My late mother, an accomplished pianist named JoAnn Derden, used to perform double-piano concerts with her sister, who insisted that the music — intricate, demanding classics — be memorized. Mom begrudgingly obliged. When those stressful days ended, Mom enjoyed improvising and playing two-piano music with me — no memorization…

Given the hair-raising books and movies I favored growing up, you’d think I’d have uttered a scream at some point. Genuine screams, however, were reserved for roller coasters until my husband, Randy, became a football coach. Then I morphed into a maniac. Granted, I considered my high-decibel screams warranted because…

I celebrated a birthday recently, kicking off the final year of my 60s in memorable fashion. As I got ready at home to join our grandson, James, for a Mother’s Day breakfast in his class at school, I opened the bathroom door. Sprawled out over the entire path was Maple,…

As I tallied the sea of tiny numbers on my tax spreadsheets, I decided to search for some background music on my computer. I love my computer — a gift from my generous family in 2020 — but it doesn’t have a CD drive. Almost all of the music I’d…

I listened to 78,978 minutes of music and podcasts in 2022. Thanks to the popular feature Spotify Wrapped, I and millions of users can look at a summary of our listening habits each year, for better or worse. Some may find my avid consumption of pop albums and…

I spent a school year substituting in various special education classrooms in Fort Worth, Texas, before returning to school for teacher certification. I’d already worked with young children with developmental disabilities and loved their (usually) carefree and good-natured dispositions. My first assignment as a substitute teacher at Jo…

Our baby Jeffrey snagged his wings in early November 1997, ending the brief active-duty portion of our SMA assignment. A few short months later, my husband, Randy, and I opened a bakery and sandwich shop in one of our county’s tourist hot spots. The business bustled with out-of-towners and locals.

“Lord, what will become of me/ Once I’ve lost my novelty?” was the original lyric sung in Taylor Swift’s “Nothing New,” a bonus track she included with her recent remaster of her 2012 album, “Red.” Yet, for some reason I heard her sing,…

A song written and performed by an artist with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the latest project to come out of Genentech’s SMA My Way program, a collaboration that allows those in the SMA community to share knowledge and experiences with others affected by the disease, as well…

On April 9, I traveled back in time.  I mean this metaphorically, of course. As much as I wish time travel were feasible in our world, it unfortunately remains the stuff of science fiction and fantasy. Thus, revisiting media I loved as a kid and looking…