Isolation Observations for my Household

As we start Week 2 of this unusual time, some Isolation Observations for my Household:

1. To the unnamed child in charge of TP restocking.  Demand has increased.

2. Be happy, our family group chat is on that break you wanted.

3. We stand by what we said the first time.  You may not walk up the stairs blindfolded.

4. I will stop asking if you’ve read a book today if you stop asking me what’s for lunch today.

5. Occasionally I will put on make-up.  I know I’m not going anywhere. Every day I will put on exercise clothes.  I may or may not exercise. Of course I know it doesn’t make sense.

6. To the child in our house named Colin.  They’re my slippers. Hand ‘em over.

7. If I listened to absolutely everything you said, I would be able to name every player on every NBA team and that -- even in current circumstances - would be a complete waste of my time.

8. Today feels like deja vu?  Yeah. Now you know how I feel every time you forget how to use a fork and knife.

9. I celebrate this opportunity to play more family games.  True I might Monopoly Dodge but if I do get roped into playing know that I will be happy to give you a great deal on whatever property you need.

10. If out of boredom you can make a three point contest out of clean socks and a laundry basket, should I be bullish about a clean up game you can make out of that pile of clothes in your room?

11. Try to be excited every time I offer to make popcorn.  I need an alibi since Family Movie Night can only be used once a day. 

12. By the way, should you get bored with Family Movie Night, Family Book Night or Family Podcast Night is always an option. 

13. Do not move my charger.  I am not afraid to Zoombomb your class and rip it out of the wall.

14. Do move.  Your legs hurt and are that purple color because you’ve been sitting too long.  While you’re up, may I remind you that the rules of teeth brushing Have. Not. Changed.

15. Dinner will be ready well before you need to be anywhere.  So that may be now, an hour from now, or as part of a big breakfast tomorrow.   That’s as specific as I want to be.

16. What is happening to your hair is not anything either you or I can fix.   I imagine this is of more concern to me than you.

17. Mommy had a secret.  Yes sometimes I do take a nap in the middle of the day and I’ll snore if I want to.  

18. If you get restless, remember Daddy’s idea:  Fill a backpack with weights and run the stairs in the house.  Or I can teach you how to clean a bathroom. The choice is yours.

19. To the unnamed young adult unexpectedly living with us.  Sorry, not sorry. We know it’s hardest on you but man are we happy you’re here.

Normalcy Shedding

We learned this week experts believe people who contract the COVID-19 virus shed high amounts of the virus early on in their infection, often before symptoms, which helps explain why it has spread so quickly. We’re contagious before we know it.

In a similar way, we’ve been sucked into the vortex of the crisis before we notice the symptoms of anxiety developing. In this crazy week when all normalcy has been shed, my journal revealed a gaping ten day hiatus. I wonder if yours - or whatever your journal equivalent of hopeful, connected living - has to? And I wonder if like me - in rapid fire data receiving mode - you were too overwhelmed to tend to the practices you do to stay grounded.

It’s understandable. We’ve needed to stay informed, take action to cancel plans, check in on our elders, upend our routines, and to keep our dry coughs at home (where mine has been since Wednesday.) One of the better explanations for why our anxiety levels are particularly heightened is because this is a crisis that asks us to hold our individual health in one hand (where the risks for most of us are low) and public health in the other hand (where the risks are high) - a complicated tension and no longer virtual reality we can neither click through or scroll by.

We’ve had a lot of information to digest in this last week, but after we’ve done what we are able (this article "Social Distancing: This is Not a Snow Day" was particularly helpful), what next? Will we merely react to and retrench with the next alarming headline or will we be mindful to look not for the silver lining, but the cherry blossoms. To see how this virus will spur new medical and technological innovations, acts of kindness and community care, and lifestyle changes.

New Yorkers are riding their bikes in lieu of taking the subway. An Israeli company is developing washable, reusable masks with embedded antiviral agents. The company Zoom is giving K-12 schools their videoconferencing tools for free. An NBA player donated money to support the hourly arena employees after NBA games were cancelled. An elementary school teacher came up with a clever idea to get her students to wash their hands more often by stamping their hands at the beginning of the day and offering prizes to students who washed enough to get the stamp to fade by the end of the day. Families are playing board games again.

