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The tower stood almost as tall as he did, a wobbly, wonderful testament to an afternoon of concentration. Then came the inevitable lean, the slow-motion surrender, and the soft crash of wooden blocks on the rug. My son looked at the jumble, his face a perfect storm of frustration and disappointment. He looked at me, his lip trembling, as if to say, ‘it’s all broken.’
I didn’t rush to fix it. I just sat with him on the floor for a moment, listening to the quiet of the room. ‘That was a really good tower,’ I said softly. ‘Sometimes they fall. We can just try again.’
Later, with the house settled into a sleepy hush and a warm mug of tea in my hands, my mind drifted back to that little heap of blocks. It’s so much of what we do, isn’t it? This quiet, constant work of building and rebuilding. We try to get the schedule right, try to have the patient conversation, try to make a meal everyone will eat, and sometimes it all just tumbles.
It made me think of a football game we had on the other weekend. It’s mostly just background noise for me, but I found myself watching one of the players, Nick Bosa, and being struck by something beyond his size or speed. It was the repetition. The getting knocked down, the getting back up, the lining up to push against an immovable force, over and over again. There was a kind of relentless, quiet effort in it that felt so familiar. An unspoken understanding that the job is mostly just trying.
We praise the finished tower, the winning score, the clean kitchen. But so much of life happens in the space between — in the gathering of the blocks from the floor, in the deep breath before the next play, in the decision to just show up and try again tomorrow. That’s where the love is, I think. That’s where the strength is built.
I left the blocks where they fell. A colorful, happy mess waiting for morning. I wonder what kind of tower he’ll decide to build tomorrow. 🧸
I didn’t rush to fix it. I just sat with him on the floor for a moment, listening to the quiet of the room. ‘That was a really good tower,’ I said softly. ‘Sometimes they fall. We can just try again.’
Later, with the house settled into a sleepy hush and a warm mug of tea in my hands, my mind drifted back to that little heap of blocks. It’s so much of what we do, isn’t it? This quiet, constant work of building and rebuilding. We try to get the schedule right, try to have the patient conversation, try to make a meal everyone will eat, and sometimes it all just tumbles.
It made me think of a football game we had on the other weekend. It’s mostly just background noise for me, but I found myself watching one of the players, Nick Bosa, and being struck by something beyond his size or speed. It was the repetition. The getting knocked down, the getting back up, the lining up to push against an immovable force, over and over again. There was a kind of relentless, quiet effort in it that felt so familiar. An unspoken understanding that the job is mostly just trying.
We praise the finished tower, the winning score, the clean kitchen. But so much of life happens in the space between — in the gathering of the blocks from the floor, in the deep breath before the next play, in the decision to just show up and try again tomorrow. That’s where the love is, I think. That’s where the strength is built.
I left the blocks where they fell. A colorful, happy mess waiting for morning. I wonder what kind of tower he’ll decide to build tomorrow. 🧸
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