Reconciliation in the Forest Court

Theatre Sports at the Forest Village Theatre

This week at the Wild Art program we've been creating a village in the forest. As with all activities at Wild Art, there is only one rule: Be mindful of your activities' impact. In other words, do whatever you want as long as you're not hurting anyone or anything. All of the 10 kids involved came this week with the intention of creating a forest village, so there was an intense enthusiasm right from the beginning. Over the course of the week, the very entrepreneurial 9-12-year-olds sustainably harvested food and resources, and created and sold, gifted or traded each other all manner of useful and decorative items and services. Items varied from creek-harvested clay sculptures to fern-woven clothing and jewelry, to furniture, natural art supplies and instruments, wild food and temporary pets. Services included pet-sitting, massage, wilderness tours, face-painting, dramatic productions, workshops, library and museum, front desk managing, and an art studio. There was also a jail, when a very inspiring "oubliette" was found in an old nurse-stump, but when the cops failed to incite crime, they also failed to find anybody to arrest, and soon the jail became a climbing-in-and-out challenge, instead. And then a compost.

Terms of trade were often determined at the point of sale, and when currency was used, it was usually rocks (rare and valuable), Y-shaped sticks (moderately easy to find), or fern leaves (plentiful). Few ideas were mine. The children brought what they know of the world and created their own in sharing that knowledge. It is always beautiful to see how easily a sustainable empathetic world develops when children are left to be creative in the wilderness.

Musical Instrument shop with customers

As an adult, I am present mostly to participate, as a fully engaged member of the group, doing whatever I love to do (because of this). I am also permanently the doctor-on-call. But of course I am also present, as all participants are, to offer my advice and compassion when issues arise.

This week, when a fairly major emotional issue arose, all of my advice and compassion for the individual parties could not bring them closer together. The girl I will call the first girl made a gorgeous fern-and-moss mat, and sold it to the second girl for three extremely difficult-to-find mushrooms. The next day, the first girl wanted the mat back, but the second girl said it was an essential part of her spa, and she couldn't return it. The first girl begged. Well, did she have the mushrooms to trade back? No. They were gone. The second girl suggested the first teach her how to make a mat so they could both have one. The first refused. It was her special technology. The second girl left to harvest licorice root and the first girl sat distraught behind a tree. They were both pretty much entrenched.

So I opened a court of reconciliation. There was no judge - only me to mediate, and I called a reconciliation meeting. Upon hearing my serious summons, the two girls arrived and sat facing each other in the newly named "Library Court House". The rest of the group gathered behind the court house, and sat with rapt attention. I did nothing but ask the girls to share their feelings with each other. Within 5 minutes they had both expressed themselves, tears were shed, and then they sat in tense silence, thinking. It was difficult for me not to jump in with suggestions, but I bit my tongue and waited.

Then the second girl breathed deeply and stretched her shoulders. "O.K. How about this: You can have your mat back at the end of today. For free. Just take it."

The first girl raised her head in moderate shock. She sat silent for a moment.

The second repeated, "I said you can have it. Is that O.K. then?"

The first looked the second in the eyes, softened her own, and weakly said "thank you". Then she raised her arm above her head and declared to the group at large, "I'm running a mat-making workshop in five minutes! So if you want to take it you should collect ferns now! The workshop is free!" And the onlookers dispersed. The two girls hugged, and a wonderful workshop ensued. Everyone left richer.

The mat-making workshop!

I left richer. I have been thinking about this beautiful event for days, now, especially how it relates to our "real world" issues. When I called these kids together for the reconciliation meeting I said "You know... this forest village is similar to the real world..." and one of the other kids shouted "It IS the real world!"

In our children is the hope for our future. We need to retrieve and retain the things we knew as children.

Unschooling Ourselves: Enjoying the Journey

It all begins with and returns to the family.
It's no news that maternal blood and tissue carries the DNA of the mother's child for up to decades after the child's birth. Pregnancy is just the beginning of the long relationship we have with our children; a relationship that is give-and-take-and-give. We grow so much from our gained understanding of love and humanity, when we have children, and as we parent them. All of us are on a journey of growth, trying to find better ways of parenting our children and our spouses and ourselves.

When we love, we teach our children to love.
When we trust, we teach our children to trust.
When we love ourselves, we teach our children to love themselves. 
When we unschool ourselves, we unschool our children.

