The sun sank in streaks of pink beyond the pond. A fountain sprayed its arms over the serene little pool, our view a painting. On the grass, children ran in circles, collecting pine cones.

It was the first time my children had been to Friday night services ever. Usually we plopped on the living room couch in our pajamas. Hundreds of people gathered in white folding chairs on the patio at Temple Israel.

Music, emanating from the bimah, pulled us in like a favorite friend and we danced, jumped, spun circles. It was reverence and serenity, peace and place.

“Maybe this should be our new shul,” Asher said. ”I like that the women and the men sit together. It’s too hard the other way.”

It wasn’t my intention to show one way or another as better, just that there are many ways to find spirit.

I often go back to the mountains I have climbed, listening for the wind in the wildflowers, tasting the strawberries from my backpack, remembering the moments I wanted to record but, without pen to paper, had only to hold in the texture of my fingertips. Sometimes, I trust experience more than written word to take me back.

How cool to think of life like a series of scrapbooks, moments and smiles and tears pasted in some fashion of order on pages in my mind. Like scrapbooks, though, I never take them down from the shelf, but rather walk through my days being that collection of memories.

Lately, Shaya has shown uncanny wisdom for a two-year-old. He’s an existential toddler: “Mommy, I am wearing these pants because I am wearing these pants.” He’s like the painter Magritte - ceci n’est pas une pipe.

This morning, I turned off the a/c and opened the windows. It’s the moments, I swear; living in the moments is everything.

When I look back over just this one week, I see so many worth sitting in. What a joy. What a gift.

Right now, the yellow light from my desk lamp casts a warm glow over my fingers. The air from the window, minty and cool. Asher and Eliana are sleeping. I am loving this moment. Loving it.

The first time I walked into Justin’s yoga class, I was ready to leave.

“If I walk out in the middle, don’t be offended,” I told the young, sculpted teacher with a low soothing voice. “I hate yoga. It’s not you.”

He smiled gently and leaned in close. “No problem,” he said.

Dragged to the Yoga Shelter a year and a half ago by my lifelong friend Laura, I was prepared to hate it. I’d tried yoga any number of times and found the long pauses and empty air silly. Too touchy-feely for me. And I never broke a sweat.

Justin clicked on the CD player and my favorite kinds of music poured forth. Brooding coffeehouse tunes. Hip hop. Familiar rock.

The poses rocked, too. I twisted from one warrior pose to another, stretched and leaned, reached and bent, and before long sweat dripped along the side of my face. Wow. An invigorating workout, amazing music and Justin’s delicious guttural voice.

Of course I didn’t leave early, and I started working my schedule around Justin’s classes. Every time I walked out of the studio, I felt stronger, I was stronger, and I was happy.

That was the beginning of the end of my marriage, and the beginning of me. I didn’t know it at the time, and it had nothing to do with Justin, but stepping into a new world, the world of Yoga Shelter, where people walk in the door and are welcome just for showing up, was my first step into defining the life I want to live.

During the throes of the divorce, I found myself one Thursday in Justin’s class, unable to focus. I started to roll up my mat well before class was over. Justin slipped over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Just take a rest,” he said. “Just one minute. It’ll help.”

I lay on my back in the smoky-dark of the room, closed my eyes and let the tears come. I couldn’t escape the fears of the unknown that lay ahead and so I gave into them and reckoned with the what-ifs.

And after the divorce, when I faced the silence and began to love it, going to Justin’s yoga class was a gift I gave myself. An hour in which to become ever stronger, an island in time when I knew everything I’ve believed about myself was absolutely and entirely true.

Tonight was Justin’s last class in Michigan. Tuesday, he moves to Los Angeles.

At least 60 people turned out for his last walk-us-through.

“I never would’ve stayed if not for your class,” I said as I hugged him goodbye.

“I know. You had one foot out the door,” Justin said. “I remember.”

I know Justin only as my yoga teacher. We are not best friends, we are not related, I have never sat with him over a cup of green tea. I’m not trying to be melodramatic.

But I’ve had so many endings. And while I know they always signify the beginning of something else, something exciting and uncharted, some new potential I can’t even begin to imagine, I couldn’t help but let the tears come once again tonight.

I cried because I’ve said goodbye to people and to dreams. I cried because as I found a place where I can finally be myself and be so damn strong, it changes and morphs and I must ride those changes to the inevitable horizon - so I can change again - for change comes upon us whether we are ready or not.

Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights.  ~Pauline R. Kezer

Do I want it any other way? When the world turns upside down, I want only to right it - and when the path is the same walk under golden leaves, I want to board a plane or a boat or a car and take off for points unknown.

Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.  ~Marcel Proust

It’s all good. Thank you, Justin, for everything. Thank you for bringing me to me. I will miss you.

Monday: Shaya and Eliana pushed kid-sized carts at Hiller’s while I checked items off my list. It was by the British foods that the novelty wore off and Shaya melted down. I lifted him into my cart and convinced Eliana to walk alongside.

