I was just a few weeks pregnant in this picture with my second son and I felt boundless, eternal, as if being pulled by my own private star. I kissed my toddler good night and held him, we held him — his inevitable sibling and me. I put on a…

Last year, I joined a Facebook group for Seattle backyard gardeners. It was completely aspirational. We recently moved, and for the first time in my life I’ve become responsible for a small square of yard. …

Tonight I took a bath with three stray plastic balls, the kind you use for ball pits. They weigh, altogether, about as much as a penny, but I was too tired to take them out. I watched them float aimlessly together from one corner of the tub to the other…

Today, like so many millions of people around the world, my family celebrated Palm Sunday under quarantine. Of all the tiny griefs of the pandemic, knowing I wouldn’t be able to attend Holy Week services at my church has been an especially achey one for me. Holy Week is the…

Yesterday, my son heard “I Will Always Love You” for the first time. He’s nearly two, and likes to spend some evenings standing at the window watching birds come into the garden and yelling, “Birds! Birds!” When they fly away, he often asks softly, in a lamenting tone, “more birds…

I live in a 110-year-old Victorian flat in North Beach, San Francisco. It’s literally made of redwood trees which is very romantic. Of course, being that old, it has many quirks. The doors have warped over the years and there’s a big gap at the bottom of our back door…