There was a time when I made my life as complex and complicated as possible. It was called youth. Unintentionally inviting all the drama and all the mayhem and thinking that was what made life exciting and rich, I courted chaos and adventure. That’s what most of us do in our 20’s, admitted or not. Looking back, I see how ill-fitting much of it was, but I thought that’s what we were supposed to be doing, and just another way to fill the days (and nights) while waiting for real life to begin. 

So it was with gratitude and pride that I listened to my niece Emi describe our home in the following fashion last summer: “You live a simple life.” 

Taken out of context and at face value, it might sound like a bit of an insult, but it wasn’t intended that way, and it certainly wasn’t interpreted that way. I knew exactly what she was saying, even without her clarifying that she meant everything seemed to happen very easily and without yelling or commotion or jumping through hoops. 

On the surface, she is correct. Compared with other homes (particularly those with children) ours must seem quiet and simple and relatively calm. When we have the twins over, Andy and I have usually cleared our schedule so there is no rushing to or from work, no chaotic scrambling to run errands or get tasks done. There are no chores or homework or school schedules to accommodate. To Emi, it must seem like a simple life, and it was designed to be that way. 

That design, however, took decades to fully realize and accomplish, and it was as much about the interior of the soul as it was about the outside manifestation of our home. In my youth, I wanted to have everything instantly set up and organized and settled, which ended up yielding the exact opposite in my frantic and desperate search for a relationship and other stereotypical signifiers of happiness and success. Even after that foolishness subsided, I still sought out drama and excitement, funneling them into my creative projects and public displays of ostentatious delight. That lasted for many years, and yet for all the fun we had my heart was seeking what it had been seeking since I was a child: stillness and quiet and calm. 

I’m still not even close to achieving that, and knowing and understanding that the end result is no longer the goal but the process, is actually closer to the happy ending itself. And so when Emi and Noah visit, we seem to lead a simple life because we’ve already gone through the madness and maelstrom of figuring that out. The rest is just play and fun, which leads to its own adventures and excitement, one of those neat tricks of the universe when you finally learn to stop and listen instead of being seen and heard. 

Here we are, already at the mid-point of April and almost done with the first month of spring. After a slow start (because all springs feel like they start slow) we suddenly went bounding straight into summer weather with the last few days of 80-degree glory. Looks like next week returns to some rain and gloom, more in tune with typical April weather, and a way to slow down the hyper-speed bursts of growth and bloom that are now in danger of being obliterated should a late-season storm wreak havoc before the frost-free promised land of May arrives. Spring is perilous that way – it dares to defy, and sometimes the dares end in disaster. Only summer can rescue some of those mistakes.

This is a magical time, especially the nights. The world is coming alive again. 

We tease a fair amount of gratuitous male nudity here, and several naked male celebrities, as well as shirtless male celebrities, and we have our own standard ‘Male Nudity‘ clause of sorts (we are completely behind it). Today’s post bucks those patterns a bit, as the first swim of the season is documented, and the only nakedness is that of the trees and gardens. 

As I swam through the warm water (Andy went on a heating binge and fired the water up to a toasty 85 degrees, to match the weather a couple of days ago) I marveled at how bare and stark the surroundings felt. Accustomed to the lush and verdant foliage that typically backs the views from the pool, I was struck by how different it looked this early in the season. 

The trees were just beginning to leaf out, tentatively sprouting a bit of bright green, and still shy from the winter, and the spring nights that can still plummet. The weeping larch was the furthest along, with its Zone 2 hardiness throwing caution to the April wind. Spring charges toward summer, and suddenly I want it all to slow down. 

When I was studying the oboe, I had a very good teacher. In our first lesson I don’t think I played a note – she had me feel and understand my breathing in a way that would inform my entire life. She taught me the importance of breathing into my stomach and making full use of my lungs, as well as how to relax into that breathing (it look most of that lesson because my entire body and mind were so decidedly and determinedly NOT relaxed). She also taught me all aspects of oboe-playing, including that infamous task that only the truest players dare to attempt: reed-making.

Unlike the clarinet or saxophone, the oboe is a double-reed instrument, meaning it uses two pieces of reed bound together through which the vibrations are made to produce the slightly nasal-like and unmistakable voice of the oboe. Making the oboe reed is an exercise in patience, determination, skill and a bit of luck. As a teenager, I didn’t come naturally by these traits, and so it was that reed-making became one very important lesson for me.

As I stood beside my teacher at the first few lessons, we worked on the basics, which were more or less getting me out of the infantile training I’d received in 5th grade band class at McNulty school. The plastic oboe and pre-manufactured reeds I’d been using there were a joke at every other place where remotely-decent music was being learned and played, and as I realized how unprepared for the rest of the world I was, she began guiding me and showing me how to improve. 

On the high-backed knob of one of her chairs, a mass of colorful strings was tied, and it caught my eye before anything else. I would come to understand that those were reed strings – each one a sign that a reed had been made, or attempted – each one a testament to time and trial and occasional triumph. Reed-making was an infuriating process that took much to merely approximate mastery of the craft, but I did my best. 

My teacher taught me how to soak and cut the raw cane pieces (ordered from France, where the best cane originated apparently), then how to coat the thread in beeswax before binding the cane together and attaching it to the cork-bottomed ‘staple’, and finally carving it into playable form with a carefully-sharpened knife. If it sounds like there is much room for error, there absolutely is, and for a once-perfectionist like myself, failing at over half of my attempts was soul-crushing at first. 

Eventually, I got the hang of it, and could pound out a few reeds in a single sitting. My collection of thread grew, so that soon I had my own mass of colorful strings tied to a chair, pointing to the lessons I was learning. Later, I would discover that perfectly decent and passable reeds could be purchased already-made, but by then I’d come to appreciate the work and time and effort that went into making your own. It was an appreciation of craft that my teacher instilled in me early on, and it’s something that has stayed with me. It formed a way of acknowledging and savoring those moments when so much work and so many details went into a work of art, such as an oboe concerto, and made me pause in gratitude.