I have been spending a lot of time in the car this week. Normally I think about logistics with the goal of making life easier, but I was deeply absorbed in my book editing deadline last week and just didn’t. Our nanny is on vacation and my husband has been traveling. Meanwhile, three kids are in camp. The 18-year-old can drive himself to his vocal camp but that means he isn’t available to drive the others. I wound up needing to put the 5-year-old in before care at his just so I can get the 13-year-old to hers. They are in opposite directions. I go 12 minutes toward one, drop the kid off, and go 12 minutes back. Then I go 10 minutes to the other, do drop off and go 10 minutes back. This winds up being an hour in the car. Then in the afternoons, the 13-year-old’s camp ends at 2 p.m. so the work day is chopped up. (It turns out there was a bus, but you had to sign up a month ago, and my normal carpool options…signed up for the bus.) We also still have some activities like tennis that I needed to drive to and from.
Anyway, I’m a bit grumbly about the whole thing. But one thing that has been a positive: Beethoven. I’m listening to the Complete Beethoven calendar this year, and the past week or two have had some real bangers, like the Violin Concerto in D, and then the piano version of the same piece, Symphony no. 5 and yesterday Symphony no. 6. I managed to listen to a recording of the orchestra of Radio France perform the “Pastoral” sixth symphony all the way through twice. Amazing. There is a cell dead zone on the way to the 5 year old’s camp that cuts the music out every time but I get it back soon enough. I don’t listen while the kids are in the car because I talk to them but there’s been enough time with kids not in the car that I can listen to a lot anyway.
And so it feels like not entirely wasted time. I intend to rework processes for the future for sure. But in the meantime, at least there’s some good music.