He had a thousand-year-old stare.

Old love, middle love, the kind of love that knows itself and knows that nothing lasts, is a desperate shared wildness.

But then as time passed, I learned the lesson that parents do early on. You fail sometimes. No matter how much you love your children, there are times you slip. There are moments you can't give, stutter, lose your temper, or simply lose face with the world, and you can't explain this to a child.

We are conjured voiceless out of nothing and must return to an unknowing state. What happens in between is an uncontrolled dance, and what we ask for in love is no more than a momentary chance to get the steps right, to move in harmony until the music stops.

When women age into their power, no wind can upset them, no hand turn aside their knowledge, no fact can deflect their point of view.

Women are strong, strong, terribly strong. We don't know how strong until we are pushing out our babies. We are too often treated like babies having babies when we should be in training, like acolytes, novices to high priestesshood, like serious applicants for the space program.

Numbers, time, inches, feet. All are just ploys for cutting nature down to size.