Learning to love you more

Some books just get me. Like a person you've just met, but feel like you've known for years. . Days with my Father by Phillip Toledano I knew would be one of these books. When I saw it at the bookstore, I swooped it up like the last deviled egg at a 4th of July picnic. I read it and cried, and cried some more and thought about how small my own Dad is becoming.

The other book was a lark. Learning to love you more is based on the wildly popular (I didn't know anything about it) Internet visual art project. For 9 years, 9, people followed the assignments on the website and posted their results. The first assignment I saw was "Braid someone's hair."

I work with a girl I adore. She is smart and funny and precise in the way a twenty-something girl who not sure of her own footing is. Would I love her more if I braided her hair? Maybe. Her hair is always perfect. Mine is always not. The idea of her letting me do it. Mess up her perfection for however short a time (I imagine her fixing it in the car when she leaves work) does endear me to her. And what's more she'll let me do it. I'm feeling the love already.

The photo above is Assignment 27: Take a picture of the sun