I deeply miss teaching school.

For years, I showed up every morning to The Little Middle School, just like a real job with a boss. In effect, I had hired myself to work directly with the students, instructing them in math and science and writing and history and laughing at their hijinks. It was challenging, rewarding, frustrating, interesting, and fun.

I didn’t quit because I didn’t love it. I quit because I had other things I wanted to do. Now, I’m a thousand miles away while school goes on without me. I have had to let go, and that’s been challenging and rewarding, too.

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What I love about teaching music is the immediacy of it.

No matter how old you are, you can make a pleasing sound on a drum, ukulele, or harmonium on your first try. Given a few more minutes, you can create an ostinato (a repeated melodic or rhythmic pattern) that you can build into a song. It’s so fun that it makes you want to do more of it.

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My most recent trip might have gone better with more thorough planning.

I could have purchased a cooler and filled it with sliced vegetables and other healthy snacks.

I could have done my final errands earlier in the week so that I wouldn’t have been hitting the road along with the other weekend travelers, getting myself stuck in a long traffic jam behind a jackknifed tractor-trailer truck.

I could have avoided traveling on a holiday weekend in the first place.

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There are a few factors complicating my sleep recently. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Some combination of the switch to Daylight Saving Time, a new medication, aging, and pandemic anxiety has left me with erratic energy levels and an unpredictable schedule of slumber.

Despite a full night’s sleep, I might be totally exhausted in the middle of the day. In that moment, I’ve got a dilemma: coffee, or a nap?

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When a kid cleans her room, she may use some unorthodox tidying tactics.

Theoretically, everything should find a home where it is grouped with like items. However, there isn’t always time and energy for that. Shoving everything into drawers and closets, while hasty and perfunctory, is actually a good start. At least the room looks tidy. The details can be addressed later.

There are many situations in school, work, and life where we get stuck because we want to to do things well. We might spend hours, days, or even years trying to summon the energy to approach our task the right way. In the meantime, the deed remains undone. If we give ourselves permission to take the easy way out — to do the work badly or take shortcuts — we may actually accomplish what we set out to do.

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