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“The river will teach you your name.�� Bella Webber, Riverstar.

Six Mile, Illinois River.

The second week of July, in the White Whale, my daughters and I travel south to my parents�� home in southern Oregon. It’s been a hard year. A quiet year. A year I no longer remembered how to sing along to the radio. But we made it through. And the sun remains. The trees are as green. The Oregon sky is the same blue. The river waits for us.

On the way, somewhere south of Olympia, I sing to the radio. Quiet.

A few days later, we dress in our swimsuits and go to one of the deepest holes on the Illinois River called Six Mile. The skinny, winding road, built into the side of the mountain, is paved now. Years ago, when I was a child, it was a one-lane dirt road, so thin if you met another car along the way you had to drive backwards until you found a spot wide enough to pull over and let the other pass.

There are several things a good river hole must have, I tell the girls on the way. Deep water. Rocks to jump from. A sandy beach. Six Mile has all three. I point to the canyon below where the Illinois River twists and turns. “Isn’t it beautiful?��

They crane their necks to look. They agree but without my fervor. I want to explain to them that the smell of the sun on rock, the feel of sand between my toes, the rush of river water on my skin, formed who I am. I want them to know me. But they are children, destined only to see their mother as a mommy not person. So I remain silent.

Once there, I wade into the water. My feet have grown tender in the decades I’ve lived in the city. I slip walking on the rocks and fall, stubbing my toe. The cold water is shocking on my hot skin.

There is a photo of me taken by my Aunt Mary when I was eight or nine, leaping into the air from a rock a foot under the surface of the river. My aunt captured the exact moment between jump and plunge, my knees curled, my body clenched as I sailed through the air.

Now, I look for the rock but cannot locate it. There are more rocks under the surface of the water than I remember. Perhaps the landscape has changed over the years? Everything changes, I think. Even the river. The river’s currents continue their destiny, molding rocks and banks and foliage until it empties into the ocean. It’s inevitable, these changes. My Aunt Mary is no longer my aunt. She and my uncle divorced years ago. She’s an old lady now. And I’m a middle-aged woman with two little girls.

Emerson plays in the sand, building a dam where Six Mile Creek enters the Illinois River. Ella plunges in and swims across the river to a large rock covering the opposite bank. I take in a deep breath and swim to her. We tread water, looking up at thirty-foot rock jutting from the riverbank.

“I want to jump from there,�� says Ella, pointing to a point half way up.

Of course you do, I think. Out loud I say, “Let’s do it.��

We begin to climb. It’s slippery. I tell myself not to look down. I remind myself I jumped from this rock hundreds of times as a child and teenager. Still, I call out to Ella to make her way with care. As I work my way to the top, fear makes my heart beat a little faster than it should. But I grow more confident as my muscle memory remembers how to grasp the nooks and ridges with my fingers and toes, until I reach the top.

When we reach the top, like lizards sunning in the afternoon heat, we sprawl on the rock. The sun is a healing balm, like memories that remind you who you are. The rock is hot through my new swimsuit.

I think of the famous southern writer Pat Conroy. He says he cannot stop writing about his family. I cannot stop writing about the river. Perhaps it’s because it taught me my name, or that all my best memories are beside it or in it. It’s part of who I am. Regardless of the years, I’m still the girl who stood on this same rock and let my eyes wander up and down the river as far as I could see, dreaming dreams of the unscathed.

The river haunts me. All these years later I knit words together to tell stories, my story, all the stories of the river.

A few minutes later, I stand in a curve of the rock that’s like a small seat, looking into the water. Like a little bear cub, on all fours, Ella makes her way to me.

We peer into the water together, so deep it’s the color of an emerald. “I’m afraid to jump,�� says Ella.

“Me too.��

If you’re afraid, it means you should to it. I think this but do not say it. She’s heard it before. She might roll her eyes and say, “I know, Mom.�� I don’t need to say it again because she does know it, way down deep in her muscle memory, where it counts.

