Eight Days a Week

Do you ever feel that there just aren’t enough hours in the day? It’s my current complaint. I took a remarkable workshop with jazz pianist Taylor Eigstei and have been so eager to follow his practice/ exploration suggestions. But no sooner do I sit down at the piano then I remember the 15 things on the list that are two weeks overdue. So I hack away at the e-mails like a desperate fugitive with a machete in the jungle, get the notes in and workshop titles and arrange the flights and oh, don’t forget to plan tomorrow’s five classes with the kids, especially with four Interns watching you. And speaking of workshops, don’t you have one in two days that perhaps should be planned? And don’t worry that your blog posts have been slipping, no one’s waiting with baited breath, but just maybe your inspiration is running dry? Oh, one more thing. We’re out of milk.

So no sooner did I complain last night at our men’s group gathering then I found myself awake at 5:00 am with the bad feeling—“No way I’m getting back to sleep.” Did some morning meditation and had the clever idea of sneaking in an early morning bike ride for some desperately needed exercise. But in the midst of the drought, that’s when it decided to sprinkle enough that I didn’t feel like getting wet. So I chained myself to the laptop and started hacking away, and lo and behold, cleared the e-mail path down to 0. Yeah!!! But just as I headed to the piano, the phone rang and then this came up and then that and before I knew it, it was time to rush to school.

Got there in time to sing with the 1^st and 2^nd grade, made the meeting, copied some notes, then the ever-glorious preschool singing and now the first meeting of the Thursday after-school special music group. Clean up at 5 pm (12 solid hours now), burrito dinner with my colleagues and back to school for the…well, Back to School Night for middle school parents. Waiting my turn to present in an hour and so might as well sit in the library and write this. Though a nap in the corner seems kind of tempting.

I have also known the angst of too many hours in the day and if I had to choose between them, I’m happy that my appetite is bigger than the time to eat all of the feast of my desires. But I sure would like to finish these two or three books getting moldy on the back burner and dive deeper into the 88’s and keep the body reasonably toned with bike riding and maintain the workshop schedule and keep hanging out with kids and sit and read and enjoy a few movies and cook more interesting meals than my default ones and etc and etc and yet again, etc.

So maybe the Beatles had it right— eight days a week sounds good to me. But I’m sure they’d fill up fast and I’d be longing for more. Now I wonder if I can sneak into the music room and play a little piano…