Growing Versions

I love laughing. I love laughing a lot. It is such a deceptively simple statement, but for someone who loves laughing so much, I don't do it nearly as much as I sigh, cry and glower. Last night, I went to a live taping of  This Hour has 22 Minutes .  For anyone who hasn't seen their brilliant work, they are pioneers in modern political satire.  Long before The Daily Show started impaling the powerful, the talented crew at 22 Minutes were cooking it old school.  There were years when that is where I got my most accurate (and scathing) news. What was so exciting about last night's show was that one of the original 4 cast members was in the house playing one of her more famous characters live. She plays this mouthy American pundit periodically and last night, she did not disappoint. The character was declaring her intention to move to Canada in light of the recent election results. What was so great to observe was a veteran master of her craft getting into c...

  "Homoeostasis, any self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival. If homoeostasis is successful, life continues; if unsuccessful, disaster or death ensues.  The stability attained is actually a dynamic equilibrium, in which continuous change occurs yet relatively uniform conditions prevail." -Encyclopedia Brittanica For some reason I thought I was in charge of my equilibrium. Turns out,  I was wrong.  I was leaking air, but so slowly and subtly that I scarcely noticed.   When I finally noticed, I reached out, some people reached back, they helped me inflate again. I hover, just above the ground, awaiting a gust of wind to send me aloft again.

The other morning, on a particularly lazy one, I did not quite get around to formally feeding my son breakfast.  He would not have gone hungry, for a while now, he has helped himself to cereal, everything is within easy reach, there is fruit in the bowl. He's 8.  However, on this particular morning, he was having none of this self-serve breakfast.  No way. He kept repeating how hungry he was.  I kept telling him to serve himself. Finally, he put his head into his hands and wailed, "I'm just so hungry." I reluctantly gave up on the book I was reading and ventured over to him. I held him in my arms and whispered into his ear.  "I could make you an egg, or kale chips or a sandwich. What would you like me to make you?  We could roast that squash we got?" And just like that he calmed down, he wiped his eyes and apologized for "going all crazy".  "I am just hungry ", he explained.  That is when I realized, food alone does not a...

I was stopped in my tracks the other morning by a tiny person who had just learned to walk. He lurched towards something. Something neither his father nor I could see or appreciate. He seemed to walk towards nothing, but there was a smirk of delight on his sweet face, he was heading toward something that previously had been out of his reach, unimaginable in those dimensions.  " I can walk towards that now, " he was thinking, "I am capable of that now." Finally, his father picked him up and head in the opposite direction, away from whatever it was that had caught his attention.  His day had begun, he would walk towards many more things and exmaine many things before the day would be over.