Nov. 29

I am -still- sick.  I drag myself forward nonetheless.  And outside, the world does the same- the grey hours and the brown hours and the black hours, each knocking into the next.

Nov. 28

Thanksgiving.  There are pleasures that are only available as a result suffering.  My father would have called these negative reinforcement: rewards consisting of the removal of an aversive stimulus.

I am, for good or for ill, particularly receptive to these: analgesics, rest after toil, slow recovery, sleep after sleepless nights.

Nov. 26

I wish I remembered more.

Nov. 25

Sick; job destabilizing; grieving; worried; tired.

Nov. 24

The bizarrely bitter aftertaste of hearing so many lovely tributes to my father is that I no longer feel as specifically loved; perhaps our relationship spoke more to his qualities than ours.

Nov. 23

My father's service was today.  Lots of people got up to speak and sing about my dad.  It was like looking through a kaleidoscope, fragments coalescing into a whole.  I loved catching glimpses of both the deeply known and less familiar parts of my father as refracted through the eyes of others.  I came away understanding that my dad was attentive, appreciative, and interested in seeing things as they are, and that I have inherited some measure of these qualities.

Nov. 22

It is really something to be able to make everything OK for one person, even if the okayness, and your ability to bring it about, are both poignantly temporary.

Nov. 21

Pre-dawn drive, five hours, much of it in the rain.  In retrospect I should not have unpacked.  Margaret is taking small numbers of steps- she wasn't doing this when I left her.

Nov. 20

The weirdest gig.  I wore cool shoes, which I had to borrow, because I do not own cool shoes, and played music no one has heard before or likely will, after.  Also I heard a baby use his first word.  It was "up," which is fitting.  We spend our lives wanting up.  

Nov. 19

My father would have been 77 today.

Nov. 18

More pie.  Also Lake Michigan, which never fails to remind me of the border between sleeping and waking, when everything seems grey and possible.

Nov. 17

I have been two two restaurants entirely devoted to pie within the past two months.  This is not an accident.

Nov. 16

There are whole stretches of Illinois in which all you can see is corn and sky, and all you can hear is scratchy invocations of Christ.  No time to stop; no need.

Nov. 15

There is something so apocalyptic about the day before you leave.  Your immediate future is curtailed; you know this day is all you (temporarily) have.

Nov. 14

It's so interesting to think about what people want out of lessons- which may be different from what they think they want.  Validation, accountability, a route forward, solutions, a good time, someone to listen...

Nov. 13

Remembered a friend's birthday today.  There is something so lovely about having your arrival on earth acknowledged.

Nov. 12

There is a contentment to slogging through -not misery- but low-grade, ankle-deep irritation.  It is what I have always enjoyed about working a job I do not particularly enjoy.  The hours ooze by, and, in watching their passage, you accomplish something simply by existing.

Nov. 11

Margaret had her surgery.  It reminded me of flying on an airplane- how scary and profound it is for you, how routine for the staff, that massive gulf between.  Later, it snowed.  The world is full of wonder.

Nov. 10

There is something uniquely grueling about parenting small children.  Someone is always making noise; someone is always demanding, either actively or passively, your attention.  You are hardly ever   able to be, simply, yourself, because you are so frequently having to be parent- your voice and presence targeted, crafted, designed to manipulate or soothe the small.

I never realized how much of my parents' self-presentation was a front.

Or was it?  Sometimes I think spending so much time in the theater of teaching, pre-kids, inclined me toward performing parenthood in the same way that successful teachers are, essentially, great actors.  The best teachers (and actors) mix authenticity into their theater, and maybe, so too, do the best parents.

I am tired.  There is a soupcon of authenticity for you.

Nov. 9

William's birthday party: Asteroid hunt, astronaut ice cream, four small boys madly chasing a mechanical hamster.

Nov. 8

Margaret put two words together today: Hi, Kitty.  Hi, Mama.

A memory, not from today: Holding Margaret in the living room, a few weeks ago, her small sick form limp against my chest, feeling my father's love stream through me into her.

Nov. 7

I wrestle with the fact that some students irritate me.   Not very many, usually only one at a time in any given studio configuration, but I struggle to get past it.  What is it about them, or what is it about me?  Should I rest content with my reaction, interrogate it, or try to stamp it out?

Nov. 6

Why do I hang on to the belief that people can't change?  As a musician, every day, I witness, attest to, and nurture the power of sustained practice over time.  How can I doubt that the same tools can be used to shape and cultivate our better selves?  I have been a fool.  Attentive repetition is a superpower.

Nov. 5

Six years.

Nov. 4

Margaret is full of declaratives and imperatives.  When I almost forgot her coat today at daycare, she pointed and urgently vocalized.  She can say "walk," and, almost immediately after, "home."  In that sliver of time between: "moon."

Nov. 3

Margaret grabbed her diaper and said "poop." William ticked off another day until his birthday.  I conducted four pieces about death.  David gave both of our children their weekly bath.  The tree outside church has edged past yellow, dropped its robe of leaves.

Nov. 2

Today, William walked along the curb painstakingly, exultantly, one foot in front of the other.  I had forgotten what it is to be so new in your body that its capabilities delight.

Nov. 1

How is it that the trees are still flaming?