vocation

  • Like

    If Andrew McCarthy and I were to actually be in a room together, meet, and have one conversation, I am sure we would get married, or so thought fourteen-year-old me after seeing ‘Heaven Help Us’ and ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ within a few months of each other. I saw something of myself in those performances and…

  • Stars

    When my son was two or three, we started playing musical games after dinner. We had a regular evening dance schedule when he was a baby, but the games were a whole other level. We would listen to instrumental music and let it speak to us, imagining the story that might go along with it.…

  • Hamilton

    I’ve read lots of accounts attempting to explain the reach and appeal of Hamilton, a Broadway show that has taken the world by storm. Some who have written about it are immigrants, or have close relatives who were, and they identify with Alexander Hamilton’s trials, determination, and hard fought success. Some are fathers, and they…

  • Free

    One early morning in a 1970s summer, I woke before my sisters and went for a bike ride. Bike rides were a many-a-day occurrence in our seventies’ summers, but we tended to ride in packs, to someone’s house to play, then to the corner store to buy grape hubba bubba gum, then home again. On…

  • Beautiful

    Beautiful. Amazing. Impressive. These are words my yoga teacher routinely used during our practice today. Part of me wanted to believe she was talking about me, though I probably didn’t deserve it. Part of me thinks she uses these words routinely because she is an inherently encouraging person. Regardless, whenever she says something positive, I…

  • Mother

    I cannot sleep until my children are home. These days as a mother of teenagers, it makes for some late nights on the couch, phone in my hand, until I hear the car pull in, the door click open. Their father is able to sleep soundly without one speck of worry in their absence, and…

  • Soul

      I was crossing the line from sleep to waking and was already making lists in my head. Post office, laundry, papers, mess, dishes…things I needed to get done to make way for the things I wanted to do, like meet an old friend for lunch. Before I even got out of bed, I felt…

  • 11:04

    I know lots of people who see significant numbers everywhere they look….on clocks, receipts, in line at the grocery store. 11:11 is a common one, and when you happen to catch it, it’s supposed to be a little hello from someone you love who has died. My sister sees her birthday numbers, 3.16, as a…

  • 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,…

  • 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…