Trials and uncertainty can’t really have a neutral response. When all that is normal is ripped away, it either eventually drives you to despair or deeper trust where creativity and care can flourish. Not in one day but in the trial’s incubation period. We either believe we are living in a world that is falling apart or in a beautiful but imperfect world that is in process. And if the latter, belief is only meaningful if it’s practiced with as much vigilance as washing your hands often and thoroughly.

Living the Life You Love

My husband and I recently went away for the weekend, leaving our two teenage boys home alone.  Thankfully our boys have the responsibility and kind of relationship to make that work, even if it does mean they subsisted on bagels, Goldfish and Deliveroo for 48 hours.

When we got home on Sunday night, we got their weekend report which included soccer practice, a cycling race, homework, and a lot of and likely still underreported screen time.  But our thirteen year old was most excited to tell us that while he and his big brother were Home Alone, they had not wrecked the house but rather he had written something. 

He didn’t write it for school (our first question.)  He wrote it “because I realized I am happy right now and I thought writing might help me understand why.”

Thirteen is not the most becoming of ages.  I’ve been relaying an analogy I heard recently about parenting teens.  Our teens are now out in the pool (the world) swimming on their own but occasionally they get dunked or tired and need to come back to the pool wall (their parents).  We are there to hold them up to catch their breath but as soon as they do, they are off again — usually with a push against the wall (forceful words, attitudes, behavior) to get back out there.   

I know I am prone to hyper focus on the challenges of each age.  And thirteen has a lot of them but thirteen can be beautiful too.  In that push for independence, when we give them space — they aren’t just swimming in the world.  They are also figuring out for themselves how they will react to life’s curve balls.  Their thoughts are as deep as the waters they are swimming in.

And so, on this Valentine’s Day, I share with you what one 13 year old boy — Lawton Ballbach - has to say about Living the Life You Love:

“All of you sprouted and flourished into this earth, to live. To let yourself flow and become the best version of you. We don’t pummel life with anger and jealousy, but sometimes it seems the easier option. There’s no way to describe life, there’s too many ways. We love, we learn and we believe. We look at problems and turn them to a different angle to find the solution. A wise man once said ‘no one ever injured their eyesight by looking on the bright side’. Proven studies have shown that you, and everyone else around us lives longer, dies happier and brings joy to those around us, by just stopping and taking the time to appreciated and fulfil the life we were meant to love. Me writing this doesn’t have to make you change your way of thinking or acting. But I can guarantee that if you dig a little deeper inside your mind you’ll find what you’re looking for. “ 

Menopause

Menopause, or whatever this thing is that happens to a female’s body when it’s winding down from any future tenancies, is not a friend to your sleep or your mood.  It wakes you up in the middle of the night to change tee-shirts and then has you pulling off your jammy pants at 7am because you’ve accidentally knocked an entire cup of hot coffee and coffee grounds onto yourself.  Then adding insult to burn injury, you feel like you can’t  trust yourself to make a second cup.  

It’s exactly those kind of unrested, uncaffeinated, unsteady mornings that you should not ride the bus into school with one of your old tenants who vacated thirteen years ago.  Because whatever they say - bold or benign - is bound to storm around with your hormones making you feel worse.  “Please don’t come because your exercise clothes are a little embarrassing” is hardly warfare but when your defenses are down, it finds a crevice.

“Wait, don’t tell me. Kate!” beamed the Starbucks barista who surprised me by remembering my name later this morning.  I’m sure he recognised me in my exercise clothes.  That too finds a crevice. 

Whether it’s menopause or something else that robs you of balance, there is some shame in admitting you feel empty or have longer lapses of joy when you have a life littered with good things.  You feel like you should be able to hold on tighter to the many things you’re grateful for when a challenge comes.  But I was reminded today, it’s exactly those moments of challenge that are our signals to stand up and work to find strength. 

“I know, I know …” said my wise Psycle instructor as we climbed through a particularly tough stretch of the workout.  When things are hard we don’t want people to tell us how to fix it, or that we are doing a great job, we want them to say “I know.”  We want to know this is hard for other people too and not just us being a wimp.

Maybe - I’ve been wondering as I learn to befriend this stage in life - even a forced-upon-you imbalance in your life can been a grounding force for good to help you cycle through admitting need, building strength and receiving grace. 

Most importantly, regardless of the thing that has you out of sorts, the people in our lives are too interested in loving us than keeping a record of our grievances.  

“I like you.” texted my husband out of the blue today.  But of course it wasn’t really out of the blue because the people in our lives know exactly when we need to be reminded we are not only loved, but still good company too.

