Author and Parenting Blog Writer Kara Zajac on chasing after Life, Love, and the pursuit of Happiness...

What could be better than a nightstand caddy that holds your cup, your page, your phone, and your glasses?

I thought watching the scary show before bed was the culprit to my sleep disturbance. Come to find out, a bug was crawling through my hair!

If I had only been thirty seconds faster I would have beat that white BMW to the Dunkin' Donuts drive thru window. This was taking forever, like a full five minutes. What was she ordering, anyway? I wasn't necessarily in a hurry, but was completely starved, feeling like in another minute I could take a bite out of the steering wheel. When I finally pulled up to the window, I tried handing the drive-thru attendant my five dollar bill as I grabbed my order with my free hand. The smell of the sugary coffee wafted into my car on this cold, windy day. "Oh, the lady in front of you paid for your order," the attendant said, refusing my money. "She did?" I said, stunned at the thoughtfulness of a complete stranger. "Paying it forward, eh? I guess I'll get the tab of the person behind me." Just then I glanced over at the bright red digital numbers next to the open window. $16.85? Mine was going to be less than $3.00. I considered changing my mind, then thought better of it and rustled through my wallet for a twenty dollar bill. The light at the intersection was red and I had my egg and cheese wrap almost devoured when a car pulled up in the lane next to me. I was fiddling with the radio, trying to resume playing the audio book I had been listening to, when out of the corner of my eye I saw the driver to my right waving her arms. When I looked at her, I noticed she looked haggard and exhausted as she rolled down her window to talk to me. I rolled mine down as well, wondering what she could possibly want to talk about at an intersection.

Twelve years ago, when Kim and I were still in the planning phase of having a baby, I imagined our volleyball court sized front yard, then mostly hardened patches of red clay with a few sparse clumps of weeds, as a grassy area for our future child to play. After years of sodding, seeding, and now even hydro-seeding, we actually have a plush little patch of green that, even with my best efforts, still gets overrun with weeds. Fast forward a little over a decade. We are in week seven of social distancing and solitary confinement, which may as well be house arrest, trying to slow the spread of the pandemic Coronavirus. For a month and a half we have been assisting the public school teachers with home schooling our ten-year-old daughter, now in the fourth grade, as she longs to be with her friends and we long for life to get back to normal. The tight confinement has caused us all to re-evaluate our appreciation of togetherness and become acutely aware of just how much togetherness causes us to go stir crazy and argue more than normal. Two Saturdays ago, Kim and I dropped Senia Mae off at Grammy and Grampy's house for a little social distancing of our own. We all needed some time apart and some fresh perspectives. I needed a change of scenery and a break from my new normal which included two things: binge watching Netflix and rebuilding the rotten side deck with Trex decking. Before we pulled out of their driveway we had the top down on the convertible and Randy Travis swooned and crooned with his velvety voice bellowing out over the open road. As we cruised up 441, the wind blew through our hair, secretly cleansing our hearts and minds of this Corona craziness. We didn't do a whole lot of talking during the drive, but being together in a more invigorating environment seemed to remind us of what we actually liked about each other. It was almost like hitting the refresh button on our relationship, an innate form of marriage counseling when nothing else was a viable option during the crisis. Today, after what feels like many weeks later, Senia Mae is finally done with her online schooling. They are allowing the students to finish the year early if they have completed all of their assignments and Kim rewarded our daughter with a new set of Legos for receiving all A's. Senia Mae begged me to help her put together bags three and four of the Lego set, and although I had several things to do on my task list, I felt I hadn't spent much quality time with her lately besides nagging her to get schoolwork done. I plunked down at the dining room table toting my reading glasses and a hot cup of coffee, ready and rearing to go. After an hour or so of me picking the microscopic pieces out of the pile and her doing the fun part of putting it together, she was deeply engaged in assembling a glow in the dark claw bridge. I quietly pushed my chair away from the table and snuck outside to look over the new patio set I ordered myself as a prize for finally finishing up the deck.

