Opinion / Guest Commentary
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Swing and a miss launch love affair
It was a bright June day. Prior to that moment, I had never wielded a golf club in my 31 years of life. It was my turn to tee off, and I stepped up to the golf ball, took my first... — Updated 7/21/2021
Flying the less friendly skies
My brother-in-law recalls a time in the early '60s when flying to a vacation destination with his parents meant wearing a suit. He was 8 or 9 years old. Everyone laughs along with him when it's brought up, because seeing a child... — Updated 7/14/2021
Dad's Day not just 'Hallmark' holiday
As we celebrate our country's independence this week, I can't help but chuckle about some of the crazy holidays the world has conjured up over the years. How do you celebrate... — Updated 7/7/2021
True hospitality goes both ways
We often find our best selves during our toughest moments. Unfortunately, that simple truth seems to be going the wrong way. Consider a recent morning in Hinsdale. A woman finishes... — Updated 6/30/2021
Jettisoning and not this Father's Day
I’ve been jettisoning stuff of late and have found it harrowing, liberating and, on this Fathers’ Day, very affirming. For too long, I avoided it: throw too much overboard, and too much of what aspired to make you “you” is... — Updated 6/16/2021
Turn and face the strange changes
Today is my husband's birthday (love you, hon!). He is a year older than me, but looks younger by virtue of his hair somehow remaining as golden as it was on our wedding day,... — Updated 6/9/2021
Do we lean toward compassion or cancel?
When I was 10 years old, I was the new girl at a small school. To feel better about myself, I was mean to another girl, a girl who'd been nice to me. I also kicked a boy named Jerry... — Updated 6/2/2021
Thoughts of peace under night sky
One of my favorite childhood memories is looking up at the night sky with my dad. After pulling into the garage/tool shed following an evening outing, my four siblings and I would... — Updated 5/26/2021
Intersection of the art world and my world
Having the Art Institute of Chicago nearby was a definite bonus of growing up in Hinsdale. Thanks to a steady cadence of visits that included Oak School class trips and the... — Updated 5/19/2021
Don't stop believin'
Growing up in The Region, my Dad had a sub-30-minute stretch goal from our driveway to Comiskey Park. Depending on the Dan Ryan traffic and his risk-taking appetite, this was... — Updated 5/12/2021
Lessons learned from own obituary
It's never too late to write a new beginning A few years ago, in a strange turn of events, my law school mistakenly published that I had died. I had not seen that edition of the... — Updated 5/5/2021
Lyrics reminds us this too shall pass
I opened my car windows on a recent warm spring day, and, as I drove, the fresh air hit my cheeks and whipped my hair into happy knots. U2's song "40" played on the radio, and... — Updated 4/21/2021
Multi-tasking can lead to insanity
It started out like an ordinary Thursday. Although now that I think of it, I actually remember feeling like it was a particularly peaceful weekday morning. The boys got up and to... — Updated 4/7/2021
March Madness of a different kind
The arrival of April 1 also brings final college decisions. Let me be the first to say, it has been a wild ride. The Class of 2021 knew that college applications were going to be... — Updated 3/31/2021
Different cats, different joys
There are two cats in my life right now. One's in Ireland and the other is in Hinsdale, and both of them have made this crazy time more bearable. Moomin is my rescue cat. Like so... — Updated 3/24/2021
Laissez les bon temps rouler
My double nickel birthday falling on Fat Tuesday had me pining for a return to the city not for spectators, but for participants. The following travelogue recollections spotlight... — Updated 3/17/2021
Wonderstruck by splendor of spring
Waist deep in a flowerbed full of colorful zinnias, I stopped weeding. I looked up and saw a monarch butterfly and then it hit me - I was wonderstruck. Its beauty was so... — Updated 3/10/2021
Paying it forward, one burger at a time
It's not as if my teenage son needs more reason to be embarrassed of me, but at lunch recently, I know he wanted the earth to swallow him alive, right there at the cash register. I... — Updated 3/3/2021
Mails, emails and paper trails
I confess I've been reading other people's mail for many of the past decades. No, I've not been opening stuff misdelivered to my mailbox. I'm talking about the letters of people... — Updated 2/24/2021
Life not entirely devoid of surprises
Remember the old cliché about insanity - doing something over and over again, but expecting a different outcome? That's, frankly, kind of the way I've been behaving for the past... — Updated 2/17/2021
Coming in from the rain
In my last column, I wrote about getting drenched. I said that the sky above our family was falling and our roof was leaking. Since that column, our monsoon has thankfully passed.... — Updated 2/10/2021
My generation is out of touch with love
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I have started paying extra close attention to the way the definition of love has changed over the last few decades. Over dinner the... — Updated 2/3/2021
'Life-changing magic' of library
When I moved my household from Washington, D.C. into storage, I got rid of about 100 books. Some were obvious choices, like the global trade textbook that was required for a class... — Updated 1/27/2021
Plant-based diet has grown on me
In September 2019, I thought it would be wise to get my doc's clearance prior to running 26.2 miles on a Sunday the following month. In my check up, he asked something typically not... — Updated 1/20/2021
Novel adaptations soothe trying times
T.S. Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock once famously stated that he had "measured out (his) life with coffee spoons." In these parlous times, however, I've found myself measuring out my li... — Updated 1/13/2021