“Let’s do it,�� I say.

“Let’s do it,�� she answers back.

We jump into the green.

I remember how.

The river reminds me of my name.

Ella knows the rush of the water now, the smell of sun on rock. She’s looked up and down the river as far as she can see and dreamed the dreams of the unscathed. Might this day be something of me to take with her when she’s grown? This I cannot know, cannot dictate. This isn’t even mine to say. She will have landscapes of her own that will remind her of her name.

On the way home to my parents��, smelling of the river, I sing along to the radio. Loud.

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I’ll be doing a virtual blog tour over the next few weeks for the River Valley collection. ��Stop by these gracious blog hosts for excerpts, reviews and contests.

June 24:��

June 26:��

June 28:��

June 30:��

July 1:��

July 1:��

July 3:��

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July 6:��

July 6:��

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July 7:��

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My friends Clare and Joe Barboza are celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary over the weekend. I will be there to toast them and offer these words.

***

I loved you when you were nothing more than a dream. You were somewhere waiting; I knew this and did not despair. And then one day you were there, just across the room on an ordinary day. My person. And you were larger than my dreams, more expansive than my imagination. You became the eyes I searched for in every crowded room. You filled the empty spaces and soothed the caverns of hurt lurking unseen.

And we were a spark and then a flame, scorching the languid night.

We whispered in the hours before dawn. Here I am, all of me. I will open the hidden caverns of my soul for you to see and feel, to hold in your hands without judgment or fear.

I wondered then �� could you be my home?

And we declared, yes. I choose you.��Come��home to me. I will call out to you in the bright day or the dark night. And you will answer.��I am here. You are chosen. I am your home.

The work of it came then. Day after day we toiled and loved and laughed and cried and worried and consoled, imperfect but there, no matter the chill or the heat. Sometimes I wondered �� would we survive the bitter wind that threatened to blow us into a stormy sea? But we held tight. We dug deep.

Our hearts widened. Our resolve strengthened. We softened. We grew together.

Ten years passed.

The fire between us no longer scorches a field of swaying grass but warms a room on a winter’s night with the soft glow of steady burning embers. And I know now, this is real love, the kind that lasts, the kind that matters.

You are always waiting. I know this and do not despair.

I promise, once again, to take your beating, tender, passionate heart and hold it in my hands, draw it close, shelter it no matter the storms to come, no matter the toil and joys and uncertainties as the years unfold.

It is your eyes I search for in every crowded room.

Today we say once again. I am here. You are chosen. I am your home.��

You are my family. My home. My love.

Still, I choose you.

“It isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts.�� ~ Ella Fitzgerald

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.�� ~ Ella Fitzgerald

“The only thing better than singing is more singing.�� ~ Ella Fitzgerald

Friday morning I wake at 2 a.m., the crafty dread and anxiety a partner in my bed. I stare at the wall, my eyes burning with fatigue but my mind tumbling and spinning. It’s the usual worries: money, my girls, the deadline for the new book. By 4 a.m. the light peeps under the shade. Still I cannot sleep. Finally, I drift back to senseless slumber, only to awaken at 7 with a start, resigned like Sisyphus to roll the boulder up the hill one more day.

It is “Wax Museum�� day for Ella and her fourth grade classmates. They’ve all chosen a famous person in history to portray. They’re in costume, frozen in position like a wax figure, ready at the push of an imaginary button to recite a memorized speech. In the weeks previous they’ve made tri-fold poster boards with a short biography and interesting facts about their subject.

My Ella is Ella Fitzgerald. She wears a pink costume left over from last year’s dance recital. Her poster board lists the facts of the famous Ella. It reads something like this quote from Wikipedia:

Ella Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 �� June 15, 1996), also known as the “First Lady of Song��, “Queen of Jazz��, and “Lady Ella��, was an American jazz vocalist with a vocal range spanning three octaves (D��3 to D��6). She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a “horn-like�� improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.

