Here is how it is for women. We become our schedules. That starts to feel good. Then it starts to feel necessary. Then it starts to feel like everything.

our sons and daughters are only passing through. ... If we are lucky, they always will consider our home their harbor, but they are headed out to the open sea, almost from the first.

Nothing better for the hormones and worse for the heart than the right boy at the right time.

When someone you love that much leaves you behind there isn't as much of you left to die when your own time comes.

You'll never regret eating blueberries or working up a sweat.

The ideal structure for a family is one that remains so.

Anybody can become a widow. There aren't any special qualifications. It happens in less time than it takes to draw a breath. It doesn't require the planning, for example, that it takes to become a wife or a mother or any of the other ritual roles of womanhood.