So why unschool ourselves?
Because many of us were raised in a school system, where we learned to follow the pack, to attempt at all costs to fit in, to make the grade, and to measure up to what was expected of us by others, without questioning, in our early years, what we expected of ourselves. Now, as parents, we are the people being looked to for help, but we've become very good at passing the buck. Or we've become very timid at taking responsibility. It's much too easy to go ask somebody else, or, increasingly, look for answers on the Internet, without reminding ourselves that every single opinion we are given is just that: an opinion. It may be an extremely educated opinion, but in this globalized society, it is one of many different educated opinions, and we're often unequipped to navigate these varying opinions, without also educating ourselves about the issue (and the people) involved. So this navigation is our empowerment; it's part of unschooling ourselves.

I'm not saying we shouldn't trust. Of course a certain amount of trust is necessary to live in peace. But putting too much trust in the opinions of one person or entity just leads to blindness. Unschooling is about learning to navigate a massive web of information and truths - life - many conflicting truths - and learning to follow gut instinct on this journey. Unschooling is about the journey. It's about all the beauty that unfolds from the pathways we find ourselves on; not the places they lead us to. It's about the surprises. After all, each new place is just the beginning of another adventure.

Big Adventures: YES
When I was 17, within a single week's time I graduated from highschool, traumatically broke up with my first serious boyfriend, and moved with my family out of my lifelong home and community and into a big farmhouse in a completely new-to-me part of our province. To say I was in shock would be putting it mildly, and I remember feeling unbelievably alone and terrified. So I asked my parents to send me to Holland. And I happened to ask them in front of my pseudo-uncle, Jon. Jon triumphantly exclaimed "Yes!" And I knew my parents' doubts and fears would be moot.

I went to Holland. I hung around with my beloved family, there, argued with my grandmother about how often was reasonable to wash my hair, got lost in Amsterdam with my cousin, and learned to ride on the back of a bike. I also took my portfolio to the Royal Academy of art, got accepted on the spot into second year, learned to get around a foreign city alone, watched my cousin perform the lead in an opera, and fell in love, to boot. These things were so distracting that I didn't realize until later that it was during this time I cemented my truly wonderful relationship with my grandmother. And none of these things were what I expected. I never saw any tulips. I didn't learn to speak Dutch (despite my young cousins' desperate attempts). But my life changed.

The next year I returned to Holland again (for that second year art academy entrance). I thought I would return three years later with an art degree and a fiance. Instead I returned two years later -- kicked out of art school, feeling like a failure, broken-hearted beyond belief... and with a rather unexpected fiance -- who is now my husband. Nothing was as I had planned. My parents were disappointed, to say the least. And that particular adventure was an unbelievable success!

Telling children facts or giving advice is like showing them a picture of a destination, with a nice little description beside it. That advice is not going to be what they remember, and it may not even be valuable to them. They have to make their own journeys, and while they're young, we have the privilege of tagging along for the ride.

So we learn to navigate. We learn to enjoy the journey. And we learn that we cannot teach our children by giving them advice. We can only take them on big adventures.

Oh... and didn't I say...

Our best predictions have nothing to do with the journey.

It all begins with and returns to the family.
Well here I am. My family has moved back to the property we left when I was 17. First I came with my husband and had children here. Then my parents returned, and my brother with his wife. Nothing is quite the way we expected it to be. But here we all are, three generations of humans living out our various divergent and convergent journeys, and glad to have each other to share them with.

Changing the World

cormorant and gull with freighters

Some days I look out around me at the forest, my community, the sky, the creeks and the ocean... and I see something so beautiful - so needed in and integral to my life - that it brings me to tears. Happy tears. Sad tears. Tears of honest terror and helplessness. I look out and I see that we are using it up. Just using it all up and it's not ever coming back, and this - THIS is the world that's keeping us alive.

And I'm scared.

There's no point in seeing all the changes that need to be made without doing anything to make them, but I can't change the world alone. Changing the world - saving the world - happens in all of us. I am moved to my core to see my neighbour and my friend sing his heart into our community, making it OK for us all to be real. Changing the world happens when my sister makes it her personal mission to disseminate discarded goods from the recycling depot so they can be reused, first. It happens when my son overcomes an enormous fear of confrontation to yell at a man he sees hitting a snake: Stop! Please stop! It happens when a friend gives up plastic and empowers me to do the same. It happens in all of us every day.

