i just got the honor of road tripping with sterling toles, a detroit music and spiritual legend. sterling knows an immense amount about love, and we had 24 hours in a car together to explore the content. it was a beautiful reminder that love is not a secret, a point of shame, something done in isolation. love and intimacy are constant, all around us, deserve our attention and deconstruction.

in between the two 12-hour trips with sterling were 10 surprise days with my family. i worked every night on my ruckus and ussf stuff, and spent each day packing my baby sister’s life in ny up to ship to mn. my other task was holding my niece, and/or keeping my nephew completely engaged.

my niece is 1000 years old and her eyes already look right through you:

i brought nephew a book called Space with pictures of the planets, the Milky Way, galaxies, astronauts, rocketships. together we learned all about it, and my joy was listening to his two year old mouth wrap around these new words – galaxy? “galagy” astronaut? “uhnauto”

he learned the word adventure – “ad-Ben-ture”! and called it out every time we left the house. going to the store? “adbenture!” going to the park? “adbenture!!” going to eat? “adbenture!!!” what a fantastic way to experience life.

the best was that he learned to say i love you. his only was of saying it was to yell it at the top of his lungs: “I LUH DO!”

it’s great to scream it.