Living Well

  • Work

    I have been sick for about a month with an upper respiratory illness that has affected how I hear, sing, and breathe, and it’s been hard to do those things in my work as a preschool music teacher, but mostly, I’ve managed. Yesterday, I had to call in sick for the first time in forever,…

  • Obituary

    My Dad and his brother Franny are part of a generation, or maybe just a neighborhood, that is all about honor. Doing the right thing when no one is watching and paying respect are lost arts these days, but it’s part of how they grew up in South Boston in the 1950s and ’60s. It’s…

  • Mystery

    A mysterious thing happened today. Absolutely wrecked by a hacking case of bronchitis, I sang through an entire funeral Mass for a gathered group of family and friends. I didn’t want my illness to draw attention from what the bereaved were there to do, and so before I began, I just asked God to sing…

  • Connect

    I’ve been thinking about the idea of connection, how we are designed ideally to fit together with one another to build something better, like a great big community of legos. A friend of mine recently said that this time in life is about finding your people. Obviously, everyone is not for everyone and we are…

  • Broken

    “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway I love this quote. Hemingway places two words together which many wouldn’t expect but which absolutely belong: broken and strong. I look around and see how people struggle, I see my own struggles, and it’s crystal clear to me that we…

  • Bridge

        I was reading about a new suspension bridge that recently opened in China. Called ‘Brave Man’s Bridge’, it is made of ¾ inch glass on a steel frame, is 984 feet long and is just under 55 stories high. It’s suspended across a chasm. Originally intended as a wooden bridge, the builders experimented…

  • Memory

    When my youngest sister was five, and I was thirteen, I taught her to speak a couple of French phrases one Fall afternoon. I distinctly remember it because it was such a cozy scene, she and I cuddled in her little bed and hearing her say, “Ma crayon est rouge,” in the sweetest little-kid accent.…

  • It’s a Boy!

    I passed balloons tied to a lamppost while walking my dog on the eve of my son’s 18th birthday. Someone in the neighborhood had recently had a baby, and the sight of those “It’s a Boy!” swaying balloons immediately brought me back to when we brought Brian home from the hospital. The lead up to…

  • Best Worst Mass

      “That was the best worst Mass,” my daughter said at the conclusion of a morning that was filled with mistakes. And she was right. As music ministers during the busy Advent season, we grapple with new Mass parts and seasonal music and we do our best to bring a prayerful spirit to what we…

  • Number Line

    When I was seven or so, we worked with number lines in school, and I remember loving the fluidity of those lines rising above the order and rigidity of the numbers and tick marks at the bottom. I wouldn’t have used those words then, of course. At the time, I would have just said those…