M AY B E YO U C A N ’ T I D E N T I F Y W I T H H E R F O N D N E S S F O R E A R LY M O R N I N G S . B U T T H I S S C H O O L A D M I N I S T R AT O R ’ S OUTLO OK C AN TE ACH BUSY WOMEN A FE W THINGS.
MELINDA TSAPATSARIS, 40
HIGHER POWER
• Assistant head of school at the Wildwood School, in Los Angeles • Married to Andy Powell, with three children, Dot, 6; Theo, 4; and Ephy, 1½ • Los Angeles
“Prayer is an important way I start the day to say thank you, set intentions, and express any worries.”
MELINDA’S THOUGHTS ON LIFE BALANCE (OR LACK THEREOF)
6:30 A.M. “I’m up by 5 A.M. I freakishly love mornings. I’m at my best and brightest, and it’s when I like to play with the kids. It grounds us before we head out and go our separate ways.”
10:15 A.M. “Between the students’ classes, I chat with Nnenna, a fifth grader, about our upcoming GardenPalooza event. She’s full of ideas and excited to make it our best one yet.”
11:05 A.M. “Once a week, I meet with Landis Green, the head of the school. We discuss a lot of big-picture ideas, as well as how best to handle the day-to-day type of problem-solving.”
1:45 P.M. “Part of my job is classroom observations, like with this 11th-grade music class. Sometimes I feel compelled to join in. Never mind that I can play only three chords on the guitar.”
4:20 P.M. “After work, I do a yoga class with Jay Co at Yogaraj.
6:05 P.M. “Theo’s preschool friends and their mom, Sabrina, come over for dinner. Her husband is traveling for work, so I said, ‘Come over—joint chaos is better than solitary chaos.’ ”
No.1
“I’ve stopped buying into the trap that everyone has it more together than I do.” No.2
“Someone once told me, ‘The healthiest families are a third of the time in harmony, a third of the time in conflict, and a third of the time in repair.’ That felt real to me.” No. 3
“On a day-to-day basis, work-life balance will always be lopsided. I’d rather look back on a year and say, ‘That felt balanced.’ It’s a more forgiving perspective.” When I was pregnant with Dot, I went six times a week. Once I had kids, I stopped. My goal is to go one to three times a week.”
Photographs by Pascal Shirley
AUGUST 2016
202
REALSIMPLE.COM
ALL IN A DAY’S WORK
“I’m either alone on my laptop, involved in committee meetings, or in the classroom.”
