Last week I pulled out some old books and articles about maps for an informal lesson. We read about the history of maps, going all the way back to a stone map made in Babylon in 600 BC. We talked about why we use maps and some of the quirks of maps. Why do we draw north up? What do our choices about what we include and exclude say about us? How do we draw a round Earth on a flat piece of paper?

Next, we drew our own maps inspired by Sara Fanelli’s Map of My Day. We had fun drawing, and I was impressed with the kids’ level of detail. The kids drew maps of our house and yard, while I took a more abstract approach and drew a map of a typical day.

That map has been an interesting backdrop for the conversations we’ve been having lately. Even though it’s been two months since my last post, we still don’t really know exactly how the rest of the year will play out for us. We have (quite literally) been all over the map in terms of where we might land in the mid-term. Guam? California? Colorado? Mexico? Australia? Japan? We’ve talked about all of them — with varying levels of seriousness. When the kids ask where we’ll be next year, we honestly have no idea. It’s a strange mix of terrifying and exhilarating.

But if I think about the map I drew, life is pretty good in the short term. We’ve been able to get out to beaches and hikes and enjoy the landscapes of this island. The beaches and trails are already naturally socially distant here, so we can enjoy them without compromise.

We chose to extend our school year, so we still have a few more weeks of school before our summer break. I’ve been deep in the weeds, thinking about how to homeschool next year. Everything from philosophies and world-views to calendars and book selections. It’s been a lot of fun, but it’s also exceedingly easy to get sucked into quagmires. We don’t know if we’ll be able to homeschool all year. But honestly, it’s hard to imagine that we’d be able to send our kids to a brick and mortar school in the fall anyway. So we decided to plan as if we’ll homeschool all year. We’ll adjust along the way if we need to.

In the meantime, I’ve been over here in my corner, trying to process everything that 2020 has thrown our way. I’ll be here awhile.