Not cooking lessons. That’s when someone teaches you to cook.

Cooking learnings: things you learn while you cook.

In a recipe, the word “meanwhile” causes me a little anxiety. The more meanwhiles, the more anxiety.

It’s because meanwhile means that you have to do more than one thing at a time. Get one thing started, then move on to another, but don’t forget about the first thing. Add another meanwhile, and now you have three things to monitor.

It turns out, life has a lot of meanwhiles. That’s perhaps why life can be so challenging: all the meanwhiles.

Another learning: the cleanup sometimes takes longer than the cooking.

It’s this way with a lot of creative activity. The cleanup can be extensive — and it’s just as much part of the work.

Which also means that if you’re the one cleaning up, you’re doing important work in service of creativity (even if it’s your own).