In Praise of Lying Fallow

A surprising number of my anxieties and guilts seem to trace back to an intense dislike of waste in any form. Probably the harshest form of waste though, is sand’s one way trek through the hourglass, and I wonder if the concept of lying fallow doesn’t offer some reprieve. So one of the things about having three kids doing Suzuki music lessons at the same time is that in a given week only one of them ever seems to be “making progress,” that is stretching their abilities, doing new things, acquiring new skills. I had been feeling guilty about this, that perhaps it was my own limitation that I could focus on the progress of one child, consigning his brothers to “maintenance practicing.” I tried to explain my idea of...

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