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The Chipotle on M Street, right around the corner from the office is one of the liveliest of Chipotles. From the super-aggressive indigent folks nearby, to the drunk party-goers thinking they own the place… it feels like home. I’ve actually gotten razor close to fisticuffs at that Chipotle on three occasions. I’ll spare anyone reading this the stories. When the kids would come down and hang out, we’d often go there for either lunch or dinner quite a bit.

It was here we’d talk about all kinds of ideas and subjects, from the dreaded current events (Trump, Trump and Trump) or some new scientific discovery or an imagining of a sci-fi story idea that we should make into a movie. I tend to talk a lot, so having an audience – or equal participants at times, like my very own progeny, is an awesome part of the parenting deal.

These are the powerful moments in between the moments most of us tend to celebrate. It’s the non-moments that are the most powerful “moments” in my life. When I’m with the kids, we could be riding our bikes, grabbing some food or taking a walk on the Mall, and I become energized to discuss or debate almost anything. I can get lost in those “interval” activities.

Webster defines an interval as, a space of time between events or states. I embrace the intervals as the most valuable non-entities of our timelines. Moments are short-lived and the very energy that makes them recognizable, those moments that anchor the ends of intervals, can create a small pockets of depression for the time immediately surrounding them. The intervals are where the actual work gets done… or not, which is just as good. That is, I make the most of it and revel in the intervals.

Our trips to Wawa and sitting to consume our snacks, chilling at Chipotle, stopping on a bike ride to nowhere to rest and talk, returning home after working out at the gym, are all the best of times in my mind. I believe the kids value it as well in some regards. They may not recognize it as energetic or as eventful as say, a trip to an amusement park, but they seem to be down for “actively doing nothing” with dear very old dad.

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