When a woman starts to disentangle herself from patriarchy, ultimately she is abandoned to her own self.

Back in the autumn I had awakened to a growing darkness and cacophony, as if something in the depths were crying out. A whole chorus of voices. Orphaned voices. They seemed to speak for all the unlived parts of me, and they came with a force and dazzle that I couldn't contain. They seemed to explode the boundaries of my existence. I know now that they were the clamor of a new self struggling to be born.

My children have always existed at the deepest center of me, right there in the heart/hearth, but I struggled with the powerful demands of motherhood, chafing sometimes at the way they pulled me away from my separate life, not knowing how to balance them with my unwieldy need for solitude and creative expression.

You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind.

I've always been a journal-keeper. I've always tried to write about how I'm experiencing life, and my feelings and thoughts.

The most significant gifts are the ones most easily overlooked. Small, everyday blessings: woods, health, music, laughter, memories, books, family, friends, second chances, warm fireplaces, and all the footprints scattered throughout our days.

I wondered what it was like to be inside her, just a curl of flesh swimming in the darkness, the quiet things that had passed between us.