Overdoing It

I was planning on running with my running group this morning but I woke up to my body cautioning maybe I should take the day off instead. Much as I wanted a fifth day in a row of working out - it’s a gorgeous morning here in London! - my fatigued legs (and a late night at the theatre) reminded me scheduled rest is the key to insuring ongoing enjoyment of exercise.

Our bodies are good at adapting to whatever we throw at it, but they are also the first to shout at us when we are overdoing it. It strikes me that exercise, like so many things which bring pleasure, follows that stubborn economic law of diminishing returns.

The law of diminishing returns says there is a crossover point where the benefit gained is less than the increasing amount of energy invested. A point at which more of something either returns less of the thing you hoped to gain, or worse, spirals downward into pits like injury, addiction, or chronic couch potatoing.

It’s why that third piece of pie is never as good as the first. Or why there are studies that attempt to calculate the ideal income for life satisfaction and emotional well-being. Or why you can even consume too much of something as life-giving and necessary as water.

There is the possibility with any pleasure to overdo it. We have our Thanksgiving meal every year to remind us of this truth. If history is any guide, I am likely to overdo it next week - around the table with my family in Seattle — on mashed potatoes, post dinner turkey sandwiches, and wine.

Virtually everything in the physical world follows the law of diminishing returns which is why it’s important to both enjoy pleasure and be mindful that we can often find ourselves chasing a moment we once had that may be impossible to find again.

However what good news there is in knowing the spiritual world and one’s inner life is not bound by those same rules. A subterranean peace and joy that breaks through into our daily living do not dim the more you experience them. We can’t hit a limit or max out. And they don’t need rest days or celebratory days.

Like a flower, our beauty too unfolds in the light of presence.

An Ode to 49

You're all I need
You're all I need
You're all I need to get by.

It had been a long time since I’d heard Marvin Gaye. But there I was this past Saturday night having a late dinner in front of a video screen looping through the Best Soul Music of the 70s: Marvin Gaye, Barry White, The Temptations with some 80s George Michael thrown in for good measure. It happened, of all places, in a small village bistro in the south of France.

I could never have guessed that I would be spending my 49th birthday week reliving moments of my early youth over a plate of oozie camembert with this 16 year old son of mine at a place called Chez Vous. Ain’t no mountain high enough to have seen this moment coming.

I recently scrolled past this quote: “The best gift you can give yourself at 50 is sunscreen at 20” and I thought “Shame, if only the Internet were around in 1990 to tell me that.”

Though it made me chuckle and the advice is sound, the 49 year old you knows what the 20 year old you could never have guessed. Laugh lines, yes. Folding like an accordion around the middle, oh baby. But sunscreen guilt and the larger troublemaker called self-loathing loses some of it’s power when you’ve had a couple more decades of encounters with real beauty in others and even yourself.

We figure out that though our bodies may not be built to last, there’s reason to be bullish about the rest. And so the chatter of appearance quiets down while the chatter of presence starts to heat up. At 49 now instead of never leaving the house without mascara, you can’t leave the house without a green smoothie and quiet meditation. And while you still notice and appreciate the gorgeous eyes that could grace a magazine cover, you are more taken with the ones brave enough to open up a window to their soul.

At 20 we rightly predicted the shape if not the details of much of the hard that lay ahead — wrinkles, work instabilities, friends divorcing, friends getting cancer, kids struggling, parents ageing, and so much more —but our imaginations grossly undershot all the moments of joy and laughter and wonder and connection on offer. We learn that real beauty isn’t cultivated in the salon or gym but intertwined with the the company you keep. And we learn that moments of wonder can’t be earned, bought, saved, traveled to or housed in a church building, only embraced.

I long ago wrote down this quote in my journal because it seemed worth remembering. It’s a gift for any age and any time, even a time such as this: “The world as we find it is neither a guarantee of happiness nor a condemnation to despair.” Though conditions might be unfavorable, a river of peace is always running through it. Sing it, Marvin.

With my arms open wide,
I threw away my pride
I'll sacrifice for you
Dedicate my life for you
I will go where you lead
Always there in time of need
And when I lose my will
You'll be there to push me up the hill
There's no, no looking back for us
We got love sure 'nough, that's enough
You're all, You're all I need to get by.