These are the facts, the important information to note in a school project. Ella adds some others too. Ms. Fitzgerald lived on the streets; she performed at Amateur night at the Apollo theatre; she adopted her half-sister’s baby.

And these, which Ella detected from her research and wrote in her own words:

“Showed the world that it doesn’t matter what color your skin is but what is inside that counts.��

“Made it easier for black women to be famous singers.��

“Ella was determined because when she first started her career she lived on the streets and didn’t have enough to eat but she didn’t let anything stop her from reaching for the stars.��

“She was very dedicated to her work.��

And in the middle of my Ella’s board, in her fourth grade cursive, is this quote from the famous Ella:

“It isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts.��

I stare at it for a moment. Are both Ella’s giving me a message? Forward motion matters most, not the past, or regrets, or mistakes, or worry. The lessons from our hard-travelled journey inform our decisions but cannot be allowed to freeze us into paralysis from the insidious fear that wraps itself around us in the dark, sleepless night.

As I walk to my car after the wax museum is over, I think of Ms. Fitzgerald, of her extraordinary talent and what she gave to the world beyond the facts of her life. I think of the courage it took for her to make the life she made out of much harder circumstances than I’ve faced or face now. I think of the inspiration she continues to give to those of us perhaps a little less extraordinary.

Didn’t let anything keep her from reaching for the stars…she was very dedicated to her work.

And my Ella? What dreams has the other Ella inspired her to chase? What has she learned from a woman she knows only from the pages of books and in the recordings of music but who is real to her, as she is to me �� another strong woman in the village of women helping raise my girl.

And me? Oh, Ms. Fitzgerald, I want to say, I’m still chasing dreams too. But I’m frightened by all the risks I’ve taken and continue to take. I left the American dream when I closed the corner office door seven years ago. And it came with a cost. There are sleepless nights, and constant worry about money and the ever-present hard work of it. I can’t remember the last time I took a day off; while the world bustles below me, I sit at my desk day after day, sometimes inspired and sometimes not, but always with focus and dedication.

I work during sunny days, rainy days, holidays, and all that toil has produced three novels in nine months. By the end of 2013 the count will be four. But sometimes, lately, I wonder, is this the right choice? Wouldn’t it be wiser to go back to my corner office with the fat paycheck, especially now I’m on my own with two little girls? And yet, I continue living right on the edge, mostly on faith and grit and hard work, hoping always that it’s pleasing to God.

Might Ella answer if she could: “The only thing better than singing is more singing.��

And so it for me too. The only thing better than writing is more writing. I write because I’m scared to fail. I write because the stories keep coming. I write because it’s the only way I can make sense of the world. I write because I cannot stop. I write because it gives me breath.

So I come home. I open the manuscript. I pound out some words. I painstakingly fret over the details, the words, the truth of it. Yes, this, always the question �� am I telling the truth? Because otherwise it doesn’t matter. Truth is art. This is my aim, my dream, my untethered ambition.

This is what I do. This is who I am. It is from whence I came. It is where I’m going.

Tonight, in homage to the famous Ella and the one sleeping across the hall from me dreaming her little girl dreams, I whisper to the choking smoke of fear that slides between the sheets at 2 a.m. “You will not bring me down. Not yet. Not ever.��

On Tuesday Ella arrives home, flushed and excited, asking if she could use the phone to call her best friend. She disappears into her room with the phone but comes out a few minutes later. “She wasn’t there.��

I look at her carefully. Her cheeks are scarlet. Her sapphire eyes are sparkling. Her freckles are like nutmeg on a bowl of cream. She seems happy. I’m immediately suspicious. What happened at school? I don’t have to wait long. “I was asked out on a date. Will you let me go?��

A date? What kind of date does a ten-year-old go on?

