Getting Up to Speed

I am merging back into the present. Revving up and returning to highway speeds.

I have on my desk eleven unread issues of the New Yorker magazine, and four Runners Worlds, and two Double Reed quarterly journals. I have just finished reading the January 18 New Yorker, and have been patiently working my way through the stack in order as new periodicals continue to arrive at their normal rate. I am not one to skip ahead. The result, of course, is that I have interesting, in depth knowledge of lots of things that were important four months ago and no idea what's happening in the actual real world of today. I can't talk to anybody about current events.

I'd just been assuming that eventually I'd catch up. That there would someday be enough leisure time in my life to read the New Yorker faster than one issue per week, on top of being a mother and a busy professional musician, maintaining my reed business, teaching twenty students a week, and training for a half marathon. Not that I ever put it to myself in those terms till just now - that looks ridiculous even to me. Honestly, now I can't believe I was keeping up with the New Yorker even before Zoe.

Here and now I reclaim the present day. I am opening my April 19 magazine. I am recycling the older ones, shamelessly sacrificing all of the articles, reviews, and works of short fiction contained therein. I admit it - I cannot catch up and life is too short. February and March are over. They are dead to me. I am back in the now. Give me a week and ask me what's new - I dare you!

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Zoe's Musical Beginnings

I've mentioned before that I started out on the piano by figuring out melodies. Connecting notes and trying to learn how they worked. I'm fascinated to observe that Zoe's initial approach to the instrument is totally different from mine. She sits at our new piano and plays random notes, and tells us what to feel. If she is playing slowly then the music is sad, and we should cry. When we are "crying" she either gets up and hugs us so we feel better (so awesome!) or bangs faster, to indicate that the music is now happy and we should dance. Her other piano game is accompanying herself - she plays "chords" in alternating hands while she "sings" the ABC song or Camptown Races or Sesame Street. She makes us sing along. She loves it when we clap at the end. When I was little I wanted to know how music worked. Although I make my living as a performer now, I learned about the interpersonal aspects of music later. Her immediate interest is in ...

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What I Did on My Summer Vacation

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