This post originally ran on May 27, 2023 “I paint to let my soul know I am listening.” That’s a comment a friend posted on one of my social media pages in response to one of my blog posts. I’ve seen her work, and its beautiful and unique. It brings me joy just looking at...
I ran into a former client from my days as a writer’s coach. She’d self-published a memoir about living with a certain disease. She was telling me all the efforts she’d made to market the book, but it never really caught on, except with the local nurses. She said they recommended her book often and...
My husband shared with me a TikTok video in which a high school teacher is showing her students the old music video of “We Are the World.” You know, the hit single recorded in 1985 to benefit African famine relief that featured many of the musical greats of that era, including Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder,...
Last week, I attended a fine art show featuring a curated group of talented Black artists. One of the event’s speakers, Kevin John Goff, was the nephew of famed actress Hattie McDaniel, the first Black American to win an Oscar for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind. As a long-time student of...
I’ve talked a lot about intention in this blog over the years, mostly trying to figure out how exactly it works. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the only time in my life when I felt like intention was really clear. It was back in college, when I’d meet my friends at the bar on a...
My husband is closing out a 33-year career in corporate America. He’s not retiring, he’s moving into a new line of creative work of his choosing. Still, it feels like a huge change. He’s been at the same company his entire career and started there when we were still dating. That company has been our...
When I was a kid, I talked my little brother into going around the neighborhood with me knocking on doors and offering to sing a Christmas carol for a tip. It could be any song the person wanted to hear as long as we knew it, and I think they could tip in any amount....
When I was very young, there was a song that played often on the radio called “The Most Beautiful Girl” by Charlie Rich. The narrator had lost the love of his life through his own bad behavior and asked the listener to keep an eye out for her. If we saw her, we were to...
As a lifelong watcher of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I caught Paula Abdul’s song and dance performance on the Jennie-O float. She performed her song “Straight Up,” which was released in 1988. There’s lots of praise for Abdul. Other people are noting the flaws in her lip-synching, the doctored sound on her tap routine,...
Last week, I wrote about how art saves us. A reader e-mailed to share how listening to music every day kept her company during the isolation of COVID. She’s older and has health issues, so has spent much more time alone these past couple of years than she probably would have otherwise. I asked myself...