Skip to main content

The First Whiff of Responsibility

Zoe is five, and irresponsible in the way that young kids are.  If I send her to clean her room or get dressed to go outside, there’s no way that it will get done without direct supervision.  Sometimes toothbrushing goes all right independently, and specific, fun chores like feeding the cat, when I remind her - but she’s not ready for adulthood yet. 

I woke up too early yesterday morning.  Well, I had set an extra alarm to make sure that I got up - and I got up to the wrong one, the early one.  It felt terrible. 

I had come in from teaching at a reasonable hour, but by the time Steve and I got caught up over a lovely glass of wine and by the time I had finished winding up 12 more reeds, it was late, and I was tired, and when my 6:30 alarm went off I forgot that it was the pre-alarm and I got up and headed for the kitchen, with Zoe trailing gamely behind me.

I started the kettle boiling for coffee, and then I noticed the oven clock, and realized that I could have slept a full 30 minutes longer.  I considered trying to restart, and I thought about how to fill 30 extra minutes of morning, and I thought about lots of things.  I probably could have stood there, staring blankly at the kitchen clock, until the bus came, but Zoe realized that she’d forgotten her bear in the bed, and once we were back in the bedroom nothing prevented me from just slipping ever so gently under the covers, and Zoe gamely climbed in with me.  I knew the real alarm would go off at 7, but meanwhile the bed was so soft… and so warm… and my daughter was so snuggly… and this wasn’t irresponsibility, this was just reclaiming the time that was OWED to me…

But no one had explained my sleep entitlement to my responsible child.  After a few blissful moments, just as my brain was shutting back down, I heard a tiny, worried voice from deep within my arms.

“But what about breakfast, and school?”

Fair enough, my love.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate.  You can find that  HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts.  And it's little wonder.  Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home.  The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose.  More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull.  A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inc...

The Blog has MOVED

 Have you been waiting ... and waiting ... and WAITING for a new Prone Oboe post?  Don't wait here anymore!  The blog has moved to https://jennetingle.com/prone-oboe/  and will not be updated here on Blogger anymore.  Please come and check me out there!  I love you all - stay safe out there!  Jennet

How Do You WISH You Could Describe Your Reeds?

In Reed Club last Monday, we took a moment before we started scraping to set some intentions.  We each said one word - an adjective to describe what we WANTED our reeds to be.  An aspirational adjective. Efficient was a word that came up, and Consistent . Dark and Mysterious . Mellow . Predictable .  Trustworthy .  Honest .  BIGGER . Reed affirmations actually felt helpful - both in the moment and in the results we found as we worked.  I don't know why that surprises me - I set intentions at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the month, at the beginning of a run, in the morning before I work.  I love a good affirmation.  I love WORDS.  But I'd sort of forgotten about the possibility of applying one to the mundane work of reed-making.   You don't have to know exactly how to GET to that result.  But having clarity in your mind about what that result is?  Helps you to stop going down unhelpful rabbit holes...