Wild Art kids releasing some tadpoles and changing water for those we're still raising.

Today was the last regular day of this year's 9-14 year-old Wild Art Group. These kids just rocked my world, this year. The premise of Wild Art is that we hang out for 4 hours and they basically do whatever they want, with encouragement, guidance, and mediation from me. Today we were looking at our tank full of tadpoles (a project not at all taken on lightly, and accompanied by a huge amount of moral discussion) and we talked about monoculture vs. permaculture, as it pertained to our little aquarium and the pains we take to replicate the pond the tadpoles came from and to which they'll be returned. This year these kids have created spontaneous forest villages complete with financial and labour systems, wild food stores and ethical consultation. And now they're putting the finishing touches on a play. The entire year, the artwork, the discussions, the explorations - all came from the hearts of these kids. I'm just the facilitator. But that is the work I love, and I hope that in holding this space for some wonderful people I can help amplify the waves they are making.

Wild Art play planning.

Changing the world isn't done alone. It's in the connections we make and the passion that connects us. When I share my feelings - the negative ones, the idealistic ones, the dramatic ones and the fearful ones - I'm just trying to change the world. Because I have hope.

This looks like a stock photo. It's not. It's a real moment of hope revealing itself.

Click this photo to enlarge it. That ain't yer average little clover, there! We took this photo today out on the field as the kids were going over their inventive and improvised script. We took this photo in the April sun, in a gentle breeze, with the movement of sequoia boughs above and a few species of birds snacking in the grass around us: six passionate kids and a four-leafed clover. There is always hope.

Occupy Vancouver Photos

For those interested, here are some recent photos from the grounds of Occupy Vancouver:

Come down to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Look at those tents! I've met many people on the streets downtown who say they're "ugly", "slovenly", and "pointless". Then there are those who tell me the Occupants are "a bunch of bums", and "should get jobs and stop living off everybody else's tax money". You know what I say to those people? I tell them that I am an occupant. And I encourage them to go meet some of the rest of us, and to see what beautiful things are happening beyond those tents. It just requires a bit of open-mindedness, a willingness to meet others and to hear their ideas, and a willingness to enjoy. So here you go: A partial tour of Occupy Vancouver.

Curious what's happening? Stop in at the info tent! If they can't answer your questions they can at least direct you to the person who can.

Near the info tent is the art tent. Donate materials or just use the paints already there. Make some art! Make some signs if you'll be participating in a march!

Near the art and info tent is this wonderful climbing tree, and the intriguing announcement about the "Occupy Choir". We wish we'd been there at the right time to see the Occupy Choir!

Check out what's happening on the mainstage. Throughout the day various speakers and musicians take the stage, and between those main acts is music and open mic.

Last time we were there, Rhiannon stood around singing Imagine to herself. So I suggested she go sing it at the microphone. "No!" She said. "I don't know what order all the words go in!" So off we went to her Pappa's office, where she looked up the lyrics on his computer, printed them, and brought them back to the Occupy site. She bravely walked up to the people on the stage and asked if she could sing, then, just as she began to walk onstage, turned back and asked: "Is this song called Imagine?"
"Yes", I said.
And off she went.

If you can stay past 7PM, you can participate in the General Assembly. And if you do, you may find these hand symbols helpful! On the stairs next to the stage is this instruction-manual for participation in the GA.

Should you injure yourself, forget to keep warm and suffer from hypothermia (apparently this has been an issue for some), or suffer from any other ills that humans do, you can make your way to the medical tent, where professional medics volunteer their time in shifts to help those in need. There is somebody available 24/7. And should you just need supplies, the infrastructure people can help with that.

Or maybe you just want to relax for a bit. Come into the People's Lovely Library, read some books, newspapers, or printed articles; have a game of chess, or have a chat with some of the other interesting Occupants. This latter is actually all I've ever managed to do, there. There's always much too much meeting people to be done to actually retreat into typed words...

Rhiannon, though, found the children's section on her first visit, and returned there many times, even making use of the check-out system to check out and return a book she liked.

As I said, there are many people to talk to. It's really a very welcoming scene, down at Occupy, with many engaged people, willing to speak and listen; share ideas; inspire and BE the new reality.

