Good people are good people; religion has nothing to do with it.

When I was little, the great mystery to me was not how babies were made, but why?

How could he convey to someone who'd never even met her the way she always smelled like rain, or how his stomach knotted up every time he saw her shake loose her hair from its braid? How could he describe how it felt when she finished his sentences, turnec the mug they were sharing so that her mouth landed where his had been? How did he explain the way they could be in a locker room, or underwater, or in the piney woods of Maine, bus as long as Em was with him, he was at home?

Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one.

In my previous life I was a civil attorney. At one point I truly believed that was what I wanted to be- but that was before I'd been handed a fistful of crushed violets from a toddler. Before I understood that the smile of a child is a tattoo: indelible art.

And the very act of living is a tide; at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded

Clearly God was in some kind of mood on my birthday.