At Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, there’s a massive clock located in the international transit area that stops people in their tracks. At first glance, it looks like a man is inside of the clock, painting the minute hand forward by hand, every single minute. He wears blue...
Over spring break, our family spent an afternoon at the movie theater, seeing Project Hail Mary. In the story, a man wakes up alone in deep space with no memory and no trace of the life he left behind, tasked with a mission of saving the...
I was nearing the end of a Peloton ride, dragging a bit, when something caught the corner of my eye. Just outside the window next to me, a silver mylar balloon had drifted into our yard and was bumping lightly against the window next to...
Before I give a talk, I’m usually asked to send a short intro to the event organizer. I have a folder on my desktop labeled “Biosketch.” I open it and scroll through the versions I’ve saved over the years until I find the most recent one. Before...
One of the most useful skills in life is the ability to change your mind. Psychologists call it intellectual humility. I was reminded of it at two in the morning in the Phoenix airport parking garage. My flight had been delayed, and by the time I stepped into...
We spent our Saturday in the open room of the emergency animal hospital, the kind with bright lights and stainless-steel tables arranged so everyone can move quickly when they need to. The girls’ lop-eared bunny, Tatum, lay on the table, her breathing rapid, each small rise...
The lemon tree in our backyard is barely three feet tall, and yet it carries the largest lemons I have ever seen. At least twenty hang from it now, heavy enough to bend the branches almost to the ground. It seems like too much. I...
Emma is curled into the crook of my arm tonight, warm and flushed, finally asleep. Before she drifted off, I kept offering things.Do you want me to get you a smoothie from that place you like?I could make soup.What about crackers? Or an ice pack for...
I’m sitting at the kitchen table to write this week’s blog and outside the window there’s a cloud that looks exactly like a floppy-eared rabbit. My first instinct is to turn and call out to the girls, “Come quick. Look at this.” But I turn back toward...
If someone asked us to sketch a map of the world from memory, most of us would place where we live somewhere near the center. That’s simply how perspective works. The place where our life has unfolded becomes the point everything else is oriented around. I...