The dinging of my phone woke me from my only deep sleep I was getting that night. I shifted in bed feeling the pulling ache in my hips. The tightness in my shoulders reminded me of my age and questioning why I thought those acrobatic moves earlier, trying to tighten the lag on the Edison lights from the twelve foot light post in my driveway, were a smart idea. Who's sending me a text message this late? I thought to myself. If it's after 11 p.m. I automatically shift into mom mode and assume someone must be dead or severely injured. It was my niece Savannah. Savannah: Are you guys free to go to home depot around 2 tomorrow? I am selling my electric piano on let it go and am meeting someone I don't know in public. Don't want to be alone just in case Me: Yes, that's fine. To be honest I was thrilled to have an excuse to escape the Shelter in Place order. I mean I want to be a good citizen and keep COVID-19 at bay but, being forced to stay at home is rough. The weather has been sunny and 80 degrees, meeting Savannah would be the perfect reason to take a joyride in my Mini convertible. What better way to ward off a nasty virus than immune boosting sunlight and fresh air? The next day I looked at my watch just as we had crossed the third task off our "We've got time now that we're stuck at home" chore list. It was time for me to meet Savannah. I was glad she was being smart and having someone else present for the transaction. I circled the parking lot twice and didn't see Savannah's blue Nissan, which was really fine because the longer this took the longer my freedom. Then decided I should be a responsible aunt and text her. Me: Where you at? Savannah: Oh I just pulled in to the back of parking lot by car wash. I see you driving towards me... lol. Savannah had her window down as I pulled in opposite her so our driver's doors were facing each other. "Thanks for meeting me," she said. "No problem. It feels good to be getting out of the house and it is very responsible of you to have someone else here. Are they here yet?" "No. He said he should be here in a couple of minutes." Within a minute a white Toyota Camry pulled up to us. "Are you Savannah?" the man, probably in his mid-forties shouted out the window at me. I shook my head no and pointed to the left where Savannah was stepping out of her car. He was buying the piano for his son who was probably fourteen or so. They had brought an extension cord and an adapter that turned the cigarette lighter into an outlet so they could make sure the piano worked. Before we knew it Savannah and John (the dad) had the electric piano set up, they had wiped the whole thing down with Clorox wipes, and the son just sat down and began playing. I was leaning against the light post, watching this boys fingers move so beautifully across the keys, right here in the middle of a once busy but now that we're on restrictions no so busy parking lot. "How great is this?" I asked. "That we can't be within six feet of each other because of this crazy virus, but we can stand here in the sunshine and enjoy a lovely concert in the parking lot." The boy laughed and continued to play the Coldplay song he was hammering out. "You know if you put out a tip jar I bet every person walking into that store would start throwing money at you. You could probably pay for this piano." I smiled and continued to watch him, they way he was so comfortable on the bench, his playing seemingly effortless. "Do you take any requests?" He laughed again. "I'm just learning," he said. "There's a song that came out around the same time Coldplay came out...probably fifteen years ago, by a band named Keane. The song is Everything's Changing and I don't Feel the Same. It's got a real cool piano riff and come to think of it... that might be the most appropriate song amidst all of this COVID craziness." I'm not really sure if he understood what I was saying. The fact that we're so isolated from each other that the way we connect is by playing an electric piano in a parking lot is... strange. Everything's Changing and I Don't Feel the Same. How appropriate. Everything is changing but some things that don't have to change is our humanness or our need for connection in whatever way we can get it, especially during this stressful time. So I would like to thank my niece Savannah for getting me out and I would like to thank that young boy for playing such wonderful music in the middle of a parking lot and letting me enjoy something so simple while allowing me to forget, just for a moment, what a crazy world we live in.

Howard Jones belts out the words of New Song on XM channel 33, First Wave classic alternative. The awesome synthesizer melody plays as I turn onto Highway 400 in my mom car but my mind remembers riding my three speed purple Schwinn up and down California Road, butt always hovering a foot higher than the hard, cracked banana seat. I'm messy haired and gangly dressed in my cousin's hand me down Jordache jeans rolled up at the leg because she was so much taller. That girl that is me belts out Don't Crack up, Bend Your Brain, See Both Sides, Throw Off Your Mental Chains as the wind blows through her hair. It's funny how one song can toss you back thirty five years in a blink. I remember trying to learn that riff on my sister's Casio, wishing it had just one more octave so I could reach the highs, frustrated that Santa always chose to leave her instruments under the tree even though I was the musical one. Even with that frustration I can hear the message in those lyrics Don't Crack up, Bend Your Brain, See Both Sides, Throw Off Your Mental Chains and with those words of wisdom everything seems right in the world. Are those words better than any self help book I've ever read? Maybe. Music has always helped me escape and unwind, what is your escape? I'd love to hear.

It was Christmas 1977, the middle of a decade that flourished on the mindset that bigger is definitely better. The world cried as they watched the funeral of their larger than life icon, Elvis Presley. Gram's Chevrolet Caprice came standard with a 454 engine and a back seat the size of a double bed. My enormous but stylish bell bottoms got stuck in my bicycle chain daily until I learned how to keep them contained with rubber bands around my ankles. Yep, we were living large for sure. That year I asked Santa for a small palm-sized television so I could watch my favorite cartoons on the bus as I rode to school. My creative little mind yearned for the exact opposite of everything gigantic in the 70s. Little did I know back then. The jolly, white bearded man turned towards me with an extremely serious expression, as if I were insane for even considering that a small, TV-like device could ever be possible. I thought elves could make anything. Santa was courteous enough to leave me a note on the chalkboard that read, "In the North Pole we just don't have the resources," but hoped I would be satisfied with him leaving the family a present... our first color television. I was thrilled.