Mean Reversion

A year ago, I sat on a blue rubber recliner chair at the Long Island Jewish Rehabilitation Center and stared at my dad. He was clad in a polka-dotted gown, tethered to an IV pole and lying flat on a bed so dull it was unquestionably made in China.

Will he say what’s wrong? Will he share a timeline? Will he at least ask for a cigarette?

The coffee beans underneath his eyelids rotated to me.

“Do you know…why Trump is doing the tariffs?”

Today, I stand and observe my three-month-old boy. He’s having a passionate but civil argument with a cotton giraffe and I can’t blame him for having an ego because he’s put in the work. He’s read a biography about a starving caterpillar, investigated rumors of a monster who only eats cookies and studied cats in hot pursuit of the moon.

In the quiet hours of closed markets, there’s a concept called “mean reversion.” No matter how euphoric the high or suffocating the low, we eventually float back to the average, like a tireless little reader finally drifting to slumber.

Will semiconductors rip another 1,000%? Will the Nasdaq keep heading to Mars? How much longer can this really last?

My boy finally pins the giraffe to the leaf-shaped mat with his macaroni fingers, but I can sense there’s more on the agenda. He stares across the room, the brown marbles in his eye sockets spinning, dying to know: what about elephant? what’s his deal?

I slouch on a plush, olive chair and swivel while I wonder:

How much longer can this really last?