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 Me standing in front of the high school admin assistant: It feels like there's something in my shoe. Me: Probably there is  something in my shoe. Me: (takes shoe off and checks) It is a tiny piece of dog food. Awesome, I love when I do something like this in front of another person. Admin Assistant: I'm surprised the dog didn't eat the shoe Me: Me too What I didn't say is that I'm surprised I walked around on a piece of dog food for the last 2 hours. Or am I?
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At bedtime last night, my 10 year-old asked me to stay extra long in his room. He was teary and said he couldn't stop thinking about dying. He couldn't stop thinking that, at the end of his life, he'd feel like it had all gone by so fast that when he died it would all mean nothing. Can you imagine? 10 years old. Full existential crisis. So I held him and stayed extra long. I could tell you the things I said to him, and they were good and they helped. But the truth is, he's got a point. It's one that I don't subscribe to, but I do think his observations are astute and more well-reasoned than a 10-year-old should have to face. His view is a fair one albeit bleak. And the idea that he grapples with it definitely put a large crack in my heart last night.
 Monday I went to pick up our mail at the post office. The postal worker was blocking the path to my box with a giant blue roller bin of packages she was putting into the center aisle lockers so I joked, "if that's blocking the path to my box, does that mean I get a ride in it?" She popped up from behind it and smiled, rolling it out of my way. "I don't see why not," she joked back. I grabbed my mail then looked at the roller bin, looked at her, looked at the roller bin, and jumped on. She pushed me to the end of the aisle and stopped. I giggled away, running into someone I work with on the way to the line to retrieve packages. "Who says the post office can't be fun?"
 I used to always think the best thing I had to offer was fun. I'm a shitton of fun. During quarantine, I had students make sock puppets and do a lipsynch battle. I once let my kids sit on the roof of the car while I pulled up the driveway. I sing loud even at stoplights with the windows down. I am always thinking of games, texting funny pictures, saying weird stuff to make people laugh. I make myself happy nearly every day with silliness. But once when I said that was the best thing I have to offer, my husband disagreed. I didn't know what to make of it. I thought he was wrong. I was kinda mad actually. Why didn't he think the best thing about me was the best thing about me? Maybe he didn't get me.  But more than a year later, I don't think that's it at all. I'm not actually sure what he thinks it is and I'm still not sure if he's right. The fun part is pretty uniquely me and I really like it about myself. But maybe the fun part is the part that'

What makes you unique?

At the end of the first day of school, I was in a 2nd grade classroom where the teacher asked each child "What makes you shine, what makes you glow, what makes you special, what makes you unique?" One kid yells out, "I was born with a tail."

Positive Sweep

One of my sons sprained his wrist, the other broke his. One cast. One brace. I nearly cried about the lost swimming time at the end of the summer. We haven't even been to Waterworld yet! Unheard of. I bet my son ice cream that he wouldn't need a cast. I knew he probably would. I didn't want to win a bet so much as to cushion the frustrations and disappointments of spending the rest of summer in a cast. And let's be honest, I wanted to go out for ice cream. Win, win. He wasn't even all that upset in the end. He said that at least we still get to spend time together and at least we spent so much time on the river earlier in the summer and that it's really not so bad. He's usually the reactive one and I'm usually the positive sweep. I'm proud that there's nothing wrong with his broom. We also bought them Nintendo Sports to play with one hand. It's really pretty fun. Especially once my younger son figured out that he could take it outside and pla
I wonder about the capillary action of our lives, which actions taken in small micromotions that move a nutrient or two here or there add up to be an entire system of goodness delivery. Noticing the house finch's shadow when it passes, feeling the pellets of cold rain on your face and running anyway, the wink at a bored toddler in her stroller, the moment to squeal about a former coworker's baby instead of saying you have a meeting. The way the feeling of participation is like the blood flow that travels into our tissues, simply diffusing itself into smaller and smaller pathways. Connecting our tissues to each other. It is in actions. Is it these small ones?  I judge people on whether they pick up trash as they walk or if they look at it, and choose to leave it. Though perhaps judge isn't the word. I judge outright littering. But picking up the litter of others, I notice. The people who never litter, who pick things up and put them away even when they don't have to, it