I wait all summer for this time of year, when the heat finally breaks. Towards the end of August there’s a little something in the air that’s different, a hint that someday it will be safe to wear sweaters again. It’s not actually any cooler, but the breeze seems to hold a promise for the future.
This week, it made good on that promise.
We’ve thrown the windows open, and pulled out the winter clothes for the kids. It’s still warm in the afternoons, of course, but the ten day forecast doesn’t show us reaching 90°. Fall weather arrived just in time for Fall.
Photo courtesy of Isaac Baker. (This is why we let the kids play with the camera.)
A break from the heat changes life around here. It’s suddenly reasonable to take walks with the kids after breakfast, and to continue working in the garden after the sun climbs up over the pine trees. The cool air makes me itch to tidy the house. (Goodness knows it needs it!) The kids spend even more of the day outside, riding bikes, chasing each other with sticks, and laying in the grass, reading.
Fall in Louisiana doesn’t mean changing leaves – it means kumquats
This weather always feels like a new beginning to me, as if now, at last, we can actually get something done. Maybe we can finally pull the weeds out from around the blueberry bushes, or clean up the back porch so it’s useable in this beautiful weather.
Of course, by the time I get through all the day-to-day duties, and school work, and a little time for writing, the blueberries tend to keep their weedy undergrowth. (We like to think of it as “living mulch.”) But part of the promise of Fall is time – months and months before the sweltering heat comes back in May. Of course I won’t finish my to-do list before then (I never do) but I’m ready to make a start.
Our oldest daughter left our homeschool this year and started “real” high school. She’s been treking from class to class for about a month now, and this week her great secret was exposed: she doesn’t have a cell phone.
It came up in her debate class, while the teacher was apparently trying to draw the students’ attention to the seeming contradiction between considering “large corporations” “evil” and carrying iphones in their pockets. After a little while of this, Lucy raised her hand and ratted herself out. She didn’t even blame her parents for this ridiculous circumstance. Apparently the teacher was at a bit of a loss – who was this strange child who had been sitting quietly in his classroom all these weeks without a phone?
Her teacher did ask her why she didn’t have a cell phone – every other child in the class does, and presumably nearly every other child in the school. She didn’t have a well-thought-out answer ready, but by the time she made it to the car line, she had some thoughts. Among them, that she doesn’t want to waste so much of her time on screens.
One thing we learned quickly when she started “real” school was that while we had prepared her reasonably well for the academic work, she was not up to speed on the technology the modern student is expected to use. She had sent emails, but never had to deal with her own email account. Now there are Google Classrooms to be navigated. Powerpoints are an option for projects. And then she had to do an animation of mitosis for biology. After trying out three of four different programs, and spending hours trying to get all the pieces together, the project was still late. (So were several of her classmates’ projects, so apparently technology was not the only difficulty with that particular assignment.) She’s picking it all up quickly, but she’s also spending way more time on screens than ever before. And as much as she’s enjoying the school experience, she doesn’t love the screens.
We have our own reasons for not offering our kids cell phones, of course. My husband and I both taught in one-to-one high schools (where the school gives every student a laptop and expects every teacher to use it in their classroom) and we saw what unfettered access does. At best, it’s a distraction. At worst, it is a gateway to sin and self-loathing. (See any of the recent news reports on Facebook, Instagram, and teen body image, or this article from the Atlantic for a start.) Being a teen is hard enough – who needs constant reminders of how beautiful and perfect other people are (or seem to be) for constant comparison?
We don’t need the science to tell us how addictive screens and particularly social media are – we see it every day. My suspicion is that the reason Lucy’s school allows cell phone use by students during lunch and breaks is that they simply can’t stop it. To keep a semblance of order on a campus crawling with 2,000 teenagers, you can’t go out looking for trouble. Think about what happens to an addict when the drug is removed; now imagine students with that itch in the back (or front) of their minds trying to focus on Algebra. Good luck.
