March Winds

The winds are famous where I live. Real tornadoes, like in the Wizard of Oz. Tomorrow is the first day of spring. I could handle these March winds, if spring would come. If the snow would find somewhere else to fall. Since starting antibiotics Friday, this is the first day that I feel like I'm getting better. My husband is still in the worst part of it. And Beezy is getting a bit bored!

We'll see our friends at the library tomorrow. We'll all be healthy again. The sun came out today, and there is new, green growth all over the yard. Right now, though, it just seems like Lent is short for lament. My back is healing but still doesn't feel right. I want to exercise, but I know I need to give my body a couple more days to recover from this nasty sinus infection. I think back to when I first felt the inspiration to explore unschooling. I became a collage artist overnight. I parted my hair on the opposite side from usual and styled it to accentuate streaks of gray. I felt light, full of joy, free!! Now I feel like I'm stuck in the waiting place again, and there is always something or someone standing over me with a bucket.

I keep having to practice patience. I have to wait to get on with some things. And while I have always embraced change, it takes courage to get up in a hot air balloon during a tornado and sit on the throne in a new land. Ask Oz. He felt like a phoney. He thought he was a phoney. But when he did what he was good at, when he decided to just be the kind of wizard he really was, it turned out that he was great and powerful indeed. He wasn't the wizard Glinda had expected, but she had hope that he was the wizard they needed.

Oz didn't want to merely be a good man. He wanted to be great. But he learned that he had to be good first. He had to want what was best for other people. He had to care about something bigger than himself. That's how I look at homeschooling. It's about my whole family. It's about waking up in a land with more color, with strange creatures, finding a room filled with gold. Sure, Oz made some mistakes along the way. Some doozies, truth be told. He learned humility, too, and suffered remorse. He made amends. Whether the witch ever forgives him remains to be seen. She is ultimately responsible for who she chooses to be.

Whatever the outcome, I don't think the wizard will regret going to Oz and meeting his destiny. The regret would have been staying in the circus doing cheap parlor tricks. Playing at being a wizard. Even when spring comes, my back feels great, my infection is gone, and I'm finally, finally Catholic, life will not be perfect. Strong winds will still blow. If they didn't, we wouldn't know that we had the courage to stand strong, and that the tricks up our sleeves were real magic after all.