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I just love Jeffrey Sachs’ essay in this month’s GOOD magazine.

Oh how fiercely I hope that the Obama generation is, as he says, up to the task! How full I am of both hope and fear about the state of the world.

I’ve always thought the Reagan parallel to Obama is as utterly inaccurate as the JFK parallel is apt (complete with intelligent, glamorous, independent wife). Sachs seems to agree with me, laying much of the blame for the current situation at Reagan’s feet (as does Friedman in Hot, Flat, and Crowded) and referencing this quotation from JFK’s inaugural address:

“I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.”

Those words echo loudly today. Read the piece. It’s worth it. Also, as an aside, I had a shiver of anticipation for Obama’s inaugural address (on Whit’s birthday) – it is sure to be an outstanding piece of oratory.

Feeling bruised tonight, tired, and aware of beginnings and endings, the deep unknowability of the human heart, and the profound interconnectedness of it all.

Jessica’s sister is very, very sick. Looking, possibly, at the end.

And Tucker and Vicky (her leukemia under control) have announced they are expecting a baby girl with a surrogate.

And on and on the wheel spins.

This morning at the BB&N family sing-a-long. Grace was called on to request a song and received loud parental approval when she chose the crowd favorite, “Snow Pants.”

Have some thoughts on this column by Judith Warner. As Grace confronts new challenges at school and internally, I find myself in the position of being unable to see clearly enough to help her precisely because her demons and mine look the same. How to get the space to be a useful comfort to her? How to help her struggle with and tame these challenges, when I myself haven’t learned to do so yet?

One of the fundamental principles of my parenting (which I’ve been heartened to have observed back to me by others) is that I try very hard to give my children room to be themselves. I try not to over-program, over-coach, over-coddle. Mine are the children who, after a fall so spectacular that the other playground parents wince, dust themselves off with a cheery “No blood!” and go about their play. And yet with Grace the strong identification hovers like a shadow, threatening to swamp all of my efforts and good intentions.

She is not me. I am not her. I know this, and just need to remember it in the moments when what is on Grace’s mind is uncomfortably familiar. It’s nice to hear from someone I respect as much as Judith Warner that I’m not the only one facing this work.

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much a heart can hold. – Zelda Fitzgerald