Out loud, I say, �� Where will you go?��

“I don’t know,�� she says. “When he asked me, I said, ‘sure, where��, and he said, ‘um, I don’t know��.��

I try not to laugh. “Boys sometimes have trouble making a plan. Big boys too.��

“I told him he could walk me home and we could get candy at the gas station. Can I go, Mom?��

“Yeah, I guess so.��

Relief crosses her pretty face. “I thought you’d say no. I was scared to tell you.��

She tells me more details of this sweet boy that had the courage to ask my baby for a date. He did it at the end of the school day, with his friends watching. That takes courage, I think. This shows character. She tells me his name and reminds me who his parents are. They’re a swim team family. I don’t know them well but enough to know they’re good people. A family worthy of my princess. Anyway, this is a small town. We know everyone; we look out for one another’s children. Half a dozen or more mothers will see Ella walk home with this boy. She’s safe here.

Then, I think, this is one of those moments I should have some words of wisdom about dating, about what she should expect from a boy. But all that comes out is this: “Notice if he pays for the candy. If he doesn’t, it will tell you a lot about his character.��

She looks at me, surprised.

“Just trust me on this,�� I say, thinking of the horror stories my single women friends have told me recently about their ‘dates��.

“Okay, but I’ll bring money just in case.��

“Good plan.��

But what I really want to say is this.

Choose wisely. Do not settle. Love yourself enough to wait for the man worthy of your time and energy and big heart.��

Choose the��boy who:��treats you like a princess, and later a queen,��thinks of you as the center of his universe, considers you endlessly fascinating and interesting and the smartest girl he ever met, knows you are his equal yet still yearns to take care of you,��kind enough to ask you questions and listen to the answers, who notices all the subtle nuances that make you unique.

Wait for the one who feels honored and humbled and priveleged to be anywhere in your orbit.

Choose someone who loves you as much as I do. And until he comes, love yourself as much as I do.

On Thursday Emerson turns 7. She brings home a birthday book, filled with letters from her classmates. Included is a letter she’d written to herself.

Dear Me,

I love myself.

I love beeing me.

I love eferbutee on the planit. God to.

I laugh when I see it. Then I cry. Nothing is better than this. It is everything I want for my daughters. Everything.

The afternoon of the ‘date�� I wait in the pick-up line at the elementary school, my minivan inching forward. My eyes scan the playground, looking, always looking for Emerson, a part of me fearful she won’t be there. But she always is. Today she runs in circles on the playground with her two little friends, three blond heads in pink jackets.

There will be no Ella today. She’s walking home with her ‘date��.

Emerson jumps into the van. “Our book order came today,�� she shouts, before the minivan’s door has a chance to close. Her cheeks are the same hue as her pink jacket. Strands of hair have escaped her ponytail, framing her face. “So many books, Mommy. Thank you for ordering them for me.��

We head towards home. I think of Ella then. My eyes scan the neighborhood but I don’t see her.

When we arrive home, Emerson takes the new books out of her backpack, spreading them all over the brown rug by the dining room table. They’re all paperback �� bargain books from Scholastic. I remember using my allowance as a child to order books. Those same books are upstairs in my daughters�� room. Books last. Even when boys let you down, you’ll always have books to reach for during the loneliest nights.

“Which will you read first?�� I ask.

She chooses Barbie.

“Twenty minutes of reading, okay?�� I tell her.

“I know, Mom.��

She disappears with the Barbie book into the bathroom. I hear her reading out loud. I smile, thinking she’s like an old man with his newspaper.

Later, she holds up another one of the books, entitled, “I Like Myself.��

“Whenever you feel like you want to be someone else, read this book,�� she says.

You don’t need that book, I think.

And I say a silent prayer. Thank you, God, for this.

The doorbells rings. It’s Ella. She looks so beautiful from the fresh air and the flush of her first crush it takes my breath away.

Words tumble out of her mouth, relaying the whole ‘date��.

“Did he pay?��

“Yeah, Mom. He insisted. And he brought like thirty dollars but the candy only cost two.��

He insisted. A good boy. A nice boy. A boy of character.

He must have a good mother.

