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The kids are back in school, and I miss them.
Life goes on at The Little Middle School—surprisingly normally, given the masks. And I’m not there for any of it. I’m over a thousand miles away, alone and waiting for my second shot.
It’s fine — I wouldn’t even really have time to engage with the students. I will stay busy the entire day and not get to the end of the work. I will provide support to the teachers from afar, and that will have to be enough.
Read MoreThe other day, I wrote a song from scratch.
The music for the verses took about 90 seconds to compose. Then, the bridge took another 5 minutes. The lyrics, on the other hand, took another 90 minutes, and then I tinkered with them over the next day or so, changing “it” to “that” and “eventually” to “actually.” But the song was essentially done in one sitting.
It was incredibly satisfying to create something from nothing. I used to labor for days or weeks or even years over a song, hesitant to commit to completing something if it wasn’t perfect. As a result, I have a bank of song ideas and fragments going back all the way to high school.
Read MoreEvery day, I wake up and look at the coronavirus statistics reported by The New York Times, trying to make the number of new cases decrease with the power of my mind.
Y’all, I’m so sorry — for the most part, it doesn’t seem to be working. At least, it’s not happening as fast as I would like it to.
I’m frustratingly powerless. The recent mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder emphasize the scope of this lack of influence. All I can do is what I can do in my own little life. And even that is not going the way I planned.
Read MoreI have an ongoing text conversation with my cousin in which we seek to solve the problems of the universe…or at the very least, our own.
Recently, we observed how out of balance we can get if we follow advice meant for someone with a dramatically different temperament. “I don’t think everything is healed by action,” I said. “Rest is important. But probably if you’re a person who is constantly resting, you need more action.”
Read MoreI had to become an email expert — otherwise, I would have been buried alive by it.
Back when I was running a music school all by myself — something I don’t recommend — I received tons and tons of requests, complaints, ideas, and questions via email. Using David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology, I was able to keep things manageable.
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