What does functional multiplicity look like when nobody is asking us to perform? On Han’s Day, a frightening morning gives way to Braided Bridge, where a two-foot wheel on a Heidelberg press turns quietly beneath the memory of a 700-foot Ferris wheel we once hoped could help solve the housing crisis. Maybe the best things—the true things—really do start small.
Tag Archives: Family
You May Think You See a Person Losing Their Mind
A jagged Wednesday becomes a portrait of how a plural family holds itself together. Plans fail, the bedroom becomes unusable, memories and outside messages unsettle the day, and the family keeps adapting—through listening, boundaries, prayer, Greek salad, quesadillas, Hilda, making the bed, and one brother reminding Daddy: “I think you should be with Luke.” Along the way, an ordinary question about whether nine people sharing one physical body have quesadillas in their stomach or their stomachs opens onto something larger: anatomy, family, and the interior ways we know one another.
Then How Does Anything Get Done?
Yesterday we wrote that nobody in our plural family is THE ONE. Today, Solis’s Day answered the obvious question: Then how does anything get done? Groceries, garlic, an unmade bed, a four-year-old’s stew, fear, changing plans, and eight sons who keep showing Daddy what happens when everyone belongs and being heard can actually change what happens next.
They Call It Functional Multiplicity. We Call It Saturday.
Functional multiplicity sounds formidable. In our family, it has been built through something much smaller: waffles and cheese sandwiches, somatic signals, laughter, fear, repair, prayer, and learning how nine people can inhabit one life without requiring anyone to disappear. This is what an ordinary Saturday looks like from inside the Treehouse.
The Work Inside an Ordinary Saturday
What does functional multiplicity actually look like in ordinary life? This companion analysis looks beneath one difficult Saturday to explore the small practices—communication, co-regulation, somatic signaling, shared agency, attention, repair, and delight—that help a plural family build a life together.
When Lived Experience Feels Like Destiny: Listening for the Whisper
When lived experience becomes so concrete that it occupies the entire horizon, it can begin to feel like destiny. On Hope’s Day, amid deep fear and uncertainty, we listen for the Whisper—the still, small voice that helps us see the little things, the longshots, and the possibilities that have not disappeared.
Three Warm Towels
We don’t know why the faucet was running. We do know what happened next. On Justus’s Day, a flooded bedroom becomes a story about three warm towels, a little peanut butter monster, telling the truth, caring for our home, and discovering that when plans change, our course doesn’t have to.
Present Presence: The Foundation of Ordinary Life
What happens when the present moment itself can become terrifying? Our plural family calls it a Terror Peek. During the pandemic, a quieter world helped us discover another possibility: Present Presence—the ability to inhabit the life that is actually here, together.
Solis’s Day Is Reclaiming the Sabbath
We stayed home on Sunday because we needed rest. By midday, the journal—and the analysis that followed it—was uncovering something much older about urgency, safety, work, faith, independence, and what it means to reclaim the Sabbath.
Daniel Does Not Need to Become Brave Enough
On the eve of Daniel’s Day, a five-year-old says, “I don’t want to go tomorrow.” What begins as a question about Saturday plans becomes something much deeper: a father learning that his child does not need to become brave enough for tomorrow. Tomorrow needs to become safe enough for his child.
Notes from the Treehouse 