
My friend Gerard passed away this morning. He was a phenomenal musician. He was very intuitive when it came to people. He connected with you. If he liked you he let you know. Often, he let you know by ribbing you and being grumpy. He encouraged creativity. He told me to finish my book. He'd kick me in the ass when I was flaky. He was sensitive when my mother died, in a way many other people didn't know how to be. Gerard was a consumer, but not in an annoying way. He was a patron of good businesses. When [...]

Twenty years ago this fall my wife-to-be and I broke into a deserted chapel at our college to sit by the piano and make this song our own, staking our claim for the future and for each other through natural harmony and a shared sense of adventure. And now, if we have a song, it is this: a traditional English ballad which we knew before we met, that jumped out at us from the page that sunny afternoon, and, in doing so, guided us to forge ourselves as something more than the sum of our parts. [...]