If things were normal, I would be in Chicago right now, at the annual Music Teachers National Association conference.

I don’t attend every year, but this one I had been particularly looking forward to. I signed up in November, sent my check, booked the hotel room, and after much research decided to book a dormette on Amtrak, mostly so I could take a nap with some privacy. I have never been on a train here in the States and was getting excited about this new adventure.

Because I didn’t have a computer bag – something sturdy, protective, and large enough to hold everything I could possibly need for a day at the conference -, I spent hours on Amazon, looking, measuring, weighing (some of them are surprisingly heavy …), reading reviews, and finally found one that I thought was perfect. It arrived and it is, in fact, perfect. I like everything about it: the sturdiness, the color, how it feels, how it carries, how immensely stable it is: at the moment I have three 1/2 inch binders and several thicker piano books in it and it refuses to wobble even the least bit.

Not being able to be at the conference and meeting people I usually see only at the conference, and attending presentations I had been looking forward to – that was very disappointing.  There are now plans to do things digitally, remotely, electronically, and I am grateful that I will most likely get to – somehow – see at least some of the presentations after all.

It is perhaps a sign of these weird and unsure times, this new world that is anything but brave, that I found myself feeling unreasonably (?) crushed that I wouldn’t get to use my new computer bag. – Like buying a new car, THE perfect car, and then for whatever reason not being able to drive it.

A few days ago, I decided to use the bag anyway: in the studio, next to my desk where it now holds my most frequently used books and materials.

And someday, I hope to use it for real, out in the world again. A brave new world.