Dancing Like No One's Watching

"I've got nothing left to prove, and I've got nothing left to hide / I threw those heavy expectations off the mountainside." — "Crone Era" by Psychwitch

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I caught Mumford & Sons at CU Boulder's Folsom Field over the weekend—the fourth Mumford concert my neighborhood friend group had attended together. We drove up and tailgated, then danced in the upper bleachers with a view of the packed stadium stretching below us, light displays blooming across the darkness, sound system vibrating through our chests. As we moved—some of us dancing, some swaying, all of us singing along—I thought about how many blog entries these lyrics have anchored over the years. "Hopeless Wanderer." "Awake, My Soul." "Roll Away Your Stone." Words that helped me survive my autoimmune crash and emerge on the other side, reminding me that I wasn't alone in my darkness.

The joy of watching live music outdoors, singing with thousands of strangers, watching the sky transform from clear to sunset-mottled to opaque, pushed me to buy tickets for another show—close to home at Fiddler's Green, where Aden and I will see Lord Huron tomorrow night. Then Noah Kahan at Mile High Stadium a month later. The summer stretches ahead, energizing and creatively freeing, my personal playlist.

Spotify identifies my musical taste differently, though. While my listening generates youthful feelings inside, the algorithm has identified a women's anthem mentality and started feeding me song titles like "Crone Era (Psychwitch)," "Cinderella Snapped (Jax)," and "I'm that Witch (Esme Rose)." Surprised at first, I found myself liking the lyrics and added them to my 2026 playlist.

Last weekend, driving my kids and a friend home, "Crone Era" came on. I laughed and asked them whether Spotify had it right. Our friend turned serious: "You've got at least twenty years before your crone era, and you'd need a hefty dose of magic to qualify." So, not quite a crone then.

That same day I saw a meme with women my age dancing at a formal event. The caption read: "If you see women in their 50s dancing, let them. They've spent thirty years taking care of everyone and now it's time to let loose."

This felt true. My children have become capable adults—usually more capable than I. Rob and I often find the house to ourselves. The years of constant vigilance and scheduling and worry have finally exhaled. And somewhere in that exhale, I discovered I could sing in the car without self-consciousness, dance in the stadium without checking who was watching, twirl in the bleachers like I'm not being observed—because I'm not. Or more accurately, because I've stopped performing for an audience that no longer exists.

The freedom feels earned. Not reckless, just honest. The voice I'm using now—singing Mumford & Sons lyrics at full volume, swaying without apology—this is the voice that survived thirty years of holding it in. This is what it sounds like when you finally decide you're done asking permission to take up space.

Maybe the crone era joke lands differently when you understand it's not about age but about power—the power that comes from having nothing left to lose, from knowing exactly who you are. From dancing like no one's watching because, in the way that actually matters, no one is. Just thousands of strangers at a concert, all of us singing the same song, and that's enough. 

In Grief We Are Not Alone

My siblings and I inherited our parents' love of music—not just listening but the proclivity for curating it, building playlists that become the backdrop of our lives. We were discouraged from singing along, though. My brother John would catch us joining the radio in the car and ask pointedly, "Who sings this song?" The answer was always the artist, to which he'd reply, "Let's keep it that way." His veto became a running joke, a family truth.

My sister, a teacher, plays creative and soothing music for her students during off moments before class or at breaks. Students return years later—a decade, sometimes more—and tell her they still remember songs from her classroom, how those melodies became woven into their memories. 

Aden and I work on joint Spotify playlists together. While hiking in Banff, she introduced me to Alex Warren's song "Carry You Home," and that song became a bridge between us—a shared conversation without words. Last night Aden and Daniel accompanied me to see Alex Warren at Red Rocks, the greatest natural amphitheater in the world.

Warren became truly famous last year when his song "Ordinary" exploded on BookTok and then the radio. At Red Rocks, his voice was superb, clear and raw—the kind of voice that makes you believe every word. The sold-out auditorium sang along with every lyric, from upbeat and inspiring to melancholy, haunting lyrics of loss. Parents sat with their children, teenagers with friends. No pot in the air—a first for me at Red Rocks—just wholesome music with an edge. Concert tee shirts read "Need money for ~~therapy~~ Alex Warren tix," a joke the singer tells on himself.

The night's most poignant moment came when Warren left the main stage for a B stage near our seats. He described his father's death when Warren was nine, how his mother and siblings were left bereft, how he carried that grief alone for a long time. Then he asked the crowd a simple question: "Raise a hand if you've ever lost someone."

Thousands of hands rose into the darkness—a stunning yet unsurprising array. "We are not alone," he said. "And as long as we talk about them and keep their memory alive, they will not die a second time."

