Power of Two

Marc presenting on Open Source Judaism to Limmud Boston

I hit the ground running this morning, and was out early to pick up bagels and coffee. My Sunday morning routine. It hasn't changed much since I wrote that post, except that it's become less and less of a routine. Hannah doesn't really like bagels much, and it seems like I'm able to talk myself out of going more often lately. But today, I went.

It's been really busy around here. I'm not complaining, it's not a bad kind of busy necessarily, but there's been a lot of work brought home or evenings of solo-parenting or spending an eternity catching up on laundry. Bagels and coffee were fuel for another day spent racing around.

And then in a moment, a song took me back to 1997. I think. Might have been 1998, I honestly can't remember, but a group of us from Brandeis traveled to the University of New Hampshire to see the Indigo Girls in concert. In this time before flash mobs and fake movie trailer proposals, a guy had arranged to propose to his girlfriend on stage during the show, before the Indigo Girls played "Power of Two." We all cheered when she yelled a loud "yes!" from somewhere in the stands, and I thought it was incredibly romantic. 

A lot of the busy-ness of the past week has been because Marc did a presentation at a conference called Limmud Boston this morning. See, I'm not the only one in this family juggling our family life, a full-time job, and outside interests, Marc is doing it too. I got to attend most of his presentation, and I'm so proud of him. It was really well done, and I'm glad he put as much effort into it as he did.

I stopped for a moment, hearing "Power of Two" when I did this morning. I was reminded of the romance of that moment so long ago, and found a bit of romance in the moment then, bringing bagels and coffee home. Marc was so happy, excited and most of all, passionate, about sharing his knowledge with the group today. We may not have been the most well-rested this week, and may not have had a ton of time to spend together, but it was totally worth it to see him be such a success and in his element. I'm so happy to be living an exponentially-powered life with him.

"So we're okay,
We're fine,
Baby I'm here to stop your crying,
Chase all the ghosts from your head,
I'm stronger than the monster beneath your bed,
Smarter than the tricks played on your heart,
We'll look at them together then we'll take them apart,
Adding up the total of a love that's true,
Multiply life by the power of two."