Feeling like an out of tune piano

Last week, my friend Ruth, who has been giving the kids piano lessons, came over to tune our piano. Our living room and the kitchen are essentially one long room, so while Ruth wrestled with our ornery piano’s strings, I canned tomatoes. The kids ran in and out as we chatted about this and that, the last heat of the year pouring in through the open windows. Before too long our chat had taken a…