Fall is here, and it feels like a big deal for a few reasons, all of which revolve around the school year. Having my children back at school has never felt like a more important landmark for me. After quitting my job, I decided early in summer that summer was going to be the season of play, of being a kid, of abandoning as many responsibilities as possible and doing my best to see life through my children’s eyes. Now, though, that time is over. There is a concrete change to the structure of our week – from 8am-2pm every day, the kids are away. As fun as this summer was, I am ready for this change. I am looking forward to having this block of six hours every day to move into this next season of sabbatical. I’m feeling very clear and comfortable with this change; I’m not sitting here wishing we had just a few more weeks of summer (like I have in many other years). We did a lot. We lived a full season. If summer was the season of “being a 4 and 6 year old kid,” then my intention for fall is that it will be the season of, say, high school. That age where you start to get a sense of what in the world is interesting to you and what things bore you. The time where you pick a sport or an instrument and you practice it, lots, mostly because you just really enjoy it. That’s the energy I want to tap into this season. I want to allow myself to pick a few activities or hobbies that I enjoy, regardless of their practicality and regardless of my skill level, dedicate myself to the practice of them, and see where it leads. That is the energy I hope to carry through the fall. 

FIRSTS ARE POTENT

After I dropped my kids off for the first day of school, I came home, changed my clothes, and immediately went for a run. The night prior, when I wrote down a list of things I wanted to do with my week, “going for a run” was the very first thing I wrote down. I have found in life that firsts are extremely important and telling. Whenever a question is asked, whether I’m asking myself the question, someone is asking me a question, or I am asking a question of someone else, the very first thing that is said is almost always the most potent, the most important takeaway, regardless of whatever comes after that first thought.

For example, I might ask my foodie friend for a recommendation of a new restaurant I could try out. They might reply, “I really love Bar La Grassa, and also Martina. Ooh, and Spoon and Stable is quite nice.” There’s a reason they said Bar La Grassa first. I don’t care exactly what the reason is (although it’s probably because of their Charred Red Onion with Goat Cheese Bruschetta), I just know there is a reason that one was top of mind, and that’s good enough for me to know that recommendation is the most potent, most juicy, and everything else after that was just filler. Of course, there are exceptions to this principle, when deeper thought on a question does reveal a keener insight that may not have been uncovered at first glance, but for the most part, when I notice myself or others mentioning a list of things, I always pay special attention to the first thing on the list. 

GIVE AND RECEIVE

One day this week I helped my neighbor with a project. He is building a treehouse at the back of his property where the yard meets the woods, which is quite clearly a job more easily done by two than by one. I was happy to help him out as a friendly neighborly gesture without any expectation of a return favor. As we started getting set up for the work, he mentioned to me that he had read my latest blog post. Not only had he read it, but there was something specific in it that he could relate to in his own experience as a parent. (It was in this post where I contemplated about what my child is really trying to say at certain moments, but they don’t always have the mastery of the language or the emotional skills to voice what they really mean.) His mentioning this to me cost him nothing, but I received it as a huge gift. Not only did it feel good that some other human actually was interested in enough in the hodgepodge of words I’d put together to take time out of their day to read what I’d written, but also that something I wrote actually resonated with someone else. Dare I say made even the slightest positive difference in his life? What a great feeling that was!

It made me consider two things:

1) How much does this feeling get amplified for professional authors, teachers, podcasters, or talk givers, when their messages and insights improve the lives of thousands or even millions of people?!

2) Noticing how good this made me feel, I want to carry forward the practice of voicing my admiration, my noticing, my appreciation of others’ thoughts, words, and actions. It costs me very little and the reward for the other is great! 

THE HUMBLEST OF BEGINNINGS 

When I was younger, I was really into playing music. First piano, then saxophone. I was pretty good. Jazz improvisation came naturally to me. I chose to spend hours in the practice room with a friend, a guitar player, and we would accompany each other (me on tenor sax and him on guitar) playing through jazz standards, fake books, whatever was around the music room in high school. We’d have jam sessions in our other friend’s basement; he was the drummer, of course. After high school, I chose to pursue a practical degree in business, but even still as a Marketing and Entrepreneurship double major, I played in the jazz band at the University of Minnesota my Freshman year. After that, though, I quit. I quit playing music. I was wrapped up in navigating the puzzle of college, of how I could cruise through four years of university with two business degrees as efficiently as possible. Jazz band was a lot of time and only earned me one credit. So I put it aside in pursuit of business. (And parties.)

As my life continued, the distance from the time I’d last played music widened. I still enjoyed listening to music (this was the age when P2P servers like Napster and LimeWire were in their prime!), and I loved going to see live shows (one of my college roommates was the drummer in the band Quietdrive). But I never played. I watched with admiration as my friend, the drummer who hosted our high school jam sessions, continued his pursuit of music, moved to L.A., formed bands, created his own music studio, engineered incredible tracks, and crafted a sustainable life in the music industry. (Shoutout to Sam Brawner, Raquel Rodriguez, and Blue Dream Studios. Watch and listen to them perform one of my favorite songs live in their studio: Mile High.) I sometimes wondered, fantasized what my life would have been like had I, at the crossroads of deciding what to pursue in college, chosen music over business. But as happens with so many of us that practice some art when we’re young, the ideas of practicality, of finances, of the “real world” creep in and overtake the artistic side.

It has been a long-standing idea of mine to record my own music. Not to become the next Jon Batiste, not to go on world tours, just to have a setup at my house where I could mess around with music. A musical playground, if you will. I never made the time to make this happen while I was in the working world.

This week, the time finally came. I transformed idea into reality; I set up the ability to record audio in my house. The configuration is beyond basic, but I at least now have the ability to record a microphone, a keyboard, and a guitar into a computer and start playing around with music and sound. As I fired up GarageBand and started tinkering with my first sounds, I felt so giddy I was cackling to myself, having uncontrollable belly laughs, by myself, in my basement. The “music” I was making was complete unskilled trash, but that didn’t matter. The product didn’t matter. I had built a playground for myself, and it felt so damn good to play. 

The most basic music studio in the history of music studios

INSPIRATION ON A DRIVEWAY

On the weekend, my family went over to my friend’s house for his daughter’s fifth birthday. While the kids were busy zooming around their backyard and basement, I took a moment to step into their front yard, free from kids, with another friend of mine. While we know each other pretty well, we are both better friends with the host of the party. In other words, we are friends through the host. He and I got to chatting about the state of the world and of our lives, and I quickly realized he and I share a lot of the same values and views. We got to talking about hiking and camping, and boom! I was hit with a wave of inspiration to see if we could squeak in a camping trip before the temperatures got too cold. But rather than let this idea slip by, like so many ideas of fun activities can do (because they take a certain amount of planning, organization, and effort), I did not leave that birthday party until we had picked a tentative date that appeared to work on each of our calendars. I don’t know if this plan will hold, but I’m excited at the prospect, and I’m sure glad I took a minute to sneak away from the bounce-house to have an actual adult conversation at this otherwise sugar-induced crazy-fest! 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

As I woke up my youngest on the first day of school, a full two hours earlier than her body had grown accustomed to waking up in the summer on its own clock, she started to rise and sleepily, and somewhat grouchily, told me, “Daddy, I didn’t want to have any mornings this year.” 

 

Oh! And my kids made their own bruschetta with basil and tomatoes from our garden, as well as strawberries, balsamic vinegar, mozzarella cheese, and sourdough bread, hence the featured image on this week’s post. I absolutely love giving them very small portions of chopped up ingredients and then just sitting back and watching as they create their own meals.