tonight's question — what would you begin

At the table — if tomorrow had one extra hour in it, only for you, what would you begin?

Begin, mind. Not finish, not improve, not revise for. The question is aimed at appetite, and it works best taken lightly, the way you would ask about a dream.

Expect surprises. The child you have enrolled in three classes may want to begin something no class exists for — inventing a country, taming the pigeons, learning to whistle through fingers. Receive it all with interest and without machinery. The fastest way to flatten this question is to turn an answer into a Saturday enrolment by Friday.

Answer it yourself, truthfully. "I would begin learning the harmonium, like my mother played" is a sentence your children will remember long after they have forgotten your instructions — because it tells them beginnings do not expire with age.

Nothing is to be done about any of the answers. That is not this question's failure; it is its design. Appetite, spoken aloud at a table, has a way of scheduling itself.