��

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Featuring��bestselling romance novel��Riversong��and new release��Riverbend,��The River Valley Collection assembles a colorful cast of endearing small-town characters and takes you on two journeys that will make you believe in the possibilities of life and renew your faith in love, friendship and the power of community �� even in the face of unimaginable grief.

��

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RIVERSONG �� Top 100 Kindle Bestseller April/May 2012

When Lee Tucker’s husband commits suicide, he leaves her pregnant and one million dollars in debt to a loan shark. Out of options, she escapes to her deceased mother’s dilapidated house located in a small Oregon town that, like her, is financially ruined, heartbroken and in desperate need of a fresh start. Lee’s resilience leads to a plan for a destination restaurant named Riversong, to new chances for passion and love, and to danger from her dead husband’s debt as her business blooms. Lee Tucker is the kind of woman you find yourself rooting for long after the last page is read.

RIVERBEND �� New release May 2013

“Tag. I found you.��

Just as Annie Bell’s reputation as one of the best chefs in the Pacific Northwest grows to new heights, she receives a threatening phone call from her abusive ex-boyfriend. Marco is out on parole and hungry for revenge, blaming her for his ten-year imprisonment. Fearing for her life and that of her young son, Annie reluctantly accepts help from Drake Webber, a cold and wealthy recluse hiding a dark history of his own. Supported by the gang of misfits from their restaurant Riversong, Annie forges ahead despite her growing terror that Marco will appear at any moment and make good on his threats.

Also includes an exclusive preview of RIVERSTAR, the third book in The River Valley Collection, available August 2013!

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On Friday morning Emerson wakes early. It’s the day of my party, Mommy. I yawn and rub my eyes. Yes, the party. The party, anticipated for weeks now. Four little girls and Emerson. There will be crafts and a scavenger hunt and one of Ella’s cakes. A pink cake with pink frosting, please, Emerson says weeks ago.

I’m tired and the day hasn’t even started. I reach for my phone to see what’s in my inbox that I’m already late to deliver.

You want coffee, Mommy?

That would be great, Bunny.

This is her new thing, started earlier in the week. I’m almost seven now, Mom, and I love to be your helper and I love the new coffee maker. Love is emphasized both times. She bounds down the stairs and comes back with coffee she’s made in the Keurig. I’m so excited for my party.��She hands me the espresso in the cup with red flowers. My favorite.

A few minutes later, she sits at the kitchen counter where I feed her breakfast. She likes pancakes and crisp bacon. Her sister likes waffles. I make both, every morning. My mother would not approve.

I hear her voice in my head. Two breakfasts? You’re running yourself ragged.

I make sure to drip a little syrup on her bacon; she likes it this way. I set the plate in front of her. I find a fork and a napkin. I fill a glass with juice.

No crying at my birthday party, Mommy, she says, in a matter of fact tone, before biting into a piece bacon.

Startled, I stare at her for a split second. Her face is nonplussed.

Good bacon, Mom. You did a good job.

I don’t reply. I turn away. I pack her lunch. I make her sister a waffle.

But I’m shaken. I’m ashamed.

No crying.

The tears fallen from the three sets of blue eyes in this house rivals the Seattle rain that fell without relief from October to May.

I tried to hide it from them. I hid in the bathroom. I cried in bed after I thought they were asleep. But sometimes the tears came without warning. Sometimes I cried in front of them.

And no matter the two breakfasts and the birthday party and all the other ways I’ve tried to make their childhoods perfect, this may be what they remember of this year. Mom cried. A lot.

But I cannot take the tears back. I can’t erase the last year from their memories. Or from mine. It is part of our story.

I’m sorry for it.

Ella comes down to breakfast, grumpy and tired, as she is every morning. Emerson’s singing. Ella shouts at her. Will you please stop singing? I play referee.

