Amy Nadine

Dear Cutie-Pie,

Recently, your mother and I were searching for an answer on Google. Halfway through entering the question, Google returned a list of the most popular searches in the world. Perched at the top of the list was “How to keep him interested.”

It startled me. I scanned several of the countless articles about how to be sexy and sexual, when to bring him a beer versus a sandwich, and the ways to make him feel smart and superior.

And I got angry.

Little One, it is not, has never been, and never will be your job to “keep him interested.”

Little One, your only task is to know deeply in your soul—in that unshakeable place that isn’t rattled by rejection and loss and ego—that you are worthy of interest. (If you can remember that everyone else is worthy of interest also, the battle of your life will be mostly won. But that is a letter for another day.)

If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the most important sense of the word: you will attract a boy who is both capable of interest and who wants to spend his one life investing all of his interest in you.

Little One, I want to tell you about the boy who doesn’t need to be keptinterested, because he knows you are interesting:

I don’t care if he puts his elbows on the dinner table—as long as he puts his eyes on the way your nose scrunches when you smile. And then can’t stop looking.

I don’t care if he can’t play a bit of golf with me—as long as he can play with the children you give him and revel in all the glorious and frustrating ways they are just like you.

I don’t care if he doesn’t follow his wallet—as long as he follows his heart and it always leads him back to you.

I don’t care if he is strong—as long as he gives you the space to exercise the strength that is in your heart.

I couldn’t care less how he votes—as long as he wakes up every morning and daily elects you to a place of honor in your home and a place of reverence in his heart.

I don’t care about the color of his skin—as long as he paints the canvas of your lives with brushstrokes of patience, and sacrifice, and vulnerability, and tenderness.

I don’t care if he was raised in this religion or that religion or no religion—as long as he was raised to value the sacred and to know every moment of life, and every moment of life with you, is deeply sacred.

In the end, Little One, if you stumble across a man like that and he and I have nothing else in common, we will have the most important thing in common:

You.

Because in the end, Little One, the only thing you should have to do to “keep him interested” is to be you.

Your eternally interested guy,

Daddy

Exploring the Fallen Idols of Turkey’s Mount Nemrut

For more photos and videos from Mount Nemrut, explore the Nemrut Dağı | Mount Nemrut location page.

In the mountainous southeastern region of Turkey, one peak stands out above the rest. Nemrut Dağı, or Mount Nemrut, ascends over 7,000 feet (2,130 meters) into the sky, and at its peak explorers will find the scattered stone heads of what are thought to be ancient gods.

After the fall of the Seleucid Empire in 190 BCE, a host of successors emerged throughout the region surrounding the Taurus mountains. One such successor state, Commagene, ruled over many diverse cultures and religions. Their leader, Antiochus I, brought these beliefs together into a single imperial cult. The monuments at the top of Mount Nemrut depict the various gods in a blend of regional artistic styles and are thought to have adorned the still-undiscovered tomb of Antiochus I.

The statues lie toppled, defaced and strewn about the weathered mountaintop, suggesting that they were purposefully destroyed at the time of Commagene’s fall.

The discovery of a cave so large that there is a cloud in it 

A team of expert cavers and photographers had been exploring caves in the Chongquing province of China - when they were amazed to discover the entrance to a hidden cave that was previously undiscovered. When they entered the cave, they found it was so large there was even a cloud inside it. Photographer and caver Robbie Shone, from Manchester, was part of a team of 15 explorers on a month-long expedition who stumbled across the natural wonder.