My Week in Lake Wobegon

Sometimes we live life and sometimes we just fill out the paperwork. The latter well describes this week back home. Preparing my taxes, my Asian invoices, my Ghana Visa application, buying my flight to Portland for the end-of-the-month grandkids’ visit. All of it necessary, but none of it fun. 

 

I remember my Peter Pan childhood watching my Dad pay bills at the dining room table and hoping that I could live in Never-Never Land forever and Never have to do that! Having made my living sitting on the floor playing games with kids,  I’m quite happy that a bit of Peter Pan has lived inside me for over seven decades. But I’m equally clear that as bodies grow toward adulthood, minds and hearts must as well. The mind that plans, organizes, looks ahead, imagines consequences, makes informed choices, prepares and dreams ahead of time the moments when one will feel wholly present is the territory of the adult and has its own pleasures. Not necessarily while filling out the paperwork, but when arriving where it leads you.  

 

So it hasn’t exactly been a memorable week to write about. And yet here I am, trying to see if there’s anything worthy of reflection. I could mention my return to the Jewish Home, a new resident who knew every song I played and beamed with delight as she recognized each. Another new resident who started to sing along with a soulful jazz style and my disappointment to learn she was only there for short-term rehab! But we exchanged phone numbers and perhaps she’ll come again next week. 

 

I walked in my beloved park, got on my bike again, loved cooking in my kitchen (with its newly painted blue walls) after three weeks of restaurants, enjoyed shopping for groceries and hooked into a new nighttime TV Series that really has me hooked (This Is Us on Netflix). Had a short reunion with daughter Talia, who is now on Spring Break in Belize with boyfriend Matt and his family, a place Karen and I visited in 1975! Then of course, the deep pleasure of returning to Bach on my piano and the calisthenics of getting back in shape with his Inventions, French Suites, Partitas, Preludes and Fugues. And always finishing off with some jazz and keeping that part of my musicality at least alive, if not well. 

 

So yes, it’s been a quiet week in my San Francisco Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, the men trying their best and the children mostly delightful. (These the people I know, not the ones in the news!) Off to a concert tonight that promises to feed my faith in the extraordinary accomplishments of some human beings— in this case Bela Fleck, Edmar Castañeda and Antonio Sanchez. Stay tuned for the review!