things that flap.

i want to write something coherent yet cannot escape the feeling that i have so many things swirling around my brain like cilia in an amoeba. hmmm. why do i remember cilia? and amoebas for that matter?

when in reality it embarrasses me that i have retained SO little of the things i learned in school. elementary. middle. high. even college. my mind resembles a strainer. i guess there are some huge (OBVIOUS) chunks of material that accidentally remained lodged in there, but the rest is plain irretrievable. sad, really. especially, considering all the labels that were affixed to me throughout my youth. "talented and gifted". "advanced". "smart". nope. not really. they were stamps i used to feed an ego that i am spending most of my adulthood trying to escape. no mind. no self. no i.

point is, i was just indoctrinated with stupid crap.

and now, i fear i am doing the same things with my kids. but i allow myself to pretend i am powerless to change it. too poor for a "cool school". too lazy to "unschool". so what do i do? i swallow a huge spoonful of denial every day when my son opens his folder from school and i see stupid crap spilling out. mocking me and my delusions. THEN, i talk OVER all of it. i tell him columbus day is a scam. i tell him that grades are not important even though he is only in first grade and not eligible for a real grading system yet anyway.

but then i go and i confuse myself again. i buck up and join PAC under the guise of introducing a "recycling" program into the school (there is pathetically LITTLE green practices taking place). Of course, then the PAC meeting rolls around...i prepare my "update" (in fact proud of my work on the project) but then realize that much of the meeting will be spent discussing MCAS (standarized) test scores of the school, and i BAIL on the meeting.

I don't want to look a MAJOR foe like that in the face tonight. The one real thing that could force me to pull my kids permanently from public school. and i just want to live in lalaland a little bit longer and pretend these major things aren't really a problem. When in two years, I have to decide: do I take on the school system? Not allow him to take them? Give in (because I know my son will fly through it?)...UGH.

Instead I will push "pause" on that issue. For now. While the cilia flap around alive. and well.