It’s too bad, really, because one of the first experiences Lucy reported to us when she started school was how strange lunch was. Not because the cafeteria hadn’t quite worked out getting all the students through the lunch line before the lunch period was over. Not because they eat in their fifth-period class because of Covid contract tracing guidelines. It was strange because everyone else in her class, except the teacher, spent the whole of their lunch period staring at their phones.
This is a world we haven’t prepared our children for.
I don’t regret this choice, or intend to do anything differently. I’m stubbornly convinced that it’s better for our kids (not to mention myself) to interact with an admittedly limited number of people and objects in the real world than with a larger number through a screen. My hope is that our kids will learn to use the technology as tools, because we aren’t on a Luddite farming commune with next to no need to contact the outside world. To some extent our kids will have to live with the technology that now infuses our society. But that doesn’t mean the technology has to infuse every moment of their lives, as well.
It’s a difficult line to walk. I’m on social media (you may have gotten to this blog that way, in fact) because it does have the power to connect. If I had to write out and mimeograph a newsletter every week instead of blogging…I probably wouldn’t. I’ve done numerous Zoom meetings and classes, and learned a lot that I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to otherwise. On the other hand, the amount of will-power it takes not to tumble into the social media time vortex is sometimes more than I possess. And if I can’t do it, why should I expect my children’s teenage brains, which are biologically less able to think long-term and correctly gauge risk, to be able to make better decisions than I can?
Our kids won’t be getting phones any time soon, at least not smart phones. Will it make their social lives harder? Absolutely, at least in how “connected” they will be able to be to their friends. On the other hand, maybe it will be easier to be able to walk away from a bully and not see their messages on the last thing most teens see before they go to bed at night.
There is a selfish motive behind all this, too. We happen to really, really like our kids. We like to see their faces. We like to talk to them. We don’t want them to have the blue zombie glow going on all the time. And while I understand the importance of peers to the teenager’s emotional development, I also think there can be too much of a good thing.
Especially now that our oldest spends so much of the day away from the family, those hours in the evenings and weekends that we have together are precious, and I intend to guard them jealously. Not just because Lucy is still my child and it is still my responsibility (and joy!) to form her into an adult, but because I want her to have that down time that allows for meandering thoughts, reading for pleasure, practicing calligraphy or drawing or baking. I know that she values these things, and I want to do what I can to help her have the time for them. Keeping her technology use to a minimum goes a long way towards that goal.
It feels a little ridiculous to be writing this alone in my room, the blue light from my laptop shining on my face. I spend more hours than I’d like on screens myself. But my hope is that it can stay in its proper place: a tool, useful for some things, but not a good in itself.
I couldn’t think of an exciting topic to discuss this week, so I thought I’d put together a list of a few resources that I’ve been enjoying lately, some for homeschooling, some for personal growth. In no particular order, here they are.
If you’ve ever wanted to read Dante’s Divine Comedy felt too intimidated, this site is ready to help you take the leap. Videos and commentary for all three books, plus the full text. The 100 Days of Dante series just started September 8, so now’s a great time to start.
This is my favorite poetry podcast. I’ve fallen off of it lately, to be honest, but Pádraig Ó Tuama’s voice is unbelievably soothing, and his reflections are always insightful. It makes folding laundry a joy.
The Daily Poem is my friend’s favorite poem podcast, which comes out every day and thus can satisfy your desire for beautiful language when you’ve listened to all the past episodes of Poetry Unbound (or if one poem a day isn’t enough for you!)
Sarah Mackenzie does a great podcast on reading aloud with kids, and how to make it work in your home and/or homeschool. Her booklists are also fabulous. When I need to find something for one of my kids to read or for picture book ideas, I often turn here first.
And, speaking of books: last but not least, our dear public library. We hit the drive-thru at least once a week, and bring home stacks of books like the one above. (Also, if you haven’t read DANDY, right there in the middle of the photo, you should.) Our library’s millage (roughly 40% of its budget) is up for renewal in November. Rest assured, I’ll have more to say about that as the date gets closer.
That’s it! There are so many great resources out there these days to make life more interesting, I often find it overwhelming. But I hope one or two of these peaks your interest. Happy weekending!
