It’s the end of July. I am in a small coffee shop in a town called Redlands. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s probably because it has melded into Los Angeles, absorbed like a million other small farming towns. There was a time where it was all orange trees, but I wasn’t here for that. My Grandmother was, and sometimes I think about sidewalks stepped on when she was in her 20s. She is gone now, and so are the orange groves. But I am here, surrounded by posters for a brand of orange juice that doesn’t exist anymore. Nostalgia in juice form.
I am planning for another year of homeschool with my four boys. I think it’s getting harder. I love the research aspect, I love finding amazing books to read and digging into footnotes on the AmblesideOnline website. I love the endorphins that come with a checked box and an enrolled class. What I do not love is the limits.
I only have so many minutes, so many dollars. I have begun to shuffle online classes and music classes and sports and activities between four boys, stacking things like Jenga, sorting puzzle pieces. Sometimes I take my eyes off the planner and look around. What I see keeps me awake at night.
Although I am currently staying in the ghost of a farming town, I live in a farming town ordinarily. Instead of spreading its arms to reach L.A., it reaches out to almond trees and grape vines. The town I live in tries to make juice a symbol too, instead of a reality. I say this because due to the nature of being a city in the middle of the country, we have boundaries and limits. If you drive too far you run out of stores and schools and end up with walnuts.
Here, in Redlands, you can drive for miles and still find coffee shops and Universities, skyscrapers and more of Los Angeles. It’s hard to find orchards now. There’s something about having miles of options that erases your identity.
As I plan this upcoming year, I want the best for my kids. I want the best music, the best books, the best everything. My options don’t go on for miles. My TBR stack does. My life is finite, and so is yours, and so is my children’s. I could expand, reaching farther and farther away. I could accept my boundaries and tend to the garden in front of me. I could make real juice instead of shipping it in from Florida.
There’s something sweet about limits after all. The boundaries of a city, of a resource, of a river? They carry us down to our destination, they frame the story, they give us an identity. My fall Tuesdays are full now, and I try to leave margins for the fruit trees.
The space of my children’s education that is full of books and papers is glorious. The quiet fields, the river banks, the black lines, the lack of resources? Just as important to get us where we should be going. A limitation is really just a boundary. Pleasant places and a delightful inheritance, indeed.
Thank you so much! I am still figuring this out, but I am not loving Instagram lately, and welcome the slower pace. I hope you have a wonderful Year 1!
I’m delighted to find you’re on substack. I’m planning to move over here soon too, though I’m not sure what that will look like yet. I’m excited to dive into AO year one soon!