The universe is big.

Every step is a risk.

We dance to improvise a bridge, a merging. This is the art of it all, to persist in this always-failing improvisation.

Success, however we define it, is a moment.

Above all, I want to rescue myself from my impatience and my fear and my doubt.

...and —just for moment!— we are connected. It takes a moment. Then the tsunami crashes down and I am torn apart, confused, doubting, struggling...

There is magic all around us. We need only become more sensitive to experience it.

For most of my life animals —mostly dogs, some cats— have helped guide me.

Today is my mother's birthday. A good day to wonder about the circumstances of her birth and how they shaped the girl she was, the woman she has become, and how that has shaped me.*

Her changes are not only frightening, they are beautiful.