We considered it an act of grace that every child we saw in Barcelona was wailing.

Decades ago, in Orange County, California, Jennifer Hawk and Tania Runyan shared a number of high school classes but traveled in different social circles. Tania was scary-nerdy-awkward—E.T. and Laura Ingalls’ lovechild—and Jen was scary-sexy-cool—black eyeliner, skateboards, and bands Tania couldn’t pronounce. But they’ve developed a deep relationship over the years, sharing their lives and their…

My daughter is the star of her first music festival: she is nine months old, pink cheeked and fat. We’ve dressed her in a cotton tank-top, a screenprint of a kitten wearing a flower crown. It’s almost too cute, but this is a strategy: I’m hoping that if she’s fussy, festival-goers will find the baby…

I took a nap in the day and dreamed I was volunteered by someone to cook dinner for a woman with a newborn. I was to cook for her four times just after the birth of her child, and I was sort of bellyaching about it to a friend, the expense and the time. But…

This winter has been a difficult season.  I emerge from it wondering about the edges of my griefs and my joys, feeling around for my moorings, realizing in a new way the isolation of the single parent, the reality of mortality for aging and ill family members, the uneven texture of heartbreak, how it feels…

On July 24, an orca calf died off the coast of British Columbia within thirty minutes of birth and Tahlequah, the calf’s mother, carried her dead daughter on her rostrum, pushing her through the Salish Sea from Canada to the U.S. and back again in a funeral procession that logged a thousand miles and lasted…

“You’re not a good mom!” My ten-year-old daughter shouted as she stomped up to her room. “Good moms don’t throw paper plates at their children!” Of course, this declamation can be proven false. A good mother would construct a Chinese kite out of a paper plate, toss it toward her daughter at the perfect moment…

My daughter asked me to bring some food to the swim meet when I came. I said, “Maybe.” She rolled her eyes, and grumbled as if I never do anything for her, though I’d just supplied the ride she needed to participate in her event. She was still mad that I had looked through her…

My daughter Anna Maria was born on Orthodox Easter Sunday—Pascha—in 2009. That year, the date fell on April 19. While her brother had blasted his way into the world at the very bottom of the night, in a delivery that was swift and surreal and unmedicated, my daughter arrived in the late afternoon as the…