Homeschooling has taken over my life even when we've outsourced math to a tutor. After eight weeks, we decided to take advantage of this unique learning time and spend a week in our happy place at the Jersey Shore where we're able to refill our cups and visit with family and friends too while we celebrate A.'s 53 years young. Each of us started to hit a wall of madness regardless of what progress we've been making in our work and new ways of experiencing and learning, each of us taking some opportunity to lash out at the ridiculously everyday mishaps. Practicing fourth grade math, negotiating with a colleague, or obligingly co-leading a girl scout troop. Call it pandemic exhaustion. Tired of having to be super cautious in the simplest of daily tasks. Tired of domestic engineering, including figuring out meals along with lesson plans for the week. Tired of not seeing dearly missed schoolmates. Tired of people not wanting to do what's right for the health of our communities. In the meantime, our nine-year-old patiently awaits her chance at the covid vaccine so that she can protect herself and others against covid and just maybe return to school in person next semester.
It's not really the homeschooling that has been getting to me. It's more the -- I cannot believe we are still at this and haven't found a way to beat this pandemic quite yet while many have moved on with their lives brazenly participating in indoor recreation and traveling as if nothing's wrong. I realize our personal risk taking comfort levels during the pandemic are ever shifting and dependent on how well we know others and their risk taking behaviors. I know that our family will probably choose to keep safe by continuing to wear masks in public, as well as when we reconnect in social meetups. Who knows what the winter months will bring?
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| photo by sonsart |
In the meantime, I soak up the autumn sun and shoreside breeze, wade in the warm Gulf Stream water and briny air that urge me to take pause. Hinga . . . humihinga. Deep inhale . . . slow exhale. I remind myself to be grateful that we've healthfully made it this far, and as dusk gives the Hunter's Full Moon a peck, I let out a deeply cathartic heart-howl . . . Awooooo!
