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Started and finished (during long insomnia night) Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman yesterday. Quick read (obviously), but some interesting commentary about women, love, children. It closes with the following passage, which I adore:

This love was so hard to recognize, but I have finally been able to see it for what it is – grace. Grace is when something is more beautiful than we deserve, more elegant and lovely than it should be … The gorgeousness of life comes in accidental beauty; it comes in inexplicable grace. Grace, like when someone brings to your life an unplanned magic.

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
– Albert Schweitzer

Got up at 6am this morning to run. Haven’t done that since Before Children. This is as true a marker as any that I’m coming through to the Other Side. Hooray! It means, basically, that I’m well rested enough to forgo an hour of sleep in order to run before the household wakes. It also relies on (a) weather and (b) Matt’s travel, over which I have similar – well, none at all – control. But it was lovely. Best part was passing a big May Day celebration by the Weeks footbridge. A huge crowd was gathered, flowers in hair, morris dancing, music, a maypole. A big smile-inducing thing to see first thing in the morning on the first of May.

Quotation is another random one that I just like. I DO owe deep thanks to those who have helped me find my light again of late … you know who you are. Thank you.

My favorite item that we won at the nursery school auction last night. I was teased by several teachers for the fact that I cry at every assembly. And I faced much taunting about what a wreck I am going to be on the last day of school. Last year I was standing in the front hall, tears streaming out from under my sunglasses. And this year Grace is actually LEAVING the school. I’m going to be a soggy puddle for weeks leading up to the last day! I can’t even think about it.

The whole passage of time thing.

From Catherine Newman’s weekly column this week:

I am still confused sometimes about what it means to be a parent — how much you advise, how much you leave alone. They are yours but also their own. They reflect me and surpass me. I am their trusted shepherd, and it is a privilege to have them in my flock. Love and grief, holding hands and skipping down the lane of my crazy heart. When my eyes fill with tears in the car, it’s joy, yes, but I don’t think it counts. It’s way too bittersweet.

Funga Alafia, ashe ashe
(Welcome and peace to you. Let it be so.)

Assembly yesterday featured a great song by the Blue Room, simple lyrics above. And then we closed with our family anthem, “This Land Is Your Land.” Grace knew every word!