What they don't know is that I went over the edge years ago, and lived to tell the tale.

When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.

How wide and sweet and wild motherhood and sisterhood can be.

I value humor, kindness, and the ability to tell a good story far more than money, status, or the kind of car someone drives.

I have been missing the point. The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person. The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be? What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others into our hearts?

Flowers heal me. Tulips make me happy. I keep myself surrounded by them as soon as they start coming to the island from Canada, and after that when they come from the fields in La Connor, not far from where I live.

But who has time to write memoirs? I’m still living my memoirs.