Peace Keepers (Occupy Vancouver's Security Committee) are here to ... (how could you guess) keep the peace! Thankfully there isn't often a lot for them to do, but when friction does arise, especially with Vancouver's not-so-peaceful tactics against the occupation, the Peace Keepers are there to help diffuse. They've also held workshops on peaceful de-escalation tactics, etc.

And should you want serious, inner peace... go meditate. This is for everyone, of every belief-system. Enjoy.

Or maybe you need just some renewal; some good conversation with some elders. Go ahead. Ask them about that fire, too. (See it, below.)

Unschooling Support from Within

Well, to be honest, it's not the unschooling that needs support, it's the parents' nervous systems. We can't really just break out of the system we grew up in without a serious amount of fear, so... we come up with solutions that help us grasp at the nothingness of our plans without steering the kids too much.

Yes that's right. I said the nothingness of our plans. We have no plans. We just have kids.

That's what's so bloody scary!! We were raised on plans! We need plans! Alan Watts ☮ had nothing on our plan-toting teachers and their threats of loser-hood and failure!! So, just to soothe our sorry selves a bit, here are some of the things we do. Of course, they're not so much recipes as new ways to look at things, and organizational choices that help us feel less neglectful. But they works for us. At least they do when we get it right and do these things before panicking.

Disclaimer:

These are our ideas. They`re what work for us, because they come from our hearts.

Your successes will come from your hearts.

Libraries
We love our books. We have piles of them. Literally 3 libraries full: kids fiction, adults everything, and kids non-fiction, which is slowly becoming so interesting to us parents that it's basically the most frequented library, now... We don't feed our kids the books, or even 'strew', as I understand some people do, but we do make an effort to buy interesting books when we come across them.

And there they are. Cool books. It is amazing to me how many times the kids can read the same book. Tal has read a couple of his favourite novels about 5 times... but just when I start to worry, he seems to have broken into his father's programming books, or old comics, art textbooks, or obscure books from the recesses of our forgotten shelves. And these books spark the most interesting curiosities and adventures!

I don't have to do anything about this, of course. The books begin the adventures and the kids finish them. But I admit I love to join them for the ride, sometimes.

Art Area
Every home should have an art area. For us it was the dining table for a long time; sometimes the kitchen floor, but recently we've managed to make it part of Rhiannon's bedroom, which means a LOT more freedom, since it doesn't have to be cleaned up so often, for meals.

The key to a good art area is having an open space with free-range and plenty of good supplies. And by good, I don`t mean expensive, I mean well-chosen. Good supplies are open-ended. They're materials that can be used in any way, and that don't limit the imagination. Bad supplies are things like colouring books, stickers, and other gimmicky things, which basically inject too much of the manufacturer's imagination into our creation. Good supplies are practically anything. We have an entire shelf of different types of paper (LOTS of discarded office printouts on white letter paper from Pappa`s work), cheap felt for sewing, origami books* and other such inspirational things. In a drawer we have a bunch of extras, including strings, sewing supplies, tapes, and some of the messier things like paints and modelling clay, and in a rotating caddy in the middle of the big table we have a really huge assortment of felt-pens, pencils, rulers, scissors, glues, etc.

The kids aren`t the only ones who make use of this excellent area, and when their inspirations take them further than their supplies or area will allow, we either move outside or into my professional studio, where the rules are stricter (to protect some of my equipment and half-finished art) but there`s some access to different supplies.

*I think origami books, while they are still instruction books, can be good if we lead by example in taking the instructions and playing with them, so that they're more a jumping-off-point for discovery, than a recipe to a particular end.

Equipment
We do have a fair amount of equipment - useful tools for open ended creation and exploration: shovels, rakes, hoses, aquariums, microscopes, telescopes, cameras, pots, bowls, and pitchers... etc. It's important to have the basic tools. Some people have access to these tools through learning centres and other such organizations, but where we live is a bit rural, and we find it useful to have these things at home. We don't spend much money on things like new clothes, toys, or dining out. We spend it on good quality used equipment that can help us with our exploration.

Rhiannon helping to build the new porch joists

Work and Rewards
We have the usual amount of house and yardwork, I think, and I`m honest with the kids about it. I don`t like being the one who does all the work, and I expect them to help out with the garden, the housekeeping, the animal care, the cooking, etc. It doesn`t always go the way I hope it will, but for the most part I think they understand that a family is a group effort, and the the lifestyle we all love is our mutual reward. Like strawberries. Yes. Strawberries. Those are worth a whole lot of weeding and watering! Hugs from the dog? Worth feeding her. Having clean clothes worth doing some laundry. These are real rewards. And often just sharing time working together as a family is a reward in itself.

