A couple of summers ago, my husband and I decided that we wanted to learn to play tennis.

To begin our journey, we and I obtained some used racquets and dead balls at a local shop and then headed down to the neighborhood courts, as far away from other humans as we could get.

Then, we started tapping the ball back and forth over the net. Trying to, anyway. The balls bounced wildly all over the court and into the net. Movements were clumsy and awkward on my part, overly aggressive and baseball-like on his. We laughed a lot.

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Recently, I got to hug some family members for the first time since January.

A combination of traveling and the good ol’ pandemic kept me away — at least a few hours away, and sometimes a thousand miles away. But finally, outdoors on a beautiful day, none of us having gone anywhere recently, it was time to embrace.

I had been so anxious about missing them and missing so much of their lives. Kids change so fast. Would they even remember me? But within moments it was as though no time had passed. Just like old times, except in masks.

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When I was a freshman in college, my vocal instructor was about to accompany me on one of the Schubert Lieder when he suddenly turned around and asked me how old I was.

“Nineteen,” I said.

"When Franz Schubert was nineteen, he’d already written a hundred songs,” said my instructor pointedly. “How many songs have you written?” He lifted an eyebrow and gave a self-satisfied smile, then commenced the tune without waiting for an answer.

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A friend of mine used to babysit for a six-year-old girl. Lacking a better plan, he plunked her in front of the TV.

Whenever a commercial for a toy would come on, she would say mournfully, “Wish I could have that…”

The tone of her voice went beyond a child’s eager materialism to a deeper, existential sorrow. The implication was, “I can never have that.” Simultaneously hilarious and tragic.

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At her first piano lesson, Sophie asked me how many instruments I play.

I thought a moment. “Hmmm…piano, guitar…ukulele…a little bit of drums…so…four?”

“I play seven instruments,” she proclaimed. She breezily counted them off on her chubby six-year-old fingers. “Drums, harmonica, shaker, tambourine, recorder, guitar, and, well, now I play the piano.”

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