I’ve read a good bit of Wendell Berry’s writing in the past, but most of my focus was on his essays. The Unsettling of America, which I think I could still find blindfolded in the Jones Creek Library in Baton Rouge, formed the way I think about culture and the land. On the other hand, I had read one of his novels a few years ago (I can’t remember now it if was Hannah Coulter or Nathan Coulter) and found it a little slow.
My tastes in fiction seem to have grown up a bit since then.
Lucy’s godparents gave her a copy of Fidelity, which includes five of Berry’s short stories. It interested me, of course, because his writing is always beautiful, but it was the fact that “Pray Without Ceasing” was chosen for our book club that got me to take it up and read.
And after reading one story, I had to read the other four. The the prose could probably be called “quiet,” and there are no explosions or car chases in these pages, yet I didn’t want to put the book down. Furthermore, I can honestly say that this is the first book in a long time that so severely tempted me to read it again. Immediately.
I’ll admit that there were a couple of spots where the dialogue felt a little preachy, but I’m willing to forgive that. “A Jonquil for Mary Penn” was heartwarming. I could absolutely relate to the title character’s struggles: “…she felt herself a part without counterpart, a mere fragment of something unknown, dark and broken off.” I think we’ve all had a day when we feel abandoned, and that nothing we do, even if it would usually bring us joy, is worth anything. It’s a loneliness that I fear is all too common.
“Fidelity,” the title story, is a page-turner wrapped around some of the most beautiful nature writing I’ve ever read. “Are You Alright?” cuts to the heart of our love and care for our neighbors, without omitting all the self-consciousness that complicates those relationships. And “Making It Home” explores all the little bits of life that we miss when we’re gone, or don’t realize we missed until we get back.
Throughout the stories, of course, Berry touches on the themes of so much of his writing: community, the land, and the intersection of the two. For all their faults (and it’s clear that Berry’s characters have their share of them) the people of Port William care for each other. Their relationships are beautifully complicated, and exceedingly rich. Only Jack Beecham could calm Mat’s rage, because only Jack Beecham had been there with him since he was a boy and knew him well enough to react to him by instinct.
Fidelity doesn’t just take its name from the longest story it contains; fidelity is the theme of the whole. These stories overflow with scenes of how we could care for each other, and perhaps how we ought to care for each other. In the story “Fidelity,” the people who knew Burley Coulter best circle their wagons, so to speak, to care for him. Their brand of care doesn’t make much sense to those outside of Port William, those who hadn’t spent decades knowing and loving “Uncle Burley.” And that, I believe, is precisely the point.
Most likely I’ve said nothing here that someone else hasn’t noted earlier and more eloquently. But that doesn’t make it any less timely. Berry writes about a lost world – and how much more the world has changed since Fidelity was published in 1992 – a world where people survive by working the land side by side and checking in on each other, the same neighbors, the same second cousins, for their entire lives. It has an air of utopia to me, in a generation whose main objective often seems to be to forget its roots. Berry describes the kind of care and relationship we now try to create with prayer groups and book clubs, intentional communities and even social media. We know deep down that something is missing, and try to create it from scratch. Berry’s characters are steeped in it, and if they feel they’ve faltered in their obligations it keeps them awake at night. I don’t remember ever losing sleep because I hadn’t signed up on someone’s meal train yet.
Cajuns are famous (at least in Cajun country, which is the only country I can speak for these days) for the way they band together in times of crisis. We’ve seen it first hand, of course, in the months after Jacob was born – our community literally carried us through those days – and it will be much needed in South Louisiana in the coming months. But I think what Berry has put his finger on is something different, not a willingness to rise to the big challenge, but a daily awareness of the hearts of those around you. A sort of attention that notices both the habits of the spiders and the worry in a neighbor’s face.
“But [Jack] put his eye on Mat, not willing yet to trust him entirely to himself, and waited.” So much of these stories is about watching and waiting. Maybe more than anything, Fidelity encourages us to look, to “put an eye on” what is happening around us, both in woods and in people’s hearts, so that when the opportunity to care for each other arises, we don’t miss it.
