Motherhood, In The Sense Of An Intense,

An Honorable Human Relationship ... Is A Process, Delicate, Violent, Often Terrifying To Both Persons Involved, A Process Of Refining The Truths They Can Tell Each Other.

A Life I Didn't Choose Chose Me: Even My Tools Are The Wrong Ones For What I Have To Do.

The Most Notable Fact That Our Culture Imprints On Women Is A Sense Of Our Limits. The Most Important Thing A Woman Can Do For Another Is To Illuminate Her Actual Possibilities.

I've Had To Guess At Her, Sewing Her Skin Together As I Sew Mine, Though With A Different Stitch

When The Landscape Buckles And Jerks Around, When A Dust Column Of Debris Rises From The Collapse Of A Block Of Buildings On Bodies That Could Have Been Your Own, When The Staves Of History Fall Awry And The Barrel Of Time Bursts Apart, Some Turn To Prayer, Some To Poetry: Words In The Memory, A Stained Book Carried Close To The Body, The Notebook Scribbled By Hand--a Center Of Gravity.