I think of my seventh birthday party. My mother allowed me to invite the entire first grade class. She planned games. A lot of games, as I recall. And she made a cake, a pink one, just like the one Emerson asked for. She ran herself ragged, I’m sure. After it was over she probably collapsed into bed and thought, Thanks God that day’s over.��

But she certainly didn’t cry in front of me. I don’t know if she wanted to. I don’t know if she did it on the bathroom floor or at night when I was asleep. All I know is that I loved her more than any other person in the world and she ran herself ragged trying to make my childhood perfect. And all these years later, I see her as a perfect mother. I’m sure she would disagree and give me a long list of all the ways she failed, but I do not see them, do not remember them, do not believe they exist. I remember the party that year. I remember every sacrifice she made for me. I remember every time she believed in me and encouraged me to be brave in this uncertain existence. I remember her sitting in the audience of every play. I remember her reading everything I wrote.

I am not my mother. I cannot be the kind of mother she was. I try. But, well, you know, I’m me. I laugh too loudly at the movies. I forget things. A lot. I’m distracted with work. I let the girls sleep in my bed. I allow them to eat what they like instead of what I make. I don’t volunteer at their school because I’m always on a deadline for the new book. I don’t make as much money as I need to give them everything I want to give them. Sometimes I let them watch television so I can make my word count.

I cry too much.

But despite all my faults and unhidden tears shed and the dark year we’ve had adjusting to our new normal, my daughters love me like I love my mother. Will they remember the good with the bad? I can only pray they do.

In this imperfect life, this hard life, all we have is the love between us, the grace we afford one another, the ways in which we hold each other in our darkest moments.

Love. Once again. We come to this. Just love. And a dash of pink forgiveness.

I wait in the pickup line at my daughters�� elementary school, just one minivan in a long line of similar child transporting vehicles. The playground is wide and green, the sun reflected on snowcapped mountains behind our suburb. I take in a deep breath, enjoying this small reprieve between writing and mothering. I have the radio on; it’s playing a country song about a man who believes his wife loves him as Jesus does. I muse, as I thaw from my chilly office in the warmth of the sun-bathed car, that my older daughter, ten, would not agree �� she believes no one loves us as Jesus does. She’d be adamant about this point. I smile, thinking of her serious, round eyes that are the colors of sapphires.

Fluffy white pieces of cottonwood drift in the breeze, not thick like a snowstorm but like the cherry blossoms that opened in pale pink splendor several weeks ago, adorning our neighborhood’s trees before drifting into the spring air and settling on the sidewalks and our cars and lawns.

Cherry blossoms, I told my daughters during their glorious April blooming, are fleeting. You must pay attention, note them, catalogue them in your memories for soon they’ll be replaced by green leaves, and then red fruit we’ll fight the birds for, and then the rain and wind of autumn will rob them of their leaves, until finally, they’re only stark branches, perhaps hung with holiday lights in the middle of town if we’re lucky.

But they don’t listen. They cannot understand how quickly seasons fade into another. They know only now.

In this moment, the now, my daughter, my baby, six-years-old, spots me as I approach in my cracker crumb infested minivan, the White Whale. Her beautiful face opens like sunshine after a storm or like she won the lottery or perhaps like her biggest dream has suddenly come true. She does her happy jump �� five little hops on the tips of her toes �� and waves wildly as her rosebud mouth forms the word, “Mom��.

Mom.�� Sometimes Mommy. Often Mama. I answer to all three.

Next week my baby, Emerson, turns seven.

Seven. In the autumn, when the leaves fall to the ground, she’ll start second grade.

My chest hollows out at the knowledge of this undeniable truth: motherhood is a constant lesson in letting go. This is our job. Do we have to like it? No.

Her older sister, Ella, was three when Emerson was born. I remember feeling afraid during my pregnancy. Not of the extra work or the sleepless nights. To these inevitable aspects of motherhood I was resigned, having gone through it once before. No, it was this �� I did not think it was possible to love a new baby as much as I did her older sister. I, truly, did not think it was possible.

You will, other mother’s assured me, including my own mother.

But I doubted. Because my love for Ella was so overwhelming, so bewildering and disorienting at times, so large and expansive and life changing, I did not think it could possibly happen twice.

