Eleven years ago today, my husband and I were married in a little chapel overlooking the Hudson in Cold Spring, NY. It was a magnificent day, not a cloud in the sky. I walked down the aisle to my husband playing a song he composed, on the beautiful grand piano. I cried all the way. Not pretty tears, big, uncontrollable sobs. I was not sad, just unprepared for 90 people turning all at once to look at me, focusing their rapt attention in a wave of love so powerful, it nearly kn

May has arrived. The grass grows wild in our front yard, but I am not allowed to touch it until the violets are gone. Every spring, they pop up by the dozen and my kids pick them to make bouquets, or eat them as a tiny snack. Despite the shaggy lawn, I have strict instructions to wait until the violets have faded before I mow. And so, I obey. Long ago, my favorite yoga teacher told me that the violets that bloom in spring represent "unexplained grief," the kind that comes out

I look out my kitchen window, and I see the first hummingbird of the season, drinking at the feeder. She hovers, barely visible— a blur of wings, moving effortlessly in every direction without losing herself