Seasons Change

“Come on over.  I live just down from the Two Seasons Hotel!” 

“Oh, not the Four Seasons?”  Mark joked.  “Right, we’re in the Philippines - wet and dry - only two seasons!”

We’d just met him in the bakery, and already, Ganny was showing us that Filipino warmth we’d encountered so often throughout the Philippines.

As COVID-19 travel restrictions begin to ease up, we are witnessing the change of seasons here.  Scorching hot days and weeks without a drop of rain have morphed into overcast days scattered with thunder showers and wild lightning storms.

This change occurs due to a switch in wind patterns.  Monsoon winds now blow from the Southeast, rather than from the Northeast.  Roughly from June to October, the Southeast winds bring on the rainy season.  Overlapping the wet season, typhoons typically show up between June and December.  This wind change means two things for us…

First, it means we must carefully monitor weather forecasts.  If a typhoon forms, we watch its predicted path on various forecast models and compare them.  Already, Mark has pinpointed typhoon holes nearby in which we can hide should we find ourselves in the path of a storm.

The captain researching typhoon paths of the past ten years

Second, this wind change conflicts with our upcoming travel itinerary.  We decided long ago to find  high school for the kids to attend when the time came.  Through a series of events and encounters, we discovered Dalat International School in Penang, Malaysia.  It seemed a perfect fit for our family, and the original plan was to get there by the summer in order to get everyone settled and ready to start school in August.

Well, these increasing Southeast winds oppose our plans.  Passage to Penang is directly against the winds and currents.  Getting there will be a slog.  Given the fact that we’re not even allowed to enter Malaysian ports yet, and that schools in Malaysia are still awaiting COVID re-opening permission and protocols, our school-in-the-fall plan is anything but figured out.  There are more questions than answers at this point.

In life, there are more than two or four seasons of change to which we must adapt.  Just as the weather seasons are changing around us, our family is preparing to step out of one season and into another.  My homeschooling hat is being hung up, and I am excited and anxious to see us all adapt to a more traditional schooling life.

We did it!  Eight years of boat school officially complete!  What a voyage it has been!

After ‘boat’schooling our kids for the past eight years, I find myself filled with conflicting emotions.  I’m excited to release the immense responsibility that comes with being my children’s sole educator, but it saddens me to relinquish the independence and choice that homeschooling has offered us.  I can’t wait to have more time to pursue my own passions, but I will miss being with the kids for hours each day.  (I think back on those hard school days, when all I wanted was to plop them into a classroom, and now, I grapple for any moments they will spend with me!)  I know they are thrilled to learn with their peers, but I also know that they will certainly have to navigate some tough social situations that just don’t happen at home.

But seasons change.

Winds turn.

And sometimes it might mean we slog through heavy seas.

But if we can adapt, we will grow stronger than we ever thought we could and arrive exactly where we’re supposed to be.