and critiquing it in the next few weeks. I did ask them, but they could have said no, so I am lucky, and grateful.

What's in this plan? The biggest aspect of the plan is to begin the financial engine of our homestead and small market farm, and to ground that engine in this good earth and space. These first years will be full of log jams, confusions, failures, and unexpected turns in the road. And each turn will be towards a long term sustainability, or at least that's the plan.

But I know that plans are meant to be thwarted and thrown in the trash heap, along with all the will and certainty of vision, in the face of the following that is required of me. I have decided very specifically that I am following God(ess) and the impulses and leadings within me, if meeting my joy and the world's need, are part of that plan.

This is a hard won belief and decision. To listen to my self, my self in relief, in reflection, in impulse and push, is not an easy thing, and not something I have always, or mostly trusted. But I'm here, working it out. I refuse to mock my desire, the movement within myself. I refuse to be suspicious of myself any longer.

This does not mean I do not plan, however! In some early board work, I remember being introduced to the article The Tyranny of Structurelessness. This article drove home what I had been experiencing in many small community based groups of which I was a part. The resistance to structure within groups leads to impotence and solipsism. It also leads to a lack of accountability and a sense of disconnection to a greater context or work. It also means you don't get anything done.

So I attempt to put a structure on what can feel like a structureless call to the wilds of the broken world, my heart reaching out to express a desire for connection with the earth, with broken and hard working movement builders, with sustainability and self-sufficiency as teacher and muse. I put numbers on start up costs, though they feel like a lot of conjecture. I made a list of goals and plans. I wrote a 25 year visioning statement.

I was surprised at just how specific I could get. Residencies for burnt out activists. Community gatherings and events around the cycles of farm and season. Connections with urban organizations needing space to send leaders and workers for respite. Niche markets or CSA membership, or value added products, or, or…..

There's a lot of possibility when we vision. It's powerful, and potentially paralyzing. And it needs to be tested, I need to test my vision, against the good minds of folks I respect and care for. I also need to take my vision to the feet of the woodlands, to the feet of God(ess), to the space where I am both powerful and vulnerable, and where I must listen.

I am sometimes good at this, and sometimes too caught up in my own self-importance to stop and do this important work. The good news, I find in this inconsistency, is that no matter what I do lessons and shifting happens. I cannot control what will happen, despite any expertise or best efforts. In fact, trying to do that leads to a lot of pain. And so I act, I plan, I build, and I know it is just as much an inchoate cry as the unformed vision welling up in me. And yet, it suffices, and things progress.

So again I find myself holding possibility and uncertainty, but this time looking at cash-flow numbers and risk analysis. Is it any different from holding these two headed hydra without the numbers? No, in fact, it is not. I am glad for the numbers, as an anchor to what will be happening in the next weeks and months. I am also glad for the years of work to get here, and the listening I make space for, or that is forced upon me, by the closeness I seek with the world, with the land, and with God(ess).

Bring it on, world. I am ready.

Forrest and the Magical Moving Potty

I couldn't write yesterday because time just ran out, as I was dealing with all that this rural life brings. I spent a lot of time on the phone yesterday, and when I was finished, it was way too late to grease these creative wheels and write. So I let Fun-a-Day down, but I have not given up! Blog #27, Day #30 of Fun-a-Day, commence!
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My son is potty trained, toilet trained, whatever you want to call it. He is "late" to it, at 3 1/2 years, although late is as late does, and to Forrest, he was right on time, so maybe that designation of late is meaningless. It has taken, and still takes, incentive of fruit leather or yogurt pretzel-- yes we have successfully limited the sweets in the house, though he does get his fair share of maple syrup and blueberry jam. That incentive, coupled with high fives and poopy/pee dances, often with our son naked and shivering in the morning cold, has sealed the deal. He is even using the potty at his new childcare space, that awesome one I wrote about before. Yes, it continues to be awesome.

Why is this of any interest at all to anyone at all? It might not be, but I want to write about a new phenomenon in our household-- the magical moving potty.

It started with -15 degree mornings. I suggested we move the potty into the living room so the drastically under-heated bathroom wouldn't be a disincentive. He was glad to oblige to this. And then it took on a life of its own.

I'm sitting in my bedroom, and poof the potty and Forrest appear. Stay with me, mama, he insists. I'm in the kitchen cooking, and wham-o, there's the potty, and Forrest, and he's pulling his pants down. I want to go upstairs to the bathroom and Forrest demands I bring the potty up so we can go together. Forrest can carry it around on any floor it might be on, and it seems we move it almost daily up and down.  It's quite a potty-rich environment we are in these days.

At the same time Forrest has discovered the Magic School Bus books. We don't have a television, but he discovered that there was more than one of these fun books, and he was hooked. They are a vehicle for teaching science, through the plot hinge of the magical bus that changes the size or shape of its passengers, and travels in time, and can change children from solid matter to light energy, et cetera et cetera, all under the watchful eye of Ms. Frizzle, a curly haired red-headed seamstress teacher who makes dresses that match the book's theme. It's really pretty exciting and I get reminded of science I used to know, or have integrated incorrectly into my daily knowledge.  Forrest is eating them up. Today we took out four of these books from the library.

So-- the magical moving potty is born. He is developing a comfort and love for his potty, where he does not read, but rather sits and tells himself magic stories. He is learning the subtle awareness of his body, and wants to share it with us.

I also know that Forrest is moving into the time of his life where closeness is marked and clear. At least I think he is. He is affectionate and connected with us. And he is not a little afraid, sometimes, of the dark spots, the funny noises, the open doors leading into places where no one is. It doesn't feel abnormal, but it does feel like the magical thinking of his growing mind is winning the day these days.

That's all right with me. When we live in magic-land, so much more is possible and interesting. But I see a lot more clearly now, thinking of his magical school bus, magical
potty, magical fear and grand imagination that proliferates almost every moment of his life-- I see our responsibility, as adults, to lead him through this magical and confusing land of newness. Because really there are no limits of imagination, and if he's left on his own with it, there are many places he could go that I don't want for him. Not yet. Not until he has the experience to connect with that dreaming.

I see Forrest's consciousness like an opening flower, in a rare season of winter, streaming life and learning and desire to be seen and loved for himself, in all his permutations. His room gets this lovely morning sun, and we've put two plants in his room. I want to nurture him just as we placed these plants, and care for them through the winter. And he'll surpass all my knowing, all my growth and imagining. He will imagine himself into his life, and I will be there, to witness and love him through it all.