Restraint as Parental Work

Every disappointment our children experience has two arcs. One through their tender but still roomy hearts and a second one through ours. And while our hearts are better acclimatised to hurt, these second hand blows make their way through our hearts and settle into our bones.

This past weekend one of my children had one of those heavy disappointments. The details of the defeat might not be specifically relatable, but the experience of getting to within inches of a goal and then having to walk it back most surely is.

Our 16 year old son is passionate about road cycling. It’s the kind of obsession that drives him to get up several mornings a week while it’s still dark to ride before school. It’s a harrowing hobby for the streets of London, but passions don’t care much about postcodes. Neither do they apparently care that my front entry is cluttered with bike gear.

Not everyone who has a passion desires a competitive outlet, but that is not this kid. The trouble is that youth road cycling races are not easily accessible at a competitive level in London. There aren’t many of them until you are 17 years old (Junior level.) He has done plenty of other cycling races, mostly duathlons, but those have all been as one of only a handful of youth in an adult race. And more importantly, because those type of races are individually focused they do not allow drafting/riding as a group. Which when your idols are Tour de France riders, is the way you want to ride.

After a lot of research this summer, he discovered he could qualify for a youth road cycling race if he were to get a British Cycling License. He navigated the paperwork for that on his own and had to wait a couple of weeks to receive his official license via Post. Once he finally had that in hand, he dug around and found a right-sized, draft-sanctioned race just over an hour from London and signed up for it.

Before this opportunity could meet preparation, the race confirmation came with a set of detailed rules - exactly the kind of thing I’d gloss over but he knew to read with care. Good thing too as he discovered that he needed to make an important adjustment to his bike.

When his Dad could only partially solve the adjustment, he took £20 and walked it over to our local bike shop first thing on Saturday morning. When the local bike shop couldn’t do any more, he emailed the Race Director. When the Race Director didn’t respond, he took it upon himself to the get to the race two hours early to work it out in person. These are all the kind of hoops one is willing to go through when you want something bad enough.

Over text he told us that during the gear check the Race Director said he could ride the race but it would be a DQ for British Cycling points. Not yet having any British Cycling points, this was of little concern. He was in. We asked if he wanted us to come watch. He texted back: “Well if u want it’s ur choice” which anyone with teens knows really means YES! and come camera-ready if you insist.

That’s a lot of back story but it’s important context for what happened next. Fifteen minutes before the start of the race, he got a flat. Though always prepared, he forgot to bring a spare with him. He called us to ask if we had one. We were on the train but hadn’t brought one and wouldn’t be there in time to help. The only solution was for him to find a Good Samaritan With a Spare Tube in under 15 minutes. Not good odds.

We arrived 10 minutes after the race started. We watched the first pack of youth riders whizz by. And then the second pack. We kept watching — hoping — until the youngest of youth riders passed by and the first pack was back around for their next lap. This was the exact kind of race he had been hungering for … and he wasn’t there.

This time a text came through just to Brett. He was walking to the train station. Too far out of London for there to be taxis, with a broken down bike too big for an Uber Prius, he had walked the 45 minutes with his bike back to the train station. In flip-flops (so as not to damage his cycling shoes.) Of course, like all sad stories, it was also pouring rain.

We found him on the train platform. He wasn’t crying but he literally could not speak.

Anyone with children knows what it feels like to witness your child suffering a disappointment they weren’t expecting. It’s a kind of full body pain that has a way of bubbling over into an avalanche of words. We ask clarifying questions. We problem solve. We offer words of comfort. We make promises we’re not entirely sure we can keep. We give pep talks. We make small talk. We do our very best to keep the sadness at bay and start looking ahead at next time, or ice cream?

That is my normal go to response but somehow this time, I felt like my job was one of restraint. He maybe needed my presence but he certainly didn’t need my words. Sadness needs space to spread out before you can figure it out. And so we rode the train home together in silence. And it felt like parental work.

Later that night I hugged him and told him how sad I was that he had the day he’d had after so much preparation and anticipation. He met my teary eyes with his blood shot ones. I then told him that while I didn’t know what the reason for it was, I was certain that it would help to make him stronger. He nodded in agreement. And that was all I said. Because in my time of parental work, I realized that figuring out those reasons was his work, not mine. Something he already knew.

The Making of a Ragnarian (or something like that)

You know when someone asks you to do something really awesome but really hard and normally you could respond with “that sounds great, but I can’t because …”  and then they have the audacity to tag it with “…next year…” and you don’t yet have your excuses lined up for NEXT YEAR, you know what could happen ….

