I'd had much practice turning my mind away from certain memories of my childhood. I could quickly dial her remembered voice from a whisper to a silence.

As I turned to leave the tent, she said, "Don't worry. Your own mother wouldn't know you."I said, "She never has.

If she fully embraced life with all its conflicts, she would suffer a breakdown.

I had not asked to be born. Only to be loved.

Blizzards, floods, volcanos, hurricanes, earthquakes: They fascinate because they nakedly reveal that Mother Nature, afflicted with bipolar disorder, is as likely to snuff us as she is to succor us.

I know it's hard being a single mother baby, he said, but we're talking fundamentals here. Homemade cookies are one of the best parts of christmas. It's an absolute fundamental.