I have very good days and very hard days. Just like you. On the very hard days, I try a number of things to get back in tune. Different things work on different days. Social media never works. Dogs are a pretty reliable win. Poetry has never let me down.

Naomi Shihab Nye wrote this in one of my favorites of her poems: “I want to be famous in the same way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular but because it never forgot what it could do.”

This is me being the very best buttonhole I can be:

I remember this day. It was a terribly sad day for me because it was the last performance of a band I had played with for almost fifteen years.

Here I am happy though because I am useful. I love these three dancers and their joy gives me joy. Dance needs music and music needs dance.

Thank you, Tréa Champagne and the Champagne Academy of Irish Dance for being my buttons.

The international Irish dance community has suffered a tremendous loss in the death of beloved young dance champion Ian Luebbers.

Today is an important day to reflect on the truth that we all belong to each other and what’s most important is how we can love each other best in this world.

Without my buttons, I’m just a hole.