You are born into your family and your family is born into you. No returns. No exchanges.

I wondered what my father had looked like that day, how he had felt, marrying the lively and beautiful girl who was my mother. I wondered what his life was like now. Did he ever think of us? I wanted to hate him, but I couldn't; I didn't know him well enough. Instead, I wondered about him occasionally, with a confused kind of longing. There was a place inside me carved out for him; I didn't want it to be there, but it was. Once, at the hardware store, Brooks had shown me how to use a drill. I'd made a tiny hole that went deep. The place for my father was like that.

I think one of the reasons we have children is to believe everything all over again. And I'm not talking Santa, here, either.

People say you should give until it hurts. I say you should give until it stops hurting. Know what I mean?

She sits down and puts her hand to her chest and rocks. Thinks of all she has lost and will lose. All she has had and will have. It seems to her that life is like gathering berries into an apron with a hole. Why do we keep on? Because the berries are beautiful, and we must eat to survive. We catch what we can. We walk past what we lose for the promise of more, just ahead.

Abstracts are real and time is a lie, it cannot be measured when one moment can expand to hold everything.

It feels like some part of me that was curled down and waiting in the dark has risen, and now stands stretching and strong in the sunshine. I knew it.