tangible

sitting at my kitchen table yesterday, a woman and i conversed about the difficulty of finding tangible community. we are both very active on the internet. we are both active in our homeschool group. we are both members of the same organization. but we feel estranged from one another. we do not feel a part of each other's community. and yesterday, i wished we did.

i confessed,

i do not know how to make community happen.

neither do i,

she said.

we spoke of our attempts and what could be done about it, but mostly, we came up with no solutions. but it was nice, for a moment, to have another living, breathing soul that i could see and touch sitting across from me, entering in, as it were, to my life.

homeschooling is a strange throwback to old times.

my sister likens the co-op movement many homeschoolers involve themselves in to the "new" homeschooling.

i, like my sister, do it the old way. we stay home, alone with our children and study.

my daughter is the member of one organization and goes to church wednesday and sunday. but that is the extent of our social calendar.

i noticed while we were swimming (we do that, too), how the homeschool children orbit around their parents (many of them, not all). we are little planets and entities unto ourselves, so that many times, even when we are together, we are alone.

my dear friend who visited yesterday is fulfilling her many roles as wife, mother, daughter, with great strength and integrity. i told her so. she said,

i don't hear that often.

i understood. nor do i. but it doesn't change the fact that it is true.

i don't know why i'm telling you all of this. i guess i am gearing myself up to talk with a friend whom i am spending the day with. i guess i am trying to drop my elusive thang and be present to the people i'm around.

internet folk demand so much less of me, and i can get to them when i remember them. but my daughter needs tangible children. so i must go out today and let her play.