You could find yourself sitting in a really big van early on a Saturday morning with head lamps, sleeping bags, and enough GU gels to supply a small village in route to some place called Sittingbourne with the expectation that you and your van mates will manage to run every mile between it and Brighton by Sunday afternoon. GRL PWR on the move.

That happened this past weekend.  We ran a Ragnar Relay Race.

Psst …  because you absolutely won’t know enough about English geography in advance of committing: here is Sittingbourne on a map.  And here is the way they are expecting you to run to Brighton.  Red rover, red rover, they are asking us to FREAKIN’ RUN VIA DOVER!

Here was the pitch:

“Take to the road with 9 friends for the trip of a lifetime, as a Ragnarian, you'll embark upon a journey filled with fun, bonding, and obviously, running (both night and day).  At Reebok Ragnar White Cliffs your team will tackle a 170(ish) mile course that snakes through picturesque towns, rolling fields, and the most beautiful collection of white cliffs you've ever seen. Entering this unique, overnight relay means night-time runs, turning a spacious van into a temporary home, and a bond-strengthening experience like no other.  Each teammate runs 3 “legs” with each leg ranging between 3-11 miles and varying in difficulty.”

Here are the 10 of us who signed up for this as Team WRW 9s:

Here’s what they don’t tell you:

Someone will get lost.

Someone will get sick.

Everyone will stink.

Re: getting lost.  Although 100+ teams all start from the same place, you spread out quickly and find yourself usually running without another runner anywhere in sight.  When the signage is good, the sun is up, and the shins aren’t screamin’ - it’s all good.  In the dead of night — we all know — things ain’t alway so magical.  This could and did happen to one of our teammates, Meredith (shared with permission), who happened to draw both the hardest and most complicated legs :

“Ohhh let me tell you about magical! It was the f*cking Blair Witch Project. I set off into the dark park ie woods. Following that blue dot. Took one wrong turn I’m in the middle of the park just a blue dot turning in circles. I’m flat out hyperventilating, running in circles, screeching and saying “Mommy mommy mommy.” I call, they try to help me. I end up down a dark path at a fence. Back track now I have no idea where I am. I seriously was off the deep end- it’s like every law and order episode I ever watched (the SVU ones). When it was clear I was not making it out alive  they had to send the rescue car to find me. So the rescue car drops me at the exit to the park where I proceed to finish the race about an hour late in tears. Remind me please to never volunteer for anything involving map reading, nature, headlamps-woods, dark parks. I need a stiff drink and a massage.”

With three legs each, everyone has at least one night run. Not everyone gets to run with the sheep. The sunrise is a welcome thing come Sunday morning.

Re: getting sick. Our bodies are creatures of habit and 36 hours of nut balls, Ramen noodles, and portable loos is hard on even the best of bowels.  When you train for a race like this, there are no guarantees that your body will give you what you need come race day.  We had a teammate -our Team Captain Roni - go down hard with the flu during the race.  While it could have been a cause of despair or dropping out in a normal race, the rules of a team relay meant we were allowed to pass the baton to another teammate and get support for the one in need. 

Re: stink.  You know how one dirty sock can ruin a car ride?  Multiple that minefield by 9 and throw in everything else worn.  Do not be fooled.  A van is not a temporary home.  It is a smelly van.

So why did we do this again?   Because:

That person will be found.

That person will be cared for. 

Everyone will eventually get a shower.

And because we can say that we finished running 170ISH MILES together.  

We of course didn’t all have the same views or same terrain or same distances. 

BUT we shared stories and photos from each of our “legs” to fill in the gaps.  And, most importantly, we did have the same swell of confidence and wonder that comes from accomplishing something hard.  The confrontation of a white cliff — or the scuffles of daily living — may chip away at our belief that we are made to pull off some things only we can do in this one life we’ve been given.  The courage needed to do that grows in lots of ways but perhaps most obviously when we push hard and push together. 

Because it is guaranteed that sometime down the road, whether it’s a road you chose to run or walk: 

You may be the one lost.

You may be the one in need.

There will never come a day when you don’t need a shower.

"Come on, let's get acididic!"

It’s a statement my youngest son says regularly. He made up the word about a year ago. To get acididic is to to have full intensity about the thing you are doing. So much so that you don’t think about what else is going on and don’t care how you look doing it.

