The Reach

For my daughter Ember, on your first birthday.

There’s a gesture you’ve been making lately.

One arm outstretched.
Hand open.
Fingers splayed.

Reaching toward the thing you want—
a toy, a dog, the light in the hallway,
my face.

And you’ll just stay there—
not grasping,
not demanding,
just fully reaching.

Your whole body held in this exquisite posture of open wanting.

No shame.
No second-guessing.
No collapse.
Just a kind of upright, surrendered vulnerability.

I’ve started calling it The Reach.

And it’s become the imprint I want to build my life around.

Because what I see in you is something so pure.
The moment your desire arises, you let your whole body orient toward it.
You don’t guard your heart.
You don’t pretend not to care.
You don’t collapse when it doesn’t come right away.
You just stay open.

Sometimes there’s frustration.
Sometimes there are tears.
But even then—your hand stays out.
And Life meets you there.

I see it in how Kiki Candace Sauve and I instinctively respond.
We notice the direction of your longing.
We come closer.
We help you get what you’re reaching for—
not just the object, but the contact. The recognition. The feeling of being met.

And I realize:
That’s how I want to live.

This past month, as I’ve stepped deeper into the unknown of fully embracing my dharma—
to teach, to lead, to serve couples in the most intimate arenas of love—
I’ve felt moments of contraction.

The nervousness of reaching out and being fully seen.
The instinct to hunker down.

And instead, I practice feeling it all—
the tingling in my chest, the tightening in my belly—
and opening to the sensation as aliveness.

There are moments of disappointment too,
where something doesn’t land the way I’d hoped,
and I feel the pull to curl up, to collapse into safety.

And every time, I come back to you.
To that image of your arm, outstretched.
Your reach that stays open, no matter what.

And I realize—this is the work.
To stay in The Reach.
To not collapse around fear.
To not armor against disappointment.
To feel it all—the uncertainty, the ache, the trembling in my spine—
and still let my spine be tall, heart and body stay open toward what I love.
To stay in the reach—
even when I don’t yet know how life will meet me.

You’ve taught me that this is what reaching actually is.
It’s a posture.
An orientation of the soul.

It’s not about getting the thing.
It’s about staying open to Life in every moment.
It’s about letting Life know—I’m here.
I’m wanting.
I’m available.

And then trusting what comes.

You’re only turning one,
and already, you’ve become one of my greatest teachers.

You remind me every day how much beauty there is in simply wanting.
How sacred it is to not hide that want.
How brave it is to let your body say yes.

You’re teaching me about boundaries, about play, about delight and agency, about presence.
But more than anything, you’re teaching me about how to live.

You’re showing me what it means to meet Life with arms open.
To say yes to my longing.
To let love and uncertainty coexist.
To reach—fully, vulnerably, beautifully—toward what I want.

And to trust that life, in some mysterious way, will meet me there.

Happy birthday, Ember.

I see your reach.
And I feel mine awakening too.