I went digging in my phone’s photo albums for a picture of a tree changing colors. My shots from this morning didn’t turn out well as the sun is hiding behind a Nebraska-sized sheet of gloomy clouds. Quickly my thoughts veered from a very new, still nebulous consideration of Winter as Necessary Rest–a new thought because I am stubbornly settled in the Seasonal Affective Disorder camp—to what happened last year. The images on my phone flashed before me… Livia with reading glasses on. Liv studying in my office. Liv studying on the back deck. New Covid masks. Liv studying in the basement. Homemade meals from Livia. So on and so forth. 

So what happened last year?

Homeschool.

I TAUGHT MY HIGH SCHOOLER AT HOME.

That wasn’t in the game plan, folks. It wasn’t in the game plan due to our personal dynamics and our desire to preserve a loving mother-daughter relationship rather than attempt the teacher-student one. And yet! And yet we. freaking. did. it. We homeschooled for Livia’s entire sophomore year. Yeah yeah, we didn’t learn as much that fourth quarter as I wanted us too, and yet that was the reality of the 2020-2021 school year. WE HOMESCHOOLED.

What in the world?!

We are now back to our regularly scheduled programming, the kind where Livia is taught by other educators and I am delighted to find myself within a  classroom setting, teaching my own little pupils at Lincoln Homeschool Academy. The turf is now familiar and our year of homeschooling plus dealing with a worldwide pandemic has passed. Oh yes, we’re still in that pandemic, but the heightened fear I breathlessly held is no longer present. The political turmoil has returned to a murmur. We’ve gotten more comfortable—somehow—with a ridiculous death rate due to this virus. We mask much more easily, and I’ve learned to value grocery pickups, Covid swabs, and daily emails home from our public school with illness notices. 

Today Livia is home. I can hear her writing in the room next door to mine, my heart busting with mama pride to know that she is a writer much like myself. Sometimes the words just have to come out. My girl can’t smell today and she has a headache that a bunch of medicine didn’t touch. She’d rather stay home for the next 10 days than get the nose swab I’ve scheduled for her this afternoon. Ha, nice try, mija. I know other friends whose children are home with Covid, home with sniffles, and home with every symptom in between the two extremes. This is 2021. The virus continues, but now we fight with booster shots and masks and social distancing and frequent handwashing. And lots of missed school. The “and yet” here is that school continues. And yet, life continues. I’m impressed with my little homeschooling school and with our bigger public school system. Despite the radical changes and difficulties faced last year, so many educators and school nurses keep showing up, determined to teach in this crazy time. 

I taught my kid at home last year. 

Huh. 

I’m teaching new little ones at a different school this year. And Livia’s days in high school are dwindling rapidly. Soon she’ll move to a different life stage and we’ll look back at this time with what? Will it be grief for all the changes and losses? Will it be joy for that fast-and-slow year of togetherness at Prairie Box High? Will it be surprise that we weathered this better than expected? One day at a time. That’s it. Grace for one day at a time.

Update: She does not have Covid. Whew.