Gianna has two roles in the April performance of Cappellia in San Luis Obispo. She is loving ballet - gets very excited when it’s time to go to class - and she’s improving quickly just from the classes. (I’d love to give her and her friend, Mac, supplemental classes in our yoga studio, but we haven’t taken that opportunity yet.)
In my world of unschooling and Sudbury model education, it’s so uncool to appear to be pushing a child into something. Whatever. Gianna loves ballet and I drive her there and I’m happy about it. If it’s uncool to be happy about something a child is doing (to show a preference or express gratitude), then so be it.
I’m going to start tutoring her friend, Mac, in math. His mom was telling Mac this and Gianna said, “oh, oh, can I do that with you?” So we’re going to do math!
National Public Radio has a great feature on barefoot running. I look for this topic, and it seems like everyone is buzzing about it.
I ran a personal record on Monday - 4.3 miles in 55 minutes. Considering most people walk about 3 miles per hour, my 4+ mile per hour pace is the runner’s equivalent of molasses. And I took a rest day Tuesday and today I was supposed to run but my eCornell class and family life got in the way of that plan.
So tomorrow morning I’ll do a long run - 5 miles. So far my philosophy about running is like my philosophy about unfortunate conversations - I always have another chance the next day to clean things up.
I’m running in my Vibrams mostly - it’s so freakin’ cold it feels too uncomfortable to go barefoot.
A woman in Arroyo Grande who teaches swimming has agreed to let me use her pool for training.
Today I took this photo of Gianna with my cell phone, looked at it in its little version and - much to my amazement - saw MYSELF for the first time in her.
It’s blurry and you can’t really see her face, but there I am - that 7-year-old strawberry blonde running around barefoot on Mountain Drive with braids in my hair over 30 years ago. I’ve always seen Gianna as a distinct person, somehow born from me and Stefan but completely of another set of parents altogether. And now, suddenly, randomly, I see myself.
I just remembered that today, as I was leaving the house, I glanced at Stefan and saw Gianna in his face. There’s something very validating about this. She is *ours* in spite of everything she’s told me since she was 2 when she decided to start dressing herself. Her personality tells me very distinctly, “I AM MY OWN PERSON!”
But she’s me and she’s Stefan - at least a bit of us hidden in there.
So now I ask: Where are Stefan and me (our appearance) in Colin? I guess I get to find out.
Learning how to make soap
