Although I love snow, it messes things up terribly around Seattle, with all of our hills. I worry about my loved ones driving.

There are so many different fifteens. And eighteens. And forty-twos, for that matter. Mature fifteens and young fifteens and wise fifteens and lost fifteens. And angry fifteens.

It took me years to figure out that upset was upset, and tumultuousness was not the same thing as passion. Love isn't drama.

Cars are all jammed up all along the road and a light turns red and someone honks. In every one of those cars there is a story or a hundred stories. For every light on in al of those huge city buildings there is a story. No one knows what I am about to face and no one knows my story and neither do I right then.

No, Mom. I said fine." "It's just your tone." Ah, yes- the tone. The nasty traitor.

Maybe a person's world can grow bigger in all the right ways, not too wide that it becomes shallow, just large enough to preserve its depth.

Love is ease, love is comfort, love is support and respect. Love is not punishing or controlling. Love lets you grow and breathe. Love's passion is only good passion -- swirling-leaves-on-a-fall-day passion, a-sky-full-of-magnificent-stars passion -- not angst and anxiety. Love is not hurt and harm. Love is never unsafe. Love is sleeping like puzzle pieces. It's your own garden you protect; it's a field of wildflowers you move about in both freely and together.