In simplicity, there is freedom - freedom to do less and enjoy more.

At times, my nostalgia for our family life as it used to be--for our own imperfect, cherished, irretrievable past--is nearly overwhelming.

Reading, reading actively, strengthens the soul.

We are the windows through which our children first see the world. Let us be conscious of the view.

One of the greatest challenges I've faced as a mother-especially in these anxious, winner-takes-all times-is the need to resist the urge to accept someone else's definition of success and to try to figure out, instead, what really is best for my own children, what unique combination of structure and freedom, nurturing and challenge, education and exploration, each of them needs in order to grow and bloom.

It has taken awhile, but I certainly do know it now ­­– the most wonderful gift I had, the gift I finally learned to cherish above all else, was the gift of all those perfectly ordinary days.

I know I can't make time slow down, can't hold our life as it is in a freeze frame or slow my children's inexorable journeys into adulthood and lives of their own. But I can celebrate those journeys by bearing witness to them, by paying attention, and, perhaps most of all, by carrying on with my own growth and becoming. Now it dawns on me that the only way I can figure out what I'm meant to be doing is to try to understand who I'm meant to be...I will not waste this life, not one hour, not one minute. I will not take for granted the blessing of our being here...I will give thanks.