TV and Movies
We don`t have a TV, actually, but there are some seriously good shows out there, and we have watched a few of them online. Same, of course, with movies, documentaries, and YouTube channels. When we find things that we like, we watch them, and, unless we`re having 1:1 parent time, the kids are welcome to join us. Sometimes we even join them for their shows!! We learn the most interesting things about the world, this way... things we`d never have ventured out to discover on our own.

Take The Kids to Work!
Not everybody happens to have an artist for a parent, but most parents have some sort of shareable interest, "hobby", or work, and I do believe that bringing the kids along for the ride - letting them see our own inspiration and process - is one of the best things we can offer them.

One beauty of this is the physical work we do, as parents, but another is the ideas we share with them. I can't describe how irritated I feel when people tell their kids they're too young to understand, or that certain topics are 'grown up things'. I don`t shelter my kids from ideas - no matter how complicated. And yes, some things go right over their heads, and others are upsetting. But I like to think that if they asked me the question, they deserve to receive the best answer I can give them. I take my son to university lectures when he wants to attend them. Sometimes the topics are completely over my head, and I'm sure he has very little understanding of what`s being discussed. But he loves them. And that's what matters.

Rhiannon at her guitar lesson with Corbin.

Outside Influence
Obviously we don't want to be completely isolated in our journeys. So we take our kids on social adventures, and also enroll them in programs. This not only gives them some input from non-parent community members and a chance to experience organized group activities, but it also gives us all time to experience the world apart from each other... which is very important for our personal development and relationships! The activities/programs that seem to work for our kids are, of course, child-directed, taught by inspired and thoughtful people, and chosen by our kids. The two mainstays are music mentoring (which I've written about, before), and their acting school, where the teachers favour process over product, and guide the kids through theatre games and the development of a play to performance, so that they really take ownership of their work and contribution... as well as their journey. In addition to this they participate in various field trips with local community organizations, and sometimes another group or class that interests them.

To-Do Lists and Would-Like-To-Do Lists
To do lists are for me. They give me some structure and help me remember what needs to get done. They also help the rest of the family see what I do with my time, and they help me feel accomplished as I check things off. I've suggested the kids make them, but they haven't really jumped on the idea.

Would-Like-To-Do lists, on the other hand... those are cool.
Yes, they're my suggestion, but the kids enjoy them, and frequently take me up on this suggestion. They don't even always keep them, but writing them out is inspiring, already, and helps them process their ideas of what is important and interesting to them. And when they do keep them, and look back at them (sometimes months after writing them) they're both an interesting glimpse at a time past, and an inspiration to get back to some things they'd forgotten about. And sometimes... just sometimes... they come in handy when the bored-nothing-to-do monster is hanging around.

Tali as Toto in the Wizard of Oz

Giving Up
Oh I just give up on my kids, I say nonchalantly. (Ha ha ha...)
As in... "What? You want me to help on this costume, and you haven't done anything yourself? Sorry. I'm busy." Yes, I abandoned him on the costume he had to make for his play, when he'd left it to the last minute, and had no idea how to make a dog mask. And neither did I.
So, Tali grumbled away to the art room, got out the white felt and cardboard, made a truly awesome dog-mask, and finally came to me for help with the ears. He'd been much more imaginative than I think I would have been, and also came up with some seriously good-looking facial-features, as well as a well-fitting base. And he made it himself.
Sometimes parents giving up gives kids the freedom they need to go do something great.

Giving up control is, of course, the main tenet of our unschooling path. As Alan Watts says,

"Let's see what you're going to do."

Travelling Around the World for Family, Love and Belonging

We finally did it! After planning for fifteen years to take our kids to Europe to meet their extended family, we just bit the bullet and went for it. And it was perfect.

But how can I possibly sum up the thirty-one cities, four languages, sixty beloved friends and family, and what seemed like ten years' worth of experiences in a little blog post with just a handful of photos? I can't. I can't possibly. So I'm just going to drop some photos here. I have left out the countless churches, castles, cities, landmarks, and amazing wilderness areas we saw and leave you with what really matters:

There is nothing in the world better or more important than love and a feeling of belonging.

