Category: Us

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Let me tell you about my partner

Chris is the steward of our home, and our children’s education. He handles the day-to-day details most people overlook until something goes wrong. Groceries. Yard work. Homeschooling. Clean laundry. The lightbulb that needs replacing. The kids’ dentist appointments. The rhythms that make up a life.

He notices what’s needed and takes care of it.

Chris didn’t fall into this role. He chose it. And together, we’ve built a life around that choice.

He is thoughtful, steady, and deeply present. He shows up for our boys every single day, not just as their teacher but as someone who listens, encourages, and takes them seriously. He teaches them by example: how to be responsible, how to be kind, how to think deeply about the world around them.

Chris is funny. It may not be apparent, because he is often serious. But his humor is deep, and raunchy, and physical. He makes me and the boys laugh deep in our bellies. 

He is a walker. Solvitur ambulando is a Latin phrase meaning “it is solved by walking,” which refers to the idea that a problem is solved through practical demonstration or by moving forward, rather than just contemplation. It’s how he clears his head. How he finds space before the day begins. He’s a reader. A deep thinker. Someone who returns to the same ideas again and again, not out of habit, but because he’s turning them over. Looking at them from all sides.

Chris is not loud about what he does. But his work has shaped the culture of our family.

Because of him, our home is calm. It’s thoughtful. It has a rhythm, even when life gets messy. That’s not accidental. That’s intentional.

We’ve built something together that works. Not because it’s perfect. Not because we’ve never struggled. But because we keep coming back to the foundation: care, clarity, mutual respect.

Chris makes that possible.

I love him like a deep current. Like something that shapes the shoreline without needing to shout.

He turns 49 today. We’ve spent nearly 20 years building a life together. I can’t imagine doing this with anyone else.

So if you’ve ever wondered about the person behind the scenes, the one holding steady while everything else moves fast.

This is him.

This is Chris.

And we are us, because of him. 

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Consequential conversations

One of my favorite things about our family is the way conversations never stay small. A simple question over coffee can spiral into debates about money, morality, or whatever headline happens to be buzzing that day. This morning it began with one: what would you do with a million dollars if you had to spend it in a single day?

The answers were practical, generous, and occasionally absurd. Some of us would funnel money to friends and family. Others thought about starting a business. There was also a plan to buy gold, then flip it back into cash once the 24 hours were up. That loophole sparked the bigger conversation.

We ended up on Bitcoin. We talked about how it works, the energy it devours, and the neighborhoods where mining rigs keep people awake at night. Then we asked the harder question. If you had bought in early, would you be partly responsible for the damage?

Because of course, we would turn a fun thought experiment into a philosophy seminar. For use, learning is ongoing, not just during “school”.

The answer wasn’t simple. We agreed that chasing absolute moral purity is a dead end. History is full of people who tried, and it usually ended badly. The crusades come to mind. So does any movement that can’t laugh at itself. But pretending our choices have no consequences isn’t the answer either. That tension is where the real work happens, uncomfortable as it is.

This is what I love about our family. We don’t argue to win. We poke at ideas until they give way or take on a new shape. It’s not everyone’s idea of small talk, but it works for us.

I still don’t know if anyone had the right answer to the million-dollar challenge. I do know this: the best investment I’ve ever made is in the conversations we keep having, even before breakfast.

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Polished into pearls

“It’s like a diamond inside a three-dimensional circle. Once you speak about it, it moves.”

The opening salvo in our love language. An esoteric, deeply meaningful, confusing, ambiguous, magical experience — romantic love. We begin and end with conversation, no matter how hard, confusing, or tedious.

It’s not the heads or tails — I’m concerned with the edge.

We took each kernel of pain and joy. We examined them together, our hands mingling, among the grains of sand. Tumble and fumbling, around and around, until each grain is polished into pearls.

Our language becomes touch, and touch becomes a lifelong commitment to partnership.

Memory From Sitting on the Stoop, Talking To My Lover (29 years old).
Soundtrack: The Pearl, EmmyLou Harris

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The Cedar Spoon

During our last spring break at Earth Native, among Central Texas’s Juniper, Oak, Mesquite, and Cactus, our family found peace away from digital distractions. We gathered, each immersed in our projects under a canopy of trees, reconnecting with the earth and each other in a circle of creation.

Compelled by a spontaneous urge, I chose to whittle a spoon from a cedar branch. With no prior experience, guided by intuition rather than plans, I started carving. As my family’s quiet activities hummed around me, I slowly uncovered the spoon’s form, feeling each curve and learning the wood’s secrets.

Hour by hour, the spoon began to take shape. The process was both an act of creation and a meditation, a way to connect with the present moment fully. The rough outline of the spoon emerged from the cedar, each curl of wood removed bringing me closer to the final form. It was a process of discovery, of letting go of excess to reveal what was meant to be.

The final steps—carving, sanding, and oiling—felt like the end of a conversation with the wood. This simple spoon feels a bit like a symbol. A reminder of intuition’s power and the joy of discovery.

I rediscovered an important concept—it’s the quiet moments, the simple acts of creation, and the company of loved ones that shape us, reminding us of the essence of living a life grounded in the real, the tactile, and the deeply human.