How many songs are there in the world? Ten million? One-hundred million? Whatever, it's a lot. And of those, how many are widely popular? More mysteriously, what accounts for that popularity? This is on my mind because Valentine's Day is near, and music fans are loading up their devices with songs they love. Among them is what has become a perennial fave, “The Night We Met.” Despite being released 10 years ago – and tracking the story of a romantic breakup – it continue

It's early, and I know a lot can happen in the next four months, but I'm putting this out there just to challenge myself in a public way: I'm working to become one of the Six Percent on June 7, 2025. On that date I will have been married to the same guy for 50 – count, 'em, fifty – years. (I expected to be gray and bent over by this time, but instead I have purple hair, wear red shoes, and follow a certain rock band on tour. Go figure...) Of all the couples married in th

It's no secret or surprise that we are in the darkest days of the year. These long nights are the way of the universe, more regular than clockwork, which is merely our rudimentary attempt at quantifying the unknowable. Out of this darkness, many world religions and belief systems offer cause for celebration, for hope, at year’s end. The human propensity toward hope often defies reason. It's a leap of faith, after all. I've been thinking about this conundrum in human reasoning

Maybe for you, like me, music is the catalyst for a whole raft of memories: My inner freedom-fighter rising up to the sound of the “Les Miserables” touring company's entreaty, “Do You Hear the People Sing?”; My heart filling up to my throat when my husband harmonized with his brothers on “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” at my in-laws' basement parties; My whole body vibrating to the drums of Springsteen's “Candy's Room,” at Michigan State University's Munn Ice Arena. These songs are

Amid my irrepressible joy over the recent birth of my third grandson, I immediately started worrying. Not about him; about his parents. “... the U.S. has the most family-hostile public policy of any country in the western industrialized world when it comes to supporting work and family,” sociologist Caitlyn Collins recently told Ezra Klein in a New York Times podcast. Child care is hard to find and harder yet to afford. Preschool is often not part of the public school c

I've spent the past two years talking about my story, as part of the tour for my memoir, “It's Hard Being You.” “We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” a quote from the author Joan Didion, is the epigraph for my book, and it's been my privilege to meet many people who have amplified the truth of that statement profoundly. I'm not the only one who's come to realize that we must take what happens to us and find a place for it in our life stories. Either that, or we bu

Tis the season for appreciating just how valuable – and vital – greetings are. We reflexively offer up “season's greetings” to people we meet, and greeting cards are everywhere, ensuring our greetings get to people we can't be with. But we tend to overlook the power we unleash when we do that. In our heart-felt greetings, we're sharing our joy and appreciation for another person's presence in the world. And, gulp, that can be scary. You may know someone who is reticent about

I was only a few weeks into luxuriating in the news that my third grandson would be arriving early next year – I know, I'm rich! – when a term I knew only vaguely suddenly demanded my attention. Researchers call it male malaise, and they point to the economic, social and even political consequences of increasing numbers of males dropping out of the work force, shunning education/training after high school, and engaging in behaviors that threaten their health. Maybe you've eve

Believe it or not, belongingness is a word. Moreover, it's a thing right now. Alienation – the antithesis of belonging – is blamed for everything from suicide, to widespread ennui, to fringe political affiliations. Phew. So most of us are seeking belongingness. Somewhere. Anywhere. It's a fundamental human need. I know that belonging involves other people, of course: people need people. But in my book (Infinite Messages chapter, p. 255), I urge my children to belong to a plac

Have you noticed? We're absolutely captivated by being in proximity to something we love. Even if we can barely see it, being in its presence is magical. Consider wildlife lovers and live music fans. Reproductions, such as digital recordings and photographs, get us through to the next encounter but in no way replace it. The people in the top photo (hubs John is in the blue shirt) are in the Lamar Valley at Yellowstone, looking at a smudge of gray about a quarter mile out, jus

It's big, badly faded, and purple. But I love it. And I have loved it – for nearly 23 years. Not only that, it has a curved frame, something I've never seen on any other sofa. A curved line is my all-time favorite design element – I imagine that somewhere on the road to infinity, the two ends meet. What a perfect setting for an intimate conversation or convivial imbibing, both of which have happened many times on this hulking piece of furniture. There's no poetry in that desc

Skin may be the largest organ of the human body, but really, aside from wanting it to look youthful until the day we die, we don't much think about its practical aspects. Key among them, skin's role as the conduit for touch. Touch has fallen out of favor in the Me Too era, and not without good reason. Unwanted touching violates the person enduring the assault, and devalues the precious sensation that is the human touch. We all missed touch during the pandemic. Simple gestures

Ask me what was most amazing about son Ben’s recent Lord Huron show before a sold-out crowd (including multitudes of family and friends) at the beautiful Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre beside the glimmering Detroit River on a spectacular summer night, and I’ll tell you… …It was son Justin’s surprise arrival – leaving work in Indianapolis at noon to be there (more than eight hours round-trip driving for eight hours of family time) – to add his heat to the forging of our blessed,

Maybe you've been part of a similar conversation: “When are you coming home?” “Ma, I am home. I live in (fill in the blank, but let's say LA). You mean when am I coming to see you.” "Well, yeah, I'm your mother, so where I am is home, right?" Crickets on the other end... For the past few months my musician son Ben has been on tour and calling a motor coach home. He's pictured here with brother Justin when Lord Huron played Indianapolis (Justin's home when he and his family ar

Granted, I was overwrought from the beginning. Our son – whose voice is his job, and who had just lost his voice the night before – was worried about the upcoming show. This wasn't just any show. Anticipation was sky high because Lord Huron's performance had already been canceled two years in a row due to COVID. This was finally IT. And then there was the venue, OMG the venue: the mecca of the outdoor music scene, Red Rocks Amphitheater, which comfortably holds 10,000 people.

I never wanted to offer my children bromides (Follow your bliss.) or platitudes (Everything happens for a reason.) to make them simply feel better. I wanted to make them think, so they could be better. That's why when listening to their many complaints as young children (Nobody else has to do chores every day!), or even as teenagers (Nobody else has to be home so early!), I would listen and then acknowledge: “It's hard being you.” Usually they would then restate their complai