Time Without Time

This is an adaptation of my weekly newsletter, Adventures Big & Small. If you want to receive emails like these, click here to subscribe.

I feel so conflicted right now. As if I’m living two dissonant lives from the same body, immersed in love and joy but also backed right up against an abyss of darkness.

My daughter is two. She is healthy. Her smile is the biggest I know of. When I’m with her, I feel no fear of the future. Time with her is time without time.

And then.

There’s everything else. Gaza. ICE raids. Headlines I can barely read. A photo the other day of a Palestinian man with a bag tied over his head, holding his terrified son with a sense of quiet strength that should bring anyone to tears, no matter your political leanings.

What a beautiful planet. What an unbelievable gift it is to be human. Our children remind us of this every day. And yet somewhere between childhood and adulthood, something goes missing.

We all have a list of things we wish we were doing better. My aspirations include waving No Kings flags in protests and reading more than just the headlines. But I want to dig a little deeper into something I do know how to do well – crafting and sharing the stories we tell of our families.

We shape the future through these stories – the stories our children believe about their families, their place in the world, and their ability to create beauty within it.

At dinner in our family, we’ve started sharing one thing we’re grateful for before taking the first bite. It’s like saying grace for the non-religious. The other night I forgot, and my two-year-old did one of her overdramatic, almost-fake laughs and said, “Silly Dada forgot to say something that made him happyyyyy!”

In that moment, I was reminded how acutely she’s already learning what matters to her parents, not by what I tell her—but by the rituals we repeat, the values we emphasize as a family.

The story of your family is one of the most powerful things you will ever create. It has the power to change the world. It is something we can control, no matter the uncertainty surrounding us.

Hold on tight, and see you next week.