Of course you all know the end of this story. I loved her as much.

I loved her more than my own life. Watching her and her sister turn into the children they are now, and the adults they will become, is the most fulfilling part of my life. Period. End of story.

I revel in every one of Ella’s paintings and the way she can memorize a monolouge and perform it with a British accent. I am astounded at how quickly Emerson learned to read; I fill with some kind of happy endorphin that some claim to experience when they eat chocolate at the sight of her lost in a book. I love how funny they are and their keen senses of humor. I never tire looking at them.

I could not imagine before they were born how unique they would be, how like me and different than me and utterly perplexing and perfectly understandable all at once. I could not fathom, when I placed my hand on my growing bump and worried and took prenatal vitamins and gave up wine and read baby books that were terrifying, the enormity of this job called motherhood.

I could not imagine how often I’d despair �� over their schoolwork, the first time they came home with a tale of a mean girl, or when they’re fighting amongst themselves (a lot of those moments in our house), or the slamming of Ella’s door when she’s mad at me. Or, the fourth grade school conference when I learned Ella was failing every subject. I could not conceive, as I took my three-day-old baby Ella Caroline into the pediatrician for her first check up, that ten years later I’d sit in the same office and have the same pediatrician diagnose her with ADD.

I certainly could not have fast forwarded to the moment when I sat them down on the blue couch stained with yogurt and chocolate milk and unseen stray popcorn between the cushions from years of Friday Family Movie Night and told them,��Daddy and I are getting a divorce. ��

I could not imagine how the hurt on their faces made me want to die.

In those moments, I thought and think, I don’t know what to do, or I cannot do this, or I’m too tired to put my feet on the floor and wake them up for school. But I do. Sometimes I do or say the right things, other times not. So many times, not. Regardless, this love I have tugs me from fatigue and uncertainty and even anger. Every time.

Mom, Mommy, Mama. I answer to all three.

There are people who study happiness. Yes, there are actual experts in what differentiates happy people from unhappy people, which, on a side note, is a stranger job than writing fiction. Here is what the data tells them. Happy people are grateful. Happy people live in the moment. Further, it is the small moments, the ordinary moments, we both remember and mourn after loss. The screen door slamming. Snuggling in the morning. Family movie night. Taco Tuesdays.

My daughter’s face when she spots me in the pickup line at school. The way she runs across the playground with her pigtails flying.

On this sunny spring day the Friday before Mother’s Day, I open the White Whale’s door and Emerson jumps in, unsnapping her backpack, and plopping in her seat. I turn down the music. I say to her, as I do every day, “Hi Bunny, did you have a good day.��

“I did, Mama. How was your day?�� She sounds so polite, so grown up. My chest aches.

“It was good, but I missed you.��

“I missed you too.�� A pause. “What’s for dinner? Please say it’s Taco Night?��

Hold onto this, I think. Just this moment. Catalogue it. Note it. Because it is fleeting.

And be grateful. Mostly this.

��

��

But just because it burns

Doesn’t mean you’re gonna die

You’ve gotta get up and try, and try, and try ~ Pink, Try

On a Saturday in February I receive a text from my best friend: You have to stop working and go out of the house. You’re a cat away from being a crazy writer cat lady.

My mother on my birthday: You’re not going to hide out in your house and write books for the rest of your life, are you?

I answer evasively. I’m on deadline for the new book. No, but I’m just not ready. I have to concentrate on the girls.

But the truth is, I’m terribly lonely for adult companionship despite my passion for my work, both when my daughters are home and when they’re at their dad’s. I fill all that loneliness with work. I make up stories and give my characters the love I wish I had. And yes, I’m hiding out. Regardless, I tell myself, I need to heal, to go through all the stages of grief when a marriage ends.

In the endless night when I cannot sleep, I despair, thinking of all the years between now and the end of my life. I ask God �� will I remain without the love of a good man? Will I never have that one person who is both best friend and love?

And the answer comes back.

You won’t if you don’t try.

