Snowshoeing after the storm, the only tracks I see are from ravens; solitary circlings around brown grasses poking through the wind-blown slab. It is as if the wind took all the other birds in the world.
I follow the tracks into thoughts of summer gardens. Planting only one type of crop on a plot, year after year, without pause, is unhealthy for the land, its workers, and consumers. Yet, we still plant only corn, or only wheat, over and over on such a large scale that we have destined our productive lands to permanent disability.
We do it as parents, too, limiting what we plant in our kids. Mind you, we are not overly conscious of this. It is, in part, the way we live. One way or the other, we all find ourselves foregoing time with our spouses, friends, and self, to care for our children. And then one day, we wake up and realize we’ve been exhausted for a few years. Hmmmm. How could that be? We have planted only wheat in our fields. And the ravens are flocking.
What if this world only harbored ravens and wheat? What if we never gave ourselves license to be out of parent-mind, claim some of life for ourselves, and let our kids claim theirs?
In Nancy Fazekas’ book, “Mind Expanse Baby” (2006), she writes how every experience of  babies and toddlers is equivalent to cracking a windshield. Every event creates a spider web of neuron connections, creating an ever-growing map that an individual will reference for the rest of her life. Based on how we parent, and on the opportunities we present to our little people, that map may consist of a few lines, or it may look like the information highway.
Our daughter is with me quite a lot. She is in a shared homeschool classroom three days a week, and often at home with me when we are not at school. Pondering these three-toed raven prints, I suddenly understand why some homeschoolers are in the car so often. While I have sworn that I would not spend five days a week delivering my child to classes in two counties, I see the importance of creating diversity for our kids, no matter how they are schooled.
Parents need diversity, too, to have a healthy inner landscape. I had lunch with a friend twice in the last two weeks. Without my daughter. I think it’s been five years since I last did that. A solo snowshoe, a ski date with my husband, are things that I have been indulging in recently. But they are not the chocolate of life. This adult time is the corn and beans and squash and blue grosbeaks. Until recently, I’ve been eating bread and watching ravens.
I don’t know how long I’ll homeschool our daughter. I do know that I will teach her all of the birds I know, and that I can’t wait for her to show me the ones I’ve never seen. Meanwhile, I’ll sow diversity.