He then sang "Eternity," and the words echoed into the canyon as his voice was joined by 9,000 others:

But it feels like an eternity / Since I had you here with me / Since I had to learn to be / Someone you don't know

To be with you in paradise / What I wouldn't sacrifice / Why'd you have to chase the light / Somewhere I can't go?

Tears blurred our view of the stage and the Denver skyline beyond it. I was thinking of Dad—his love of music, his ear for a false note, his presence in these moments when his physical form couldn't be there. I found myself hoping that some part of his spirit was listening, that he could hear this crowd of strangers singing about loss and longing and the stubbornness of love that refuses to disappear. There were no false notes. He would have loved it.

Myriad cellphone lights bloomed across the amphitheater like earthbound stars, each one a person holding their own grief while singing someone else's. The music and emotion wove through the crowd, threading us together—strangers made kin by the simple fact of loss, by the courage it takes to sit in a stone bowl under the stars and say yes, I remember, I miss them, I'm still here.

This is what music does. It resurrects the dead in our hearts. It tells us we're not alone. It gives voice to what we cannot say ourselves—and in hearing it, we find we're surrounded by thousands of others saying the same thing.

I'll add another Alex Warren song to my 2026 playlist. Not to commemorate the evening, though it will do that, reinforcing a bond with my kids. But because music is how we keep people alive. It's how we keep talking about them. It's how we refuse to let them die a second time.

That's Going in the Blog!

We sat in the bleachers at CU's Folsom Field on Memorial Day, watching elite female runners stream into the stadium to finish their 10K race. Around us, "citizen's race" athletes—Rob, Aden, William, and I among them—leaped to our feet, clapping and stomping on the metal stands until the roar became a thunderous roll of applause that seemed to lift the runners across the finish line. They waved to the crowd, moving impossibly fast—so much faster than we'd just jogged the 10K course of the Boulder Bolder. I told my kids I had chills, and William grinned. "That's going in the blog!"

I've been writing "Wild Specific Tangent" since 2009, when Aden was eight, William six, and Daniel three The kids read my posts occasionally, sometimes offering feedback when I send a link requesting it, but mostly they maintain that typical child distance from a parent's work. When I told William I'd write about both the moment at Folsom Field and his comment, he simply grinned. "You should," he said.

The kids have an intuitive feel for what will strike me as worth keeping. They sense it faster than I do as I process and discard ideas throughout the week—some too personal, some too obvious, many too political. They know what matters. They know what should stay.

I'm toying with compiling a second book of my favorite entries. The first volume spanned seven years (2009-2017). We're nine years down the road now, and I'm either overdue or the interest in rewriting and sorting has simply expired. Would it matter if I put my musings on paper, or should they just live in the wilds of the internet, accumulating like digital dust? The short accounts might matter to my kids someday when I can no longer tell them our family stories, when my memory fails and I can't retrieve the odd congratulatory moment. (My days of jogging a 10K are coming to an end sooner rather than later.)

But this day deserves capturing. Memorial Day with all of us moving together—William bobbing and weaving out of our walk-jog rhythm to finish in 8:30 miles while Rob led the way for Aden and me, breaking into a jog each time my hips, knees, and ankles persuaded me we could manage it. Watching the elite runners consume the course in a third of our time, then the sounds of "Star Spangled Banner" drifting across the field, the military flyover sharp and precise overhead, the salute that made my eyes wet as I thought of Dad. A day heavy with meaning—Rob recovering from his surgery, all of us fit enough to run six miles together, free snacks and a jot of patriotism to complete the afternoon.

A day that shouldn't dissolve into the endless parade of ordinary days. William was right. It belongs in the blog—not because it's momentous, but because it's real. Because someday when the details fade, I'll want to remember the exact cadence of our running together, the sound of that metal bleacher roar, the way grief and gratitude tangled together on a field honoring the dead. Because my children will want to remember what it felt like to move through the world with their parents, to stop for a moment and say this matters, capture this, don't let it disappear.

Perhaps that's what these seventeen years of writing have become—not a record of accomplishments or epiphanies, but evidence of a life lived, witnessed, held. Permission to say: this moment, this day, this conversation with my son—it all counts.

Unforgettable

"Unforgettable / In every way

In every way / And forevermore

That's how you'll stay

That's why, darling / It's incredible

That someone so unforgettable

Thinks that I am / Unforgettable too."

