Homage to Edvard Munch.

What CAN we learn from two minutes with a child?

1. The focused joy of leaping across painted lines in a crosswalk, shouting out a non-linear continuum of counted numbers as you fly from one white shape to the next.

2. The alchemy of turning noise into melody and bouncing effortlessly between the two because…because. Because there’s sun. Because there’s rain. Because it’s a Wednesday. Because it’s a Monday. Because.

3. The strange pleasure in contorting one’s face into positions it was not intended to make. What a metaphor for learning and development right there: you do something different that feels strange and odd because…it feels strange and odd and teaches you something new about what you and your body are capable of doing.

4. The freedom to focus on existing, not on paying attention to how others might be judging or looking at or interpreting you. Simply to be. #Hamlet

5. The joy in giving a gift; in choosing, collecting, discarding, carefully curating a set of gifts for those you care about. Like Autumn leaves. The right leaves. The four friends he picked these out for were not random; the leaves appointed to each one were not random. He may never be able to remember, someday, why it was that he chose a particular leaf for a particular person. But he did. Was the gift more memorable than the messenger? Who knows. But I’ll bet you those four adults still have their leaves when we next see them. Because they know, they know the intent, the joy, and the purpose with which he gave what had.

And it made a little messy pocket of the world, for a few little moments, a little bit better for a few people.

Listen to some loud music today. Happy November.