There’s no place we go that doesn’t maintain a connection with Mary. The four of us travelled up and down Delaware and tried on every type of event. She’s in the parks, gardens, concert halls, and campgrounds. In places that she had never been, we talk about what her reactions would have been or how she wouldn’t have forgotten the hummus for the carrot sticks.
It doesn’t always hurt, most of the time we’re smiling and remembering how she heightened every experience with her warmth, her smile, and her ability to be present. Sometimes it hurts like hell, especially when there’s something she would particularly enjoy.
Today didn’t hurt. We had fun with family and friends from Lewes to Hockessin and we’re going to bed fully spent.
My little pirates have been plundering the riches Brandywine River Museum of Art for a long time. The Museum introduced us to N.C. Wyeth’s illustrations for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and we read the Scribner’s Classics edition to them. It provided one of my first home education breakthroughs. Having introduced them to the characters, settings, and plot of the story in this simplified version, I ventured on exposing them to the original text. We were already adventuring and spending a lot of time in the minivan, so I borrowed the audio book and took to the high seas. Every time I stopped the playback to review and make sure my toddlers were getting it, they cut me off, “Yeah yeah Dad, could you hit play?”
Billy Bones Jr. The pirate spirit.
This set a pattern of exposing them to literature using junior editions of Robin Hood, graphic novels of The Time Machine, and film adaptations of Shakespeare. Each of these abridged retellings has flaws, sometimes significant (“Sorry son, everyone actually dies in the real version.”); however, therein lies the real surprise. My boys become hunters and detectives, tracking down the mistakes, analyzing the changes, and assigning value to the different choices of each author, illustrator, and editor.
The adventure comes alive and the stories step into the real world. Hedgerow Theatre Company brings a fast-paced and fun Peter Pan to the stage and Pirates of Fortune’ s Folly bring knot tying, pirate speak, and maybe a tug of war!
Get yourself to the Museum on Sunday, November 4th, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm for this worthwhile and FREE event!
Schedule:
10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pirate Crafts
10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Photo Ops and knot-tying with Fortune’s Folly Pirates
11 a.m. and 12 noon Performances of Storytime Peter Pan by Hedgerow Theatre
First Sundays for Families at the Museum presents free, hands-on workshops designed to engage visitors of all ages in creative art activities and performances. No registration necessary.
Registered our FLL Jr. team, Delaware International Moon Mission (yes, D.I.M.M.), for our very first FIRST Expo with Hornet City Robotics; off to a homeschooler-organized tour of Wharton Esherick Museum in Malvern, Pennsylvania, this morning; then to family camping to make fire, pitch tents, pick up bugs, find danger, fish, play, hike, get dirty, stay up too late, pick up litter, make friends, cook new things, stack wood, and make more fire.
Education happens everywhere, at all times, if you allow it. Don’t permit society to tell you when, where, nor how your children should learn and when, where, nor how they shouldn’t.
My sons were in their first years of life when they met Edgar Allen Poe at Brandywine River Museum‘s Picturing Poe exhibition. This Arthur Rackham illustration of “The Tell-Tale Heart” greeted us and I wasn’t sure we would make it much farther.
They survived hearing Vincent Price’s reading of “The Raven” and all the tastefully gruesome artwork. Perhaps they thrived.
To this day, October means Poe. We just watched the inventive animated movie “Extraordinary Tales,” but are most excited for Delaware Shakespeare’s Shakespeare, Poe & Fiends performances this weekend. Tonight’s reading is sold out, but there are tickets available for the following shows:
What a day. I woke up in my house, alone. I knew the possibilities the day held, but didn’t have the desire to take advantage.
A few messages shared with a buddy reminded me that we are almost always the only ones in our way.
So I cleaned myself up and hiked with Delaware Nature Society‘s 20s and 30s Club (yes, I’m aging out soon) at Trailfest on the new path from Dupont Environmental Education Center (DEEC) to New Castle. I didn’t take my camera and only took pics when Stone Shakers played AC/DC as children climbed all around. I regretted that my boys weren’t there to enjoy, especially the dance floor could have used a couple hot steppers and the helicopter moms needed to see my perpetually bruised boys enjoying any danger they could conjure.
I stayed after the 20s (it was a light turnout) left and soaked up the final set. It was awkward. There was a #boymom without a wedding ring sitting a few feet away. If my sons had been there, conversation would have been easy, if not unavoidable. I’ve got to relearn how to do these things on my own. I made a small effort, but chickened out on any small talk.
The sound was great in the green area in the center of the DEEC parking lot. I was disappointed at missing The Honey Badgers. It *maybe* won’t happen again.
I went directly to a pick-up soccer match wherein my side was largely trounced (although, we did finish strong). No pics because, well, soccer.
I next resolved to participate in the Fall Equinox Labyrinth Walk at Delaware Art Museum. My late wife introduced me to my favorite museum ten years ago. I have walked the labyrinth in and out dozens of times, but never without Mary and/or my children. Of course, I was not alone, many were walking, including a dear Museum employee and friend who has known us since our home education journey began, a BJJ family from Elevated Studios, and a very cute girl who meditated alongside me at the center of the labyrinth and left before I could introduce myself.