It’s a word that can only be properly said while scrunching up your face, biting your tongue, and gathering the fingertips of both hands to one imaginary point and gesturing wildly. We know his acididic face well by now. What follows is never quiet. His appeal is to take what you are doing, ratchet up your commitment to it, and see what happens.

I’m the only family member he can count on to get acididic with. We speak a similar language of exuberance, though mine is often tired and not always keen to involve by whole body. But to be acididic is also to be relentless and so this summer I have been roped into getting acididic in a few ways.

Getting Tactile Eating a Plum. It may not be as glorious as a peach, but to take whatever fruit is growing in your yard and to inhale as many as you can and as messily as you can, sacrificing what you please for inspection or perfection, while in the shade of the tree’s canopy and with company at some non-sanctioned meal time is a thousand times sweeter than the best plum pudding. Yes, that’s a run on sentence and I don’t care.

Clowning Around Under Water. As adults, we think a good back float is a wonderful pleasure in the pool. And it is until an unsuspecting ball hits you in the face. Clowning Around Under Water, as I’ve been urged to do, however has no such hazards. It only requires you to put on goggles, drop your head below the surface of the water and start slapping your arms violently which makes both amazing bubbles for your visual pleasure and your own beats for your auditory pleasure. I was doubtful at first but how many other things allow you to simultaneously blow off steam, create your own music, and feel weightless.

Grunting like a Tennis Player while Playing Badminton. Unlike tennis that requires more skill and technique, badminton is kind to beginners and makes you feel like you have more game than you do. With a long racket to reach those over your head shots and the weirdly satisfying feeling of sending a birdie flying through the air, the only way to play badminton with Lawton is to dive (him only), grunt (both of us), and contest line calls like it was Wimbledon (guess who?) No one likes to be around us when we are channeling our inner animal on the court but oh does it feel good.

It’s easy to get fired up about things that make us mad. Getting acididic about little things like a plum, leaving your comfy pool side chair, or playing a leisure game with total abandon takes a little more effort and while it won’t fix the things that make us mad, it’s the kind of explosion of life that has the possibility of moving us in a different direction.

I’m now being called to a Badminton game in the pouring rain … because apparently getting acididic means you aren't bothered by a passing shower or two.

Caution: Deer Delight

There are many beautiful animals you are likely never to chance upon. Take the tiger. Unless you traveled to India, southeast Asia, or Siberia - with serious intention - you would never catch a glimpse of one in the wild. Add endangered to that mix, and your only real hope for a spotting would be standing three people and two strollers deep at a city zoo.

All it not lost however. There are other magnificent animals, like the deer, that hang out in so many different kinds of ecosystems that your chances are good for seeing one in it’s natural habitat. Just hopefully not through your windshield.

To see one of the leggy, well proportioned animals out in a thick forest, in the mountains, on the savanna, or in your garden (just hopefully not nibbling away at your plants) is one of nature’s calls to be still. Alert but daring, deer stand close enough to be admired so long as you keep your end of bargain by staying quiet. It’s hard to imagine any deer being mean. They even come across as an animal that wouldn’t smell.

Whether foraging or passing through there is something graceful and effortless in a deer’s movements. So serene they make our daily work by comparison look like a motorcyclist revving up their engine at a stop light.

If it’s not you, something else will soon startle the deer, and so the posture of stillness is never really that long. But it’s enough. And while you’re sorry to see it go, it is something to watch a deer run and jump as if there were no physical barriers between it and the world.

No fence is too high, no terrain too rough for it to fully accelerate once it’s decided to take that first step. It reminds you of the ancient wisdom that says we too can be agile and make progress upon the high places.

Now that we have a house in the French countryside, we see enough deer in our own yard to consider it routine. I still like to see them but admittedly I don’t always stop what I’m doing to watch them anymore.

My husband, on the other hand, still does. Every single time, And every time he sees one, you’d think it was the first time. He flickers with the excitement of an 8 year old boy, quietly motioning to whoever is nearby to gather an audience. He exchanges texts and photos with his Mom. His delight in them is never-ending and it’s adorable. It's the way delight should be. It never dims.

And while it’s corny, and I am clumsy, sometimes not nice and nothing like a deer, he gives me that same level of attentiveness every single day. Like each day with me is another potential day for delight.

Today is our 27th wedding anniversary. My husband is in London and I’m in France. I’ll be on the lookout. Happy anniversary, my dear.