I’ll make this one short because we got a 23 hour day yesterday, and I was already behind, even without Daylight Savings Time. (BTW, don’t miss what Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, and Christopher Lloyd have to offer on that topic. Also, The Adam Project is great fun to watch.)

In 10 (TEN) years of writing, this blog has been a place to experiment, work through ideas, and practice different types of writing. I’ve offered weekly menus, thoughts on parenting, random thoughts about the world in general, suggestions for art projects, more weekly menus, monthly digests with reading recommendations, and a printable coloring sheet or workbook here and there.

There have been stretches of daily posts and long periods with only very occasional posts. Sometimes that interruption in regular posting has been connected to dramatic world events and the relative (in mind) insignificance of “the beauty of an ordinary life.” (More on that theme another day.) The inconsistent posting schedule has most often been connected to the ebbs and flows of my work life, since this blog has always been a personal project (a lark).

Over the past five years, though, the invisible line separating my work-work from my personal projects has faded. While the pandemic may have blurred that line for everyone, my tenure at Kindred Place has given me a deeper perspective for the essential truth behind that blurring: Work-life and personal life were never two separate, isolated experiences, even before COVID upended everything.

Though that truth looks different across the spectrum of single people, partners, parents, and multi-generational families living together, the essence of it is the same. For any of us, whatever happens at home comes along to work every day — even if “work” is just in the next room. Likewise, whatever happens at work comes back home.

Earlier this year, as I spent time reflecting on my personal and professional “lives,” mapping goals for the future, I saw a convergence that has probably always been there, but I hadn’t seen it clearly before now. The common thread? Teaching. Writing about teaching. Teaching what I know. Learning skills to improve how I will teach/coach what I know. Providing teaching tips and visuals — for creativity, for cooking, for relationships, for things that add beauty, sparkle, or fullness to ordinary life.

If you’ve followed along here for a while, then you’ll likely remember that teaching is where I began my career, 30 years ago. One of the older, wiser teachers at that school had a bit of parting advice for me when I left: Go learn from the world, explore different careers, build an interesting life, and then come back to teaching when you’re ready.

So, that’s the teaser for what’s ahead. Vague, I know, but it’s the start. To borrow from the proverb: The best day to start was long ago. The second best day is today.

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Post Script: May Light Perpetual Shine on Them

I have a new coping mechanism: puttering late at night with digital image-making. That practice is the right combination of skill-building and creativity, for me, to blunt the free-floating anxiety associated with the world in general and Ukraine in particular. I don’t post most of these images anywhere; they’re just for me. In recent weeks, I’ve played with blue and yellow images — silly, I know, but there is, in truth, not one damned thing I can do to affect the war in Ukraine other than pray while I putter with my version of worry beads.

As I’ve been tidying up this post to publish this morning, I saw a news flash that the woman and her child who were evacuated from the maternity hospital have died. This is the image I made the night the hospital was bombed. May light perpetual shine on all who have died in this foolish war, and may peace prevail on earth.