Transforming Spaces: The Small Things Are the Work
We tend to notice the big moments.
top of page
From the Quiet Repair Journal
Stories, observations and ideas from classrooms, kitchens, hallways, care settings and the strange business of being human.
journal 01 — The Toast Was Burnt
The first time I realized presence could change a room, I wasn't standing behind a podium.I was standing in front of a toaster.One side burned. The other barely toasted.The kid waiting for it shrugged.“Food is food.”It wasn't exactly the inspirational moment they put on conference posters.But I've thought about it a lot since.We spend enormous amounts of energy trying to get things right before we offer them. The right words. The right intervention. The perfectly timed question.Meanwhile, a lot of connection happens while we're still figuring it out.Someone stays.Someone notices.Someone makes the sandwich.Someone says, You good? — and waits long enough for the question to mean something.Maybe presence isn't about arriving perfectly prepared.Maybe it's about being willing to remain in the room when things are a little uneven around the edges.Sometimes the toast is burnt.Hand it over anyway.
Journal 02 — Why Kids Talk in Cars
Have you ever noticed how some of the best conversations happen when nobody is looking at each other?Cars.Walks.Cooking.Shooting hoops.Folding laundry.There is something different about talking shoulder-to-shoulder.Face-to-face conversation can quietly become a performance. I'm looking at you. You're looking at me. You're reading my reaction while I'm reading yours.Put both people beside each other and suddenly there is somewhere else to look.The windshield.The sidewalk.The frying pan.The basketball hoop.The pressure changes.I've had young people tell me things while walking that I doubt would ever have come out across a desk.Not because I found the perfect question.Because there wasn't a spotlight.Sometimes the best way to help someone talk isn't to look harder at them.It's to stand beside them and look somewhere else together.
Journal 03 — Your Weird Might Be the Doorway
For a long time I thought professionalism meant sanding off the strange parts.Be measured.Be appropriate.Be beige.Unfortunately, I am terrible at beige.I rebuild dirt bikes. I make things. My garage usually smells like gasoline and coffee. There is almost certainly something half-finished sitting on a workbench.And I've learned something surprising.Those things sometimes connect me to people faster than credentials ever could.The weird little detail you almost leave out might be the thing that makes another person think:Oh. You're a real person too.That doesn't mean dumping your life story into every conversation.It means leaving enough of yourself in the room that somebody else doesn't feel like they have to hide all of themselves either.Maybe your weird isn't something to overcome.Maybe it's a doorway.
bottom of page