about Holly, where I am not

From "The Unzone" (zamunzo.blogspot):

Sunday, August 16, 2009
Teenage Daughter

I've been so fortunate to try on a teenage daughter for the past week. It's been fun and interesting and surprising and... well, lovely really. Sandra Dodd was so kind to lend me her daughter, Holly, and I will be forever grateful to her for that. Holly was awesome to agree to come and visit us and hang out with us so graciously -- adding her special Holly-spark to our lives.

Chris Sanders (a.k.a. Zamozo) wrote about Holly's visit to Des Moines, Iowa to stay with her family. There's more there, and it's sweet, and I'm glad to know they're all having a good time. I hope Holly will write about it too, because the stories she's told me have been very sweet and postive, and the family has been generous with their resources and attention. She seems to be having a great time.

http://zamunzo.blogspot.com/2009/08/teenage-daughter.html

Holly flies from Des Moines to Austin in a couple of days, and then will be home on Friday, but not for long. When we all go to the Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference, Holly will continue on from there with Frank and Ronnie Maier's family, to Diana Jenner's house in Corvallis, Oregon. In the blog post above, Chris mentions Canada. Holly's also planning to stay a while with Bea Mantovani's family (two very young girls; that will be fun for Holly). They've moving out of Montreal to a house an hour or so away, I think, so I'm not clear on the place, but still Québec. And Holly will also probably be in Ashford, near London, for a while sometime next year too.

I didn't know she would leave home before she was 18. As leaving goes, though, her explorations are pretty awesome. I think in some cases it's because the parents felt trust in her because of my stories over the years, or maybe in a case or two they felt indebted to me and wanted to do me a favor, but mostly I think it's because Holly is Holly.

I'm sorry she won't be here for the Monkey Platter Festival, but she'll be in Santa Fe for the Unschooling Symposium, and I don't know when I'll see her after that. Hooray for blogs and cellphones in our lives, for MySpace and Photobucket!