In my defense – I had to focus on a really bad idea. I highly reccommend you do the same, especially if you suffer from delusions of grandeur or periodic bouts of perfectionism.
After watching my daughter’s disappointing first grade experience, I did what any concerned parent would do, I decided to start an independent school. Though I didn’t break any ground, I did research innovative education, visit schools and speak with a number of people. My question was simple. How do you create a school that educates each child without undermining their individual selves, interests, abilities and passions? You don’t, I learned, because diversity isn’t what school is about. Ask any fish. This realization, along with the parents (in my head) complaining that their child’s needs weren’t being met, caused my one person exploratory committee to cease and desist.
Next, I decided I’d start a homeschool cooperative. Here too, there was much to learn. First, to cooperatively educate with other homeschool families, you actually have to know some. I knew approximately…zero. If familiar with even a few, I would have realized that people who choose to homeschool, aren’t particularly cooperative.
So, instead of trying to get uncooperative people who don’t do school to form a cooperative school, I turned my studio into an educational space for homeschool children interested in arts and practical arts and for adults interested in personal and professional development. My intent was to create a learning environment where my daughter could be with other children and I could be professionally engaged.
My studio became the NuLu Homeroom. I spent hours and days mind-mapping, planning, preparing and marketing. A couple of local papers published nice stories. The Idea Festival requested a classes for their IF University. Things were taking shape. I knew filling the classes would take time. That was okay. Actually, it was more than okay, because living and writing about things like happiness, simplicity, creativity and learning were not the same as talking about them over and over again, especially for this introvert who was ready to move on.
It wasn’t long, before I realized that through my love of creating, designing and writing, I’d concieved a job for myself that left me little time to create, design or write.
And so, I bid farewell to the IKEA stools that I’d once assembled, disassembled, assembled, disassembled and then after reading the directions, assembled correctly. I took my art off the white sunlit walls that I so loved and said goodbye through tears to a beautiful space – my art studio, turned writer’s studio, turned classroom.
This recent bad idea felt different from all of the other twists and turns my life has taken and all the goodbyes to places, hopes, dreams and people.
Me: “I think I’m finally done…I don’t think I can move again.”
Marty (my husband who had just spent four days at the Idea Festival where bad ideas and failure are held in the highest regard): “You had to do this so you can get to where you should be. ”
So, while I can’t say my search is over – I hope it never is – for now, I’m spending my days thinking, writing and learning with my daughter.