Everything was coming together by coming apart . . . It is the most difficult Zen practice to leave people to their destiny, even though it's painful - just loving them, and breathing with them, and distracting them in a sweet way, and laughing with them . . . if something was not my problem, I probably did not have the solution.

I write everything as a wake-up call to myself and others, to anyone who may have gotten tired of hitting the snooze button.

It is a violation of trust to use your kids as caulking for the cracks in you.

After a while the middle-aged person who lives in her head begins to talk to her soul, the kid.

For some of us, good books and beautiful writing are our ultimate solace, even more comforting than exquisite food.

In a library, you can find small miracles and truth, and you might find something that will make you laugh so hard that you will get shushed, in the friendliest way. I have found sanctuary in libraries my whole life, and there is sanctuary there now, from the war, from the storms of our families and our own minds. Libraries are like mountains or meadows or creeks: sacred space. So this afternoon, I'll walk to the library.

Don't look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.