- "Unforgettable" song and lyrics by Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole

Decades ago, when I lived and worked in San Francisco,  my father took me to a Natalie Cole concert. I remember the pride of arriving straight from work in my dressy work-to-evening outfit, meeting Dad in his crisp suit and tie—his date for the evening. What pierces me still: the moment Natalie Cole sang alongside her father's recorded voice in "Unforgettable," an otherworldly duet that captured something essential about fathers and daughters, time and loss. Dad and I both choked down tears, humming along to the achingly beautiful lyrics.

This memory surfaced unexpectedly during my Tuesday acupuncture appointment with Deyba. Before the session began, I confessed that my post-competition high from Nationals had collapsed into emptiness—what goal, what adventure would come next? Some part of me seeks validation through external actions, performances, life-changing events. She challenged me to redefine myself not as someone who hunts for validation but as someone who shines in place.

Hard for me, I explained. I've spent years feeling lesser than people who swim faster, write better, radiate confidence. I told Deyba about my surprise when a college classmate and teammate recognized me thirty-five years later—I don't remember contributing much to the team during my two years at Harvard.

"Why are you surprised?" she asked. "I will never forget you. Your swimmers will never forget you. You are unforgettable."

Tears erupted without warning, an awkward situation when you're flat on your back with acupuncture needles sprouting from forehead and temples. Deyba smiled and swiped at my face with tissues as tears kept carving new tracks down my cheeks.

"You must have said the magic words," I managed, smiling weakly.

"I'm just repeating what your higher self wants you to hear," she said, finishing her needle placement with one last pass of the tissues.

Near the end of my session—now prone, needles removed—Deyba began humming the song. She started telling me about a memory she had of a Natalie Cole concert, a magical father-daughter duet that moved her. Emotions swelled as I pictured Dad in his impeccable suit and tie.

"I was there too," I said.

At least gravity could help with the tears this time.

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The word "unforgettable" carries weight we rarely claim for ourselves. We're quick to award it to others—the accomplished, the famous, the obviously remarkable—while dismissing our own presence as forgettable, our contributions as minor. But we leave marks deeper than we know. The college teammate who remembered me across decades. The swimmers I coach who (I hope) will carry something of our time together forward. My father, gone now six years, who still reaches me through a song I heard in a darkened concert hall when I was young and he was vital and neither of us knew what the future would hold.

You are unforgettable too. Not because of what you achieve or perform or accomplish, but because of who you are to the people who know you—the ones who will hum your song long after you've stopped singing it yourself.

Hummingbirds Return and Yardwork

Every year the hummingbirds return with their high-pitched trills and iridescent wings blurring into invisibility. I delight in watching them dive-bomb the flowering crabapple trees, then swoop over tulips and daffodils thrust up through warming soil. Buds swell on bare branches, days stretch longer, light lingers past dinner. What I don't savor is the overwhelming assault of yard cleanup: restoring mulch that's scattered or decomposed, raking tons of rusty pine needles, coaxing the drip irrigation back to life, praying for perennials to emerge after a punishing dry winter.

When Rob and I bought this house nearly twenty-two years ago, the previous owners had just re-landscaped the backyard. The shrubs stood trim and compact, rose bushes exploded in crimson blooms, mulch nestled obediently inside crisp brick boundaries. We installed a swing set and sandbox and tried to keep pace with the seasons' demands, but with three small children pulling us in every direction, we surrendered ground each year. After a decade in the house, the backyard had morphed into something from The Secret Garden—rose bushes erupting in thorny chaos before dying back, grass invading the margins, mulch vanishing into soil.

After abandoning hope of restoration—despite one ambitious swap of swing set for trampoline—we hired Aden and her college friend to resurrect some semblance of order in the areas nearest the house. We celebrated when brick borders reemerged from their grassy graves, when rocks in the landscaping beat back the encroaching turf. Inspired, we hired another crew to tackle the perimeter. Though we've lost the rose bushes and several cottonwood trees to drought and neglect, our yard now somewhat echoes its former glory.

Only somewhat because we live in drought, and without moisture to revive the bluegrass, our pine trees and their gnarled, serpentine roots have conquered the lawn. We're allowed to water just two days per week—Wednesday and Saturday—and I'm eyeing xeriscaping for the backyard like we installed in front: less water demanded, less maintenance required, native plants and stone where Kentucky bluegrass once thrived. For now, the looming task of yard restoration has lifted. I can hear the shrill territorial call of the hummingbird without my blood pressure spiking in response.

Bring on summer—but hopefully with afternoon thunderstorms rolling in from the mountains, rain drumming on the deck and soaking deep into our thirsty soil. The hummingbirds will dart between raindrops. The perennials will drink. And I'll watch from the kitchen window, grateful that for once, someone else is doing the watering.