Rural Self-Education

What are my promises for the year? It's easy to contemplate and feel lost. After all, what is life's purpose? However, then I remember I do have goals for the year, focuses on my mind for the future.

Starting January 1st, had myself fill in a naturalist calendar. I make myself write even the little stuff: whether there was rain or frost, or whether I saw a deer crossing the road on our way to town. I've always had a scientific interest in the natural world, but wasn't organised enough to create my own notes. Today is as good of a day as any, I suppose. We live on a homesteaded five acre property now. I started some of my informal notes last spring, before we put in the gardens. As things should be coming up again this year, I want to keep track of the changes we are bringing to the property. Does a building shade a particular spot that wasn't shaded before, how does it effect that soil? Does the new flowers attract more pollinators? What animals are seen on our property?

I have also a couple college textbooks, one loaned from my cousin, a physics book. Then, my mom gave me a zoology textbook for Christmas. I've looked through them, wondering how neat it would be to work on my education while I am stuck on a rural property in the middle of a pandemic. People like the mathematician Ramanujan inspire me, showing me that even an autodidact with a textbook has great promise in this world. What future would open up with a greater understanding of the scientific world? I look at the photographs and scientific illustrations of animals and wonder how much more I could learn about them if I drew them. I remember what my biology teacher recommended years ago, that you learn a lot more through drawing. Learning zoology could put into academic context the experience I've had volunteering at the zoo in Portland and in the rainforest of Borneo.

Besides science, I have been interested in languages. Before getting this Chromebook with my pandemic money (it had been almost a year since I've had an electronic device of my own), I'd read through the Atlas of Languages book I've had stashed in a tote somewhere. It is from that book that I was inspired to give my brother a card with the Old Persian alphabet (a wink to his interest in the language), and embroider my mom's name in an old Celtic alphabet called Ogham, this last Christmas. Now, I have resumed my studies of Irish, Spanish, Latin, Indonesian, and Arabic on Duolingo. This morning, I lied in bed thinking of sentences I can string together from memory in Spanish. Then when I switch back and forth between my Gaelic and Latin studies, I can't help but imagine myself an Irish monk, like who must of created the Book of Kells.

With culture on my mind, I can't help but stir restlessly awake as I anticipate the DNA test kit from 23 and Me. I already know a bit from my mom's side: German, Irish, British, French and small amounts of Spanish and Finnish (and faint traces of west Asian and African). My dad's side is still a mystery. I can't help but imagine just how much more geography I could be researching once my results are in. How this could open doors for even my dad and brother knowing just a little bit more about themselves. Thoughts bubble up, questions. Where were my ancestors during the middle ages? What languages did we speak throughout history? Why, as a white person, do people point at my thick black hair in confusion when my cousins are mostly blonds? Both my parents have dark hair, so that makes sense, but then where did their characteristics come from? On the medical side of DNA, my brother was diagnosed with autism, and my parents are know as a bit "odd". I, myself, never felt like I quite fit. Where does this come from?

Another branch on my journey of education is a 3-D puzzle I ordered for a working model of a hurdy gurdy, a beautiful medieval instrument which- although people associate with a bagpipe- has the internal working of a violin. It has a keyboard and a hand crank to create sound. I've never really learned how to play an instrument before, but I have been entranced to try. A hurdy gurdy can be over a thousand dollars, but this working 3-D model of it is under $70. I figured it would be the closest I could afford and as a bonus I may have more insight on how the instrument works. Maybe I could make my own some day.

If there's anything I've learned last year, it's that the world doesn't stop because there's a pandemic, or an economic crisis, or forest fires, or riots, or political drama. You can still, from your own home, continue to have hope and keep evolving. Like a cocoon, one may have a major transformation once they decide it's time to take on the world. Every morning, my mom and I talk about our dreams and plans moving forward, even when we sometimes struggle to make it day to day.