I was listening to Nils Frahm’s album Felt while washing dishes when I was overcome by the most powerful sadness.

It was a good day. The whole family was together, shopping for ski season and checking out books from the library; I picked up Outside magazine’s special life-hacking issue “127 Strategies for Living Bravely.” We ate prawns, seasonal vegetables, and locally made pasta with our favorite cheap red wine, Protocolo.

But Nils Frahm always sends my thoughts down a rabbit hole, and the music was so achingly beautiful it set me to yearning, once again, that I too could make something exquisite to add to the collection of extraordinary things that brighten this world. Frahm conjured all my dreams of a life of art and ideas; images of traveling the world, not just to see what I could see, but with something precious to share as I discovered each wondrous new place. I had to fight not to be a clichéd housewife crying over the dinner dishes.

Then I remembered the phone conversation with my mom earlier in the day. Read More