We found a village

Last week while we continued to wait to hear which school Miss Gremlin got into, she started to process what’s happening, her life is about to change and she’s beginning the grieving process of everything she’s ever known to change completely. She’s been going to that school since she was 2. She was there every day we dropped Grand Master D off and every day we picked him up. All weather, walking to and from the neighborhood school, because this is where we live. The school is 5 blocks from home and beside the park, as the kids have grown they have played in this park.  So there’s a boundary. Her circle is expanding, her life is changing, she’s having new experiences and growing up.

Middle school, 11, bigger, more kids, further from home.

She’s thinking about what’s next, the excitement of change and growing up, she grew taller than me this week too, that’s it now, I’m officially the shortest family member.

When you let go and look forward, it’s sometimes easier to paint the past in a bad light so as to want to leave it. Grief is a funny thing, change can be hard and you do grieve for what you know.

But is that it?

She remembers more fun, more trips, more engaging things. She commented about this year’s fundraising event. Instead of a community carnival there’s a multicultural fair, she’s like “what is that? We’re graduating this year we want fun. I want a carnival, that sucks, and we haven’t been on any trips this year and its nearly over.”

So it’s different this year.

The tests are done and there’s two months left of school, two months, so now what, they pretty much waste that time because it doesn’t matter? The tests are done, that’s all they have to do, teach the kids to pass the tests, for money, more passers more money, just get ’em tested.

But teachers want to teach, they want to inspire, they obviously love the way it feels to give other humans knowledge, but knowledge is experience, it’s life, it’s expression, its investigation, it’s discussion,

it’s not fucking geometry,

what do you even need that for?

Except when you do, so learn it then,  but for now, learn about life and how to successfully function in the world, we need people who can build communities, communities who look out for each other, who have local services that aid the local area, increasing the life quality and unity to live happily.

We need neighborhoods for our children to play in and know they are safe, where they go to the schools around them, where their friends are close by.

We may live in one of the biggest cities in the world but we are still managing to use the local services, the neighborhood businesses and as luck would have it some of the best schools in the city are close by. Although Miss Gremlin is moving on, she’s not moving far and she will always be able to walk past on her way to her new school and perhaps the university beyond and see everything that is familiar and remember where she started.

It feels good to have a village.

the village

The view of our ‘village’ from the ‘backyard’

Comments 1

  1. Well said. It is saying goodbye to familiar things without anger that is a challenge. Grief is a funny thing.

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