At the bakery, Eliana picked pink cupcakes with candies in the frosting and little ones with plastic rings of Eyeore, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger for the boys.  I bought a blueberry one with cream cheese frosting for my sister, but she never ate it.

It was Asher’s first day of school.

Tuesday: Invigorating conversation and absolutely serene silence. A perfect 12 hours. Really.

Wednesday: The day began with silence and ease. Work, work and then some. A clean house. A productive team.

After school, I took the children to Nordstrom to buy shoes. Kids nicked at balloons whose weights held them on the ground. Shaya took off his shoes and ran around barefoot on the carpet, removing every single shoe from the displays and squealing with delight.

I was one of those customers salespeople hate, indignant and complaining to the first attitude-laden saleswoman, until a gentle woman replaced her. She spoke in tones that soothed me and I could speak softly again.

Asher chose red Converse sneakers and brown slip-on dress shoes. Eliana picked sequined, flowered, pink sneakers (of course) and black dress shoes with little high heels. Shaya needed no new shoes at all.

When I went to bed, Eliana was atop my blankets, her arms spread wide and her smooth legs on my pillow. A triumvirate of pink poodles and teddy bears congregated on one little square pillow. I carried her to her room.

Today: It is dark when I awake. And so I make coffee, pour water, turn on the music. I write and then I accomplish. On the kitchen table, the closed GMAT prep book and a stack of 3×5 cards. Upstairs, the children sleep. Somehow in the night, Eliana ended up beside me.

Tomorrow: Should I even contemplate it? All the things we might do? Maybe not. Maybe there is only right now.

Writing teachers always say that the hardest sense to convey in words is the sense of smell. I keep trying to prove them wrong but damn, it’s so true.

When I smell the lake, I close my eyes and breathe in, holding the scent close as if I could capture sweet air. The smell of the lake…water, but how does water smell? Fish? Vegetation floating on the surface? Silt at the depths? Birds cresting over waves? Diesel fuel? Soap on the skin of the person sitting beside me?

You know that smell, the smell of the water… and there are no words to perfectly describe it.

Just like the morning rising. Cool air…but no, that’s the way it feels on my skin. Pink streaks of sky. Sight. I fold my fingers into fists to warm them. Touch. Slip my fleece over my head. Touch. Hear the rush of highway traffic and the peep of a bird. Sound.

What is the scent of morning?

Sound is easier to translate but even still, when I hear a familiar song, it takes me back to a time and a place and often, a person. I am grounded by experiences that defy apt description in word.

The kids are with Avy this morning, scurrying to get ready for school. I slept long and well and awoke in the near-dark to accomplish my day. On my iTunes, the Gipsy Kings are familiar…images of winding mountain roads in the north of Israel, where I first heard their guitar strings. I sat in a passenger van at 25 with no obligation other than to discover who I was. That’s a lot for a song to offer, I know.

I know the metaphor of morning well. That promise of a new beginning, the feeling that anything is possible. I live a perpetual morning, the unidentifiable scent of steaming coffee wafting in from the kitchen. What will I discover in this day, this life, this metaphor reaching?

To wake one eye at a time, breath deepening. Absolute quiet all around. Years ago, I would’ve reached for the radio or the phone, just to escape the silence. Now, I relish it.

A life is a series of moments. One builds upon the last and the next, juicy as a late-summer peach. Little steps, appreciation building like my little boy’s blocks on the family room floor.

I used to race through the moments, my eye on the distant horizon. Now I know that you never reach the horizon and so I stop to taste the moments because they are all we ever hold.

To truly love is to not hold too tight, to not fear the leaving, to not abdicate control but to see, fully, those who stand beside us, in all their fullness. Never hoping to enfold them, to consume them, to conquer. Just to taste them for a minute, maybe another minute will follow.

Today is humid, the air heavy. All around me is a haze but I am so clear.

Beauty everywhere. Feelings dancing under my skin. This much emotion, how lucky I am to feel it.

I write words that make me cringe. Beauty everywhere? What is that? My grad school profs would be devastated and red-pen away.

Maybe living this fully escapes explanation. Maybe there are no words for this, maybe I am doing, so I cannot write it. Is that possible?

On my iTunes, Joshua Radin. Jason Mraz. John Mayer. Every song sweet as lovemaking.

There are flavors in my kitchen - eggplant roasted with garlic and farmers market tomatoes; lychees bursting on my tongue; that familiar milk-lightened coffee from Israel that always takes me back to the pink stones and the strong people on every street.

A new day dawning in every minute. I am lucky, I tell you. Supremely lucky.

My memories of shwarma: Thick, jagged cuts of succulent lamb dripping grease to be soaked up by puffy soft pita. Thin slivers of sharp onion and chunks of tangy tomato. Soul-filling.

The reality, last night, of what they called shwarma at A Fair to Remember: Half of a roll-up sandwich with tiny pieces of dry, gray chicken, shreds of lettuce, a dollop of mayonnaise and small pieces of tomato, enwrapped in a thin piece of lavash. Tasteless.

It was beyond cool that the thousands of people filling the Michigan State Fairgrounds were Jewish. Blue signs bore the Hebrew names of Israeli streets. I never see anyone I know at the State Fair but this year, I knew everyone and it felt so good to be part of a vibrant, smiling community.

