Life these days is a jigsaw puzzle.

My very favorite conversation begins with the question, “So, what are you reading these days?”

Max does not like to miss piano lessons.

Like many Americans, I find myself thinking about anniversaries these days.

“We should remember that sorrow does produce flowers of its own. It is a misunderstanding always to look for joy.”

“I think I’m bored,” I confessed to a friend last week.

To paraphrase a popular musical, “Can we get back to real life, please, yo?”*

It was the first piano lesson of 2021, and Alex and I were discussing his new scale variations.

In so many ways, it’s been a perfect holiday.

Barn’s burnt down—

now

I can see the moon.

 -Mizuta Masahide

Year ago, my mother gave us a small hand-carved nativity set.

It is probably quite telling that when the news broke about Biden’s victory, I was talking about compost.

Yesterday morning I was out walking and talking to a friend who lives in Denver. Suddenly cars started honking everywhere.

Try to praise the mutilated world.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

-Mother Teresa

I have never thought it was a good idea to put up a political sign in our front yard.

Clearly, someone is laughing at our 21st century arrogance.

Bill Bryson’s memoir, A Walk in the Woods, is about hiking the Appalachian Trail with his childhood friend Katz.

A million years and at least ten lifetimes ago, when the world went into shutdown and schools went online, teachers trying to negotiate this strange new reality were told “the most important thing is to connect with your students.”

“Every piano lesson starts with hand sanitizer and ‘What’s new?’” a young precocious student once told her mother in an innocent world Before Coronavirus.