I must try. Just this, try without expectation. So I go on Match.com.

I write myself a tagline: Author in search of love story

Online dating. It’s the thing everyone does now. And although it feels like being dropped into a foreign country where I don’t speak the language, I do it. I write a profile. I post photos. I browse profiles. I send a wink or two.

And emails come, expressing interest. Might they take me to coffee or for a drink?

I joke with friends to hide my fear �� it will all be fodder for my writing. We say it almost snarky, anticipating men doing foolish things or acting like predators.

But this is not the case. Instead, I meet nice men, all of them just like me: lonely and yearning for love.

Most have been married before. Some have children still living at home, some are empty nesters, and a few have never had children.

We all have hearts that have been shattered, sometimes multiple times. There are stories of adultery, of surprise announcements at the dinner table, of staying too long for the sake of the children.

But we all have one thing in common. We’re trying. Again.

Sometimes their hands shake when they hold the menu. One taps his foot under the table during our entire date. Another walks me to my car after drinks and waits for me to find my keys in the bottom of my bag. They all say I’m pretty and interesting. They all pick up the check. One says I’m prettier than my photos. Some call again, others don’t.

My first date, over coffee, acts like an older brother, kind and sympathetic when he learns he’s my ‘first��. He gives me advice, sharing his own experiences, which have all been positive �� every single woman I’ve met, except one, he admits with a wry smile, have been wonderful people. The chemistry wasn’t there, he says, but all in all good people. Then he tells me his own painful story. He listens to mine. Afterwards, he doesn’t call, and yet, it doesn’t matter. When I needed a man to be kind, to be gentle during one of my most vulnerable moments, he did that. I’ll be forever grateful to him. I wish for his second chance.

And here’s what I know now.

Amidst and around all this collective heartbreak we’re all just looking for that second chance and there is something moving and honorable and inspiring in this. Yes, this. That despite how utterly exposing it is to put ourselves out to the world like a dress on display at Nordstrom, and how unlikely it is to find someone we connect with and have chemistry with and have compatible situations, we’re out there, all of us, trying. Just trying. We all want to love and be loved. This longing to find partnership outweighs our fears and insecurities. Despite our failures and disappointments, we’re out there with a big sign disguised in our Match.com profiles, that say:��here I am with all my baggage and faults and my big, damaged heart �� come find me. And this, to me, is beautiful.

As for my ‘date’s �� I won’t forget each kind gesture and word. I wish for them all their second chance. Just as I hope for mine.

Shine your light today. Light is the antithesis of darkness. The brighter our collective light, the better we’ll outshine the darkness.��~ Writer and editor, Diane Hughes

The headlines capture our reluctant eyes first. Bombing. Boston Marathon. We are first in denial. Perhaps it won’t be too bad, we think. Just a minor incident, no one hurt, just frightened.

But then, it unfolds before us. And we know then. Evil has come. Again.

We weep. We despair. We hold our hands to our mouths and gasp in horror, our hearts opening in that way they do when we see our brothers and sisters in anguish. We learn of the father who lost his boy and may lose his wife while his little girl is suffering in a hospital room �� we say to one another, how will he go on? How will his little girl make it through without her mother?��

We ask, what can we do?

But there is nothing to be done, except to live. To dance, to run, to love hard and deep, to kiss in the rain, and laugh out loud and chase dreams instead of demons. To be present in the presence of virtue and beauty and truth and goodness. To take in the smell of our child’s freshly washed hair, the first bite of a peach, the doubled over laughter with your best friends and the scent of the sea. To give your big, bold heart without caution to those you love. To accept the love we’re offered. To jump into your own life with the courage of a lion and the innocent soul of an unscathed child.

To shake our fists in the air and say, no, no, no, good will triumph, love will win. We will not give up. Ever.

To shine so brightly with life the evil knows it cannot diminish us, cannot break us, cannot change us, cannot make us weep forever.

To reach for one another. Again and always. Just this. To love hard and deep.