Growing Versions

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."-Leonard Cohen It is easy to take hope for granted.  Most of my days, I have hope without even realizing it.  Other times, when something goes wrong or something goes wrong for a while, I have to feel around for it again. So far, I have been so lucky that I have never truly lost it before. However, someone I know explained to me once what it is like to completely lose hope. They had to leave their country for political reasons.  Before they decided to leave, something happened first.  They lost hope. It was nowhere to be found. Nowhere. They were empty of it. They tried everything to revitalize it, but it was no use. They had to leave, they had to find hope somehow. And luckily, eventually, they did. When they told me this story, it made me realize that I had never truly contemplated before what losing hope might feel like.  Thanks to her patient explanation, I have tried to always keep in m...

When I got my first professional job, I was nerved up for the whole first year. Some days, when I was feeling unsettled in the morning, I would tell myself, "Don't focus on all the whole day at once, just get out of bed.  Good!  Now, all you have to do is take a shower.  Well done, now all you need to do is make coffee.  Just walk to the bus stop." For the past year, I've been extremely consumed by both my work and my personal life.  On the side, I've been among millions holding my breath, unsure how to resist global trends towards nationalism and fascism. There are times (okay weeks) when I have forgotten to brush my teeth. The other day, I went to the dentist for a cleaning.  I knew I was a bit late coming, but when the hygienist said it had been a year, it pulled me up short. I can be outraged, I can get bogged down, I can be bereft and busy, but I need to brush my teeth. I always will have to, day in day out.  Some days, it is okay to wa...

Do you have access to wifi? Do you have an active imagination? You only need one of these to go on a dream vacation. Especially at this time of year, I have a hard time sitting still. My mind wanders off on a ridge overlooking a deep lush valley, it meanders through a flea market in Paris or stares off into the distance next to a river side temple. My son and I invented "travel bingo when you are not on a trip", we use google maps in Beijing to locate "car", "bus", "tree".  We travelled to New Dehli's train station to find a "train". After I watch Broadchurch or Shetland, I immediately add them to my google map route. Airbnb helps me get settled into a meticulously decorated house in Mosonmagyarovar, Hungary  or a condo in South Beach  or a room in someone's apartment in Brooklyn. . I have a tiny (likely imaginary) view of someone's life in Denmark, Iran and Hungary, thanks to Instagram. I know exactly...

I wake up often grasping at the quickly dissipating strands of a good dream. I temporarily only remember the feelings the dream gave me, then I lay very still and wait for the essence of the dream to drift back, only momentarily, so I can savour it a few moments longer. My son has a hard time waking in the morning. When I am in the midst of rousing him, tiny hints of the dream he has been having slip out...don't charge the battery...why is the car in here?...It is very green...I am eating it. Those little whispers that form the ebbing edges of his dreams get rapidly reabsorbed into the air. We inhale the tiny particles of each others' dreams and they get re-constituted each night.

Any time I am in danger of being demoralized by Pinterest for not creating more games and activities out of thin air for my kids, the kids take the lead and do it for themselves. This box above was a just another thing destined for the curb after Christmas, but it got rescued and transformed into a rocket lab. Two cups and a ball eliminated the need to ever hunt down a real live ping pong table. Youtube dancing games substituted just fine for pricey video games. Gingerbread house construction expanded the ceramic Christmas village by two whole blocks. An amusement park got built on the back of cartons and laundry baskets. This air may be thin, but there is a source of oxygen coming from somewhere.

Be willing to be a beginner every single morning. -Meister Eckhart