You lay your hand against his skin and just rib his back. Blow into his ear. Press that baby up against your own skin and walk outside with him, where the night air will sourround him, and moonlight fall on his face. Whistle, maybe. Dance. Hum. Pray. (how to calm a crying baby)

I continued to protect him with my silence.

I have no doubt that over the years my children will find plenty of things about me to criticize. But something tells me that twenty years from now not one of them will sit on some therapist's couch complaining because their mother didn't spend enough time vacuuming up glitter.

Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity.

Before I had children I always wondered whether their births would be, for me, like the ultimate in gym class failures. And I discovered instead... that I'd finally found my sport.

In the event of an oxygen shortage on airplanes, mothers of young children are always reminded to put on their own oxygen mask first, to better assist the children with theirs. The same tactic is necessary on terra firma. There's no way of sustaining our children if we don't first rescue ourselves. I don't call that selfish behavior. I call it love.

I had known there had been a serial killer on Mount Tamalpais, and it felt so incongruous in such a beautiful, peaceful spot.