This week, I’ve been having a little trouble concentrating.

I’ve been going through the familiar rituals of my daily life — the enhanced, extra-hygge version in which I keep things tidy, light candles, and make lovely cups of tea to ward off pandemic-related anxiety or ennui. It helps to an extent, but it feels like I’m back in May, when I would get to the end of the day and wonder where it went and why nothing seemed to get done. What is this? Where did it come from?

And the answer comes back: This is grief.

Read More

Even though we were contemporaries from the same state, I never heard of Travis Roy until a couple of years ago when I was sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Ohio and got distracted by a documentary on one of the screens on the wall.

Travis Roy was a talented hockey player who was paralyzed in a tragic accident in the first few seconds of his debut on the men’s ice hockey team at Boston University in 1995. Roy went on to graduate from BU and create a foundation for spinal injury research and support for spinal injury survivors. He passed away just a few days ago at age 45.

Read More

In newspaper articles and conversations, I’ve been seeing and hearing references to Groundhog Day, the classic 1993 film directed by the Harold Ramis and starring Bill Murray and Andie McDowell in which a TV weatherman has to live the same day over and over.

For many of us, it feels like we’re stuck in a loop that there’s no way out of. Every day is the same routine, bringing stress, listlessness, and more bad news.

For some, there is a sense of waiting for life to resume, as careers, travel, and educational plans are put on hold. And the very real threat of illness hangs over us all, requiring our strict vigilance.

Read More

It’s the first day of a new year. Unblemished and unbroken like an overnight snowfall that no one’s had a chance to walk upon.

Inevitably, it will get messed up — the snow and the year. What then?

Read More

People are trying to make sense of the passage of time.

Reflecting not only on the past year, they’re attempting to process the past decade, hoping to glean some lessons and understand the trends that shaped the events they’ve just lived through.

If you’re feeling a sense of loss, a fear of missing out, a worry that there’s a party going on without you, let me reassure you: Nobody knows what the heck they’re doing.

Read More