Mind Body Spirit Healing Room was also there for a moving blessing and to provide cleansing smudges. I’ve done a lot of things, but this may have been my first cleansing smudge (or is it smudge cleansing?). The blessing changed my course. She guided us to gather up the things of the egressing season on our way in and let them go on our way out. As a habit, I generally make this a half-mile prayer, not lingering in the center. This time I sat and concentrated on my breathing in the center. I had gathered up so many thoughts that I could hardly leave that center. I hesitated hard when stepping out, but I knew I couldn’t stay. On the journey out I felt a physical release. The BJJ family giggled and gave me high fives and I exchanged timid glances with the very cute girl as our paths often came near.
I thought it would be takeout and a few beers at home after that. I’d had a good day, an energetic step into a new season. But I wasn’t finished reconnecting with that Jason from 13 years ago, the one sitting alone at a bar, reading under terrible light, not sure whether another very cute girl would show up or not.
I used to go out on my own all the time: movies, restaurants, parks, concerts, bars…I needed to take that back as the equinox approached. I sat at the bar at Stoney’s for dinner. The Gene Huff Trio played fine jazz and it brought me way back to Vincent’s, a jazz bar in West Chester that I started to frequent before I was of legal drinking age. There was no anxiety about flirting, or not flirting, with the bartender. I simply enjoyed my Pie of the Day, a couple IPAs, and myself.
I’m younger now. There’s a mountain of sorting to do, but I’ve gathered and discarded much of the refuse I’ve been carrying. I’m identifying those pieces that are critical, feeding them attention and using them to build a new life.
It was an inward-looking day among many people who have no idea how they helped me to explore myself. This is my thank you to all of them.
Delaware rests interminably on the division between snow storms and rain storms, flooding hurricanes and quiet spectating. We also have a tenuous relationship with fall. We could have weeks of a changing palette against the sky or 48 hours before a storm whips through and makes it look more like winter.
Fortunately, we are blessed with museums in and around our state that provide many ways to enjoy the season.
At Delaware Art Museum there are the final Thursday evening Summer Happy Hours leading up to the Peace Week Delaware and Fall Equinox Labyrinth Walk on Saturday, September 22nd, at 6:00 pm. Celebrating the change of seasons with a meditative stroll into and out of the Labyrinth will help you refresh for the fall. Level of meditation available will depend on how many children you have in tow.
Fall Family FUNdays at The Delaware Contemporary on select Sundays, 1:00 to 3:00, are open to all ages and offer a variety of engaging activities and art-making opportunities. Attend all four and receive a FREE family portrait taken by a professional portrait photographer during the December 16th Free Family FUNday.
Keep checking back here to read more about local events to enjoy with your family this fall.
Letter writing, museums, and camping have something in common. They take time. This summer, we took time to enjoy many moments away from the seemingly immediate demands of modern life. We got away from devices and noise and experienced the subtleties of life we so often fail to perceive.
We took time.
Delaware Art Museum is inviting families to take time together in the Copeland Sculpture Garden for twilight art making, moonlit sculpture tours, and bedtime stories during their very first campout on August 18th! Tent camping will happen in the Garden and limited space will be available inside for sleeping bags.
The Labyrinth at dusk, the sunset light falling on Crying Giant, the colored lights of the Museum at dark…this promises to be a special evening.
It will be extra special for me and my sons as the Museum has dedicated a magnolia tree to my late wife, Mary Kathryn Zerbey. It has yet to have a plaque, or made official with a ceremony, but it is a touching gesture to have a permanent place for Mary at the Museum she introduced us to seven years ago.
I had left my job as a proofreader and editor to care for our sons. Mary knew me to be restless and sent me to the Museum. After a stroller tour and a Glory of Stories, we were hooked. Not just to Delaware Art Museum, but all museums. We’ve delighted in countless hours in collections of varied stripes. They’ve become a focal point of our educational lifestyle. Places where knowledge isn’t just discovered, but applied, challenged, connected, explored, and brought into full color and dimension.
An opportunity to spend 13 (or more) hours in a corner of our world that has brought us so much value? Oh yeah, we’ll be there August 18th.
On Independence Day we took an uncharacteristic turn as full-on “tourons” in Washington, D.C. Mary introduced me to this term and we never used it as strongly as the Urban Dictionary describes. For us, it was just that unimaginative sightseeing and photo taking one does on holiday from time to time.
I plotted our walking route from the Metro station to the White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and finally a spot along the Potomac River to view the fireworks. I hardly expected my seven- and nine-year-old sons to make the journey with heat, crowds, and detours in our way.
Our saving grace came early in the day at Renwick Gallery, across from the White House. We love museums and an escape from the sun was already in order.
We found much more than an escape. No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man is an exhibit that recreates the other-worldly California desert spectacle. Within this world there was the Temple. A place of remembrance and introspection about those things that have been lost. It is simply composed of cut and sanded plywood, but the intricacies are unending.
Visitors are encouraged to take a 4″ by 4″ block of wood and write about something or someone they have lost. This could have been one of those “ambushes” you learn about as you grieve, but it wasn’t. I invited my sons to participate and was surprised at their reactions. Westen, the older and more vocal about his mom, declined and chose to quietly walk the space. Isaac has been much more reserved about losing his mom, but wanted me to transcribe something for him.
As he mentally created his message, a phrase came to me: We will gain more than we have lost. I can’t take credit for it. It was purely divine and seems all but impossible. When God asks you to do the impossible it’s because He knows it can be done. I hope my faith is strong enough to keep believing that.
For Isaac’s part, his message was all sweetness and love and compassion. It was also arms-outstretched broad for so few words. It speaks for itself.
