Three years ago, I sold our house on a back road and moved into the village, for a few reasons, for mostly so my daughter could walk to school. By then, I was a single parent, hustling a livelihood, and I needed my youngest to be able to get herself around. Rural Vermont, for those not in our world, depends on the car or pickup to get yourself around.

In the pandemic world, where I often find myself ticking off what I’m grateful for, as an antidote to the long list of what I’m decidedly not grateful for, that 15-minute walk ranks pretty high up my list.

These days, I’m wondering how this pandemic will shape my daughter’s generation.

A year ago, she was a freshman in high school, with a regular slate of classes and fall soccer games. As a sophomore, she’s more like a college student, grabbing in-person classes instead of online classes, insisting I’m not to interfere; she’s worked out her own schedule.

Study hall on Monday afternoon? I’ve given her permission to walk home with her friends.

So, while she’s hoping her year will be filled with chemistry, anatomy and physiology, trigonometry, Spanish, and French, I see a different kind of education this year. When her father and I divorced, her childhood had a hard line — a Before and an After. Now, across her whole generation, I see a Before and an After.

I’m incredibly curious to see how that unfolds.

The Uses of Sorrow | Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.