True Amounts

I recently shared this poem on Instagram:

true amounts can’t be measured 

properties are rarely worth a name 

good deeds and even-mindedness go unnoticed 

a secret passage to tranquility 

A bit about the poem... 

I was waking my daughter up for school... Immediately, I ask her for 5 more minutes. Funny how 5 minutes is so long in youth. I remember that 5 minutes being eternity and not enough. When I was child, I would slide down into the footboard. My blankets would make a hammock between the mattress and bed frame. I’d sleep in there until discovered. 

I loved school and didn’t want to miss it. I loved my dream/sleep world too. She’s the same way. 

A few days later we are eating at a cafe. She starts crying ‘I don’t want you to go.’  And I don’t either. Only the world doesn’t work that way. Our lives, right now, don’t work that way. Our bond is other-worldly. I’m lucky that she chose me as a father... and I’ll be here for her a million lifetimes more, again and again... and I feel like she’ll chose me over and over too.  

When she’s at school, I pace and do work. Everything is muted around the Airbnb. I WhatsApp call with my fiancé and we laugh all sorts of ridiculousness. 

We talk about people in the world, populations, trends, struggles and stumble onto the over abundance of allergen topics and the additional pollution that comes with new trends and consumer power. 

We arrive at real allergies potentially created by sterility and closed, at home ecosystems that will never exist anywhere in the world besides overpriced cafes in Los Angeles.... which, unfortunately, have spread to the rest of the word. 

Our conversation turns into a fictitious Gluten Monster who can only be stopped by fighting back with singing bowls. 

These are conversations we have when she is ending the day and I am waking. 

These are moments — 5 minutes here and there — that I cannot measure. 

I’ve been taught, like all of us, the joy and regularly of something daily and the abundance of time as gold. Time is constantly in large quantities and yet moves fiercely without limitation. Sometimes that feels in our favor and other times not as much. 

The question is: Time is a friend to no one but it is a foe? 

Should my mind want one more day, 12 more hours, a few more zeros behind the largest number in my bank account.... These are desires and are not based on reality. 

In these short moments, which are all moments, fleeting embraces, I try to connect to  deeply! I am all present, completely here and not thinking (or doing) anything else. That is the affection and connection I can offer rather in an email, love, or in a short blog post on a poem I recently shared.