Tag: family

  • The Things We Believed (Before Coffee)

    As I sit here drinking my coffee, convinced that caffeine is somehow going to help me defeat my lifelong nemesis—Sleep—and maybe keep up with whatever my ADHD has planned for today, I can’t help but think about all the things I believed as a kid. Back then, life ran on confidence… not facts. The right…

  • What’s Missing?

    I’ve never considered myself much of a chef. I don’t julienne. I don’t chiffonade. I don’t make foams, reductions, or anything that requires tweezers.  But a cook? Now that’s a title I’d proudly wear. When I’m cooking, I really only have one goal; Make enough food that everyone leaves the table full, preferably smiling, and…

  • The Things We Never Meant to Remember

    It’s funny, the things we remember. Not the moments everyone tells us will matter. Not always birthdays, graduations, or the day we got the keys to our first house. Those memories are there somewhere, but they often sit quietly in the background. Instead, it’s the little things that wait patiently for us. The smell of…

  • The Magic in the Stands

    Every sport has something special to offer in person. If you’ve ever stood inside a packed soccer stadium, you’ve felt the thunder. Ninety minutes of chants, songs, flags, and enough energy to shake concrete. There may be no greater sporting spectacle on Earth than the World Cup. Football is organized chaos. Hockey is astonishingly fast.…

  • Backyard Kings and Charcoal Crowns

    There was a time when a backyard grill wasn’t just a way to cook dinner—it was Dad’s kingdom. Actually, if we’re being honest, it still is. The throne may be a faded patio chair, the crown may be a cloud of charcoal smoke, and the royal scepter may be a pair of stainless-steel tongs, but…

  • Turns Out I Was Pretty Good at Being Me

    Once upon a time, there was a kid. A curious kid. A distracted kid. He was good at just about everything he tried, but never really great at any of it—or at least that’s what he thought. He never really knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. He considered all the usual…

  • No Batteries Required: When Play Meant Something More

    Yesterday, I saw something I never thought I’d see again—especially not from a high school student. I saw a group of teenagers playing leapfrog. Leapfrog. Not a phone app. Not a video game. Not some new social media challenge designed to last three days before disappearing into the digital abyss. Actual leapfrog—the same game kids…

  • Commencement Season: Tassels, Tears, and One Last Trip to the Snack Bar

    There’s something strange about graduation season. For four years, students spend most of high school counting down to the end of school—talking about summer, freedom, and escaping homework forever. Then suddenly, during the final few weeks, everyone starts walking around campus like they’re in the last ten minutes of a movie. People who normally sprint…

  • The Cookie with the Hole in the Middle

    The Duplo cookie—that round, flower-shaped, sugary piece of goodness with a hole in the middle and a soft ribbon of filling tucked inside. Anyone who is anyone knows this tasty treat. The Duplo cookie never asked for attention. It didn’t need frosting that shouted or colors that competed. It just sat there—round, slightly crisp at…

  • If Only For A Moment…

    On Sunday, Mother’s Day, during the second hour of a four-hour gig, something extraordinary happened. As I stood beneath a tree playing my trumpet, a hummingbird suddenly appeared. It circled around me three… maybe four times, hovering right in front of the bell of my trumpet while I played. Then it flew upward and landed…

  • Alone at the Happiest Place on Earth

    Most people would say the Disneyland Resort isn’t a place you go alone.That doing so feels equal parts pathetic and depressing. And maybe… on paper, it is. But I did it anyway. I was there for a two-day excursion—an Arts Education Leadership Summit. Work. Professional development. The kind of trip that comes with lanyards, schedules,…

  • Life Is A Notebook

    I came across this idea the other day, and it stayed with me longer than I expected— the kind of thought that doesn’t just pass through, but settles in. Maybe it’s the way we hold onto moments—like scraps of paper, like old notebooks tucked away in drawers. Every now and then, something reminds you that…

  • Scraped Knees and Torn Jeans

    There was a time when play was king—not the quiet, sit-down kind, but the loud, dusty, borderline-dangerous kind that required sunscreen you never used and rules you barely followed.  It was the kind of play that guaranteed you’d come home a different person than when you left… mostly because parts of you were now missing…

  • Kinder Chronicles, Room 3, 1974

    Teacher’s log, Kinder Day 31 I used to think I was in charge. That illusion lasted exactly four minutes on the first day of school—right up until Little Tommy licked a purple marker, declared it “grape,” and asked if we had any crackers to go with it. We did.We always had crackers. Kindergarten, in those…

  • Dichoso El Árbol

    Music. For most, it is simply entertainment. For some, it fills the silence. For others, it is just noise, or a distraction from what weighs on the mind. But for a smaller number, music is more—it is healing, it is connection, even a kind of spiritual touch. For me, it is a bit of all…