At the airport getting ready to take our kids on their first airliner ever. We were pretty much giddy with the excitement.

WHOAH. Those first three are some amazing numbers to contemplate.

Some family you are born into and some you choose. Our Swiss family picked wild bear-leeks for our dinner!

When the kids discovered that their father's childhood home in Germany is actually quite similar to their own and their grandparents'. And they felt comfortable, there.

Accompanying their Pappa to his favourite tree in the whole wide world.

Everybody we visited took time to show us the things they care about. It was a time of really connecting to our roots, both new and old. Markus' uncle and aunt harvest about 600kg of organic honey every year, which they sell locally.

This trip included a bit of a pilgrimage to the graves of our three European grandmothers who died since the last time we came to Europe. Tending the graves of those we love was a very important part of our journey.

Grocery shopping was a whole new experience!

Speaking of people we love - we did not forget to send a few postcards!

We were fortunate to be able to bring flowers from the homes of our grandmothers to their graves. This particular grandmother financed half of our trip, before she died. We saved all the money she sent us for birthdays over the past 15 years and put it towards our plane tickets. We were sorry we didn't make it over before she was gone.

Our family took us to so many amazing places - often many places in a single day. Sometimes it was exhausting, but as I look back I know that this gave us a chance to connect with them; to see their world as they wanted us to, and to give them an opportunity to see us in their world.

 

We pulled up an audio of my Grandmother's laughter on my cell phone, and listened to it beside her grave. Then we sat around "having lunch with her", for all that that is worth. It's everything. Grieving the loss of someone can be a weird and complicated adventure, but I'm glad we've found ways to do it as a family.

Our family cottage in the Netherlands is near some bronze-age grave mounds. That was a long-awaited destination and we reveled in being there.

Some regular old cottage maintenance was needed, too. Nice to be able to be involved.

And then the cousins descended on this beloved cottage.

This family is very dour.

Yup.

The amazing but unsurprising thing is that no matter where in the world you live, or what your personal history is, family is family is family. My kids had never met most of these people before, and we came from Canada and all over Europe to convene at our beloved cottage... and just feel like we belong together.

And belonging was easy.

Even when the French and Canadian cousins found each other out wandering among the heather and grave mounds in the foggy midnight and sang together in the darkness.

I haven't always belonged. I got kicked out of art school here over 20 years ago, so this time I took my kids to see the place I used to ride to every day, bike laden with supplies and hopes and dreams. We found this gilded sculpture there, which I thought was apt. I'm glad I got kicked out. Those teachers weren't my people anyway.

 

My friend and former neighbour took us to meet her horse and we had tea with the farmers - what a wonderful opportunity for my kids to meet some locals and to be accepted casually at their table.

I was thrilled that my kids had to learn to hand-wash their laundry as many Dutch people do, and as I did when I used to live there.

One of the greatest joys for me was that my parents also came to Europe, and met up with us for a day to visit the rather boring neighbourhood where I used to live. Living and studying in the Netherlands was a wonderful time for me - the place where I learned to fight for myself and to fail and get up again; the place where I gained my independence, and the whole time I lived there I wished that my family could know something of my life. Now, at last, they have.

 

Speaking of independence, my kids found theirs, too. They had amazing experiences on this trip, including many grand adventures (even a day-trip to Paris with my aunt!) and a new bond forged with many cousins. But they tell me this was their favourite day: The day they made a long bike journey to the North Sea together - just the two of them. They bought themselves fries there, found some shells, and returned. This was the day they found their independence.

Yeah that's my kid - just walking on the edge of the North Sea after a nice bike ride with her brother. Because when we give our kids freedom (no matter how scared we parents are about it!) they find their dreams.

 

While my kids were off gallivanting in their newfound freedom, I spent a week installing my current large art project, what.home, in Amsterdam. My friend Igor (whom I met at that art school I got kicked out of - see? Not all losses are losses after all!) and my dear husband helped me hugely to do this first installation. What a joy to spend some time being creative with some wonderful people; to reassure myself that despite leaving the Netherlands as a disgraced art student in the 90's, I still belong in the art world here, too.

Home. We flew home. For all the amazingness of finding ourselves at home in the people we love in Europe, this land and water and the air we know the smell of is the place our bodies belong.