My children were gleeful on rides. We stayed until late and they witnessed their first pop-blast fireworks display.

They completely forgot that we waited in line for half an hour to get tasteless kosher food.

Why does keeping kosher have to be so complicated?

I swear, we bring this chaos on ourselves! If a Jewish community wants to promote an inherent value - separating milk and meat, buying and consuming only kosher-certified victuals - then why not make it organized, easy and delicious?

Two slow lines converged on two order-takers. I couldn’t find ketchup, napkins or drinks. Detroit’s best kosher caterer provided the food but it was not his finest moment. To quote my grandmother: “He should be ashamed!”

Suppose you keep kosher because you believe it’ll bring you closer to God. Judaism does not believe in asceticism.

Last night was a microcosm of the Jewish world: tank tops beside ground-sweeping skirts, Israelis in flip-flops eating pepperoni pizza and black-yarmulke rabbis eating kosher food, strong athletes celebrating Maccabi wines and children ecstatic riding burlap sacks down the giant slide.

We are a strong community getting stronger. If only we can keep coming together, despite differences in belief and observance, we will only become better.

I close my eyes and go back to Oregon. June, two months ago, me at the pinnacle of the ebb and flow of this whirlwind. A trip totally inspired by confidence and independence, to be alone, to explore, to discover and rediscover.

The feel of the sand under my toes. The crash of the ocean against the shore. The jagged cut of the shoreline as it ebbs and flows along the coast, cutting a drastic swath between what is solid and what is constantly changing.

The smell of pine everywhere. The fragrance of morning, of coffee steaming into the dawn, of the pit and roll of the valley ripe with vineyards below my balcony. The sun on my skin. The taste of every single moment on my tongue.

Voices familiar and voices silent. Every single experience so good, like the best chocolate. And as I drove along the winding roads of a new state of being, the lyrics of every single song resonated like a best friend in my ear.

This week, I am so far from Oregon, but everywhere I turn I am recapturing it in moments.

The best-laid plans…a relationship to last forever, youth unending, thinking I will forever be untouched by all the calamities I see and hear and witness around me.

It’s not true anymore. I have joined the ranks of everyone and everything and although I can’t tell you what I mean, trust me when I say that reality has knocked on my door more than once and I couldn’t lock it out.

So what. I’m still dancing in my desk chair to those great songs and believing that the sun rises in its pinkness every single day, with promise, with hope, with spirit.

I have not lost my way. I won’t. This is what they call life. The good rolled in together with the bad, like a basket of laundry waiting to be folded.

Eliana’s at dance camp and she’s happy there. Asher and Shaya went to the library with the nanny. I have a work meeting soon, a few phone calls, words to put on the page, to inspire people with.

Tonight is that huge community celebration for Israel’s 60th. The tickets are folded in my purse. My grandmother arrives to join us at 5:30. And somewhere in there, I’ll get phone calls with more information, the puzzle will come together for a picture I can almost see.

I miss the sound of your voice. I miss the rush of your skin. I miss the still of the silence as you breathe out and I breathe in…tell you what’s next. Make you believe. Make you forget. (Come On Get Higher, Matt Nathanson) I ache to remember …

I am thankful for the moments. I am thankful for the people whose love keeps me standing. I am thankful for a new day.

Eight years ago today, 350 people milled about several decorated hotel banquet rooms. I wore a custom-designed pearl-white dress with transparent sleeves and beaded cuffs.

My favorite part was the bedecken, an ancient Jewish ritual where the groom confirms that he is marrying the right bride. (Oh, what a loaded statement!) Avy was in a far room with the rabbis, our fathers, and a smattering of other men. They sang nigguns and banged their hands on the tables and then our mothers broke a china plate wrapped in a big white napkin. The pieces were given to single people who wanted to get married, as a gift of good luck.

Then, the musicians played some klezmer-style fast beat, and the crowd of men danced Avy down a crowded carpeted hallway to me. I sat on a throne, all the important women in my life surrounding me. My veil hid my face. My heart thumped loud and fast.

When he reached me, he lifted my veil, stroked my face, and our foreheads met. The crowd roared. Then he danced away.

I had several least favorite parts, but they don’t matter anymore. Eight years have passed and the marriage has ended. I was never so attached to my anniversary, though relatives sent requisite cards and my parents always bought us a gift. It seems we were always too busy or Avy was out of town to really celebrate together. Or maybe we just weren’t that enthusiastic about doing so. A sign, definitely, in retrospect.

Last night, I had intended to photograph a yoga class for a client but instead ended up bending and twisting in yoga poses I’d done before but which seemed very new to me. Cantor Michael Smolash from Temple Israel led a band of seven in a live performance of rousing Jewish music while the room of people, come there for so many reasons and connected by a desire to seek enlightenment in some new way, leaned and stretched.

Every teacher brings a new perspective to the same old lessons. Last night, in poses I know well, the teacher I’d never listened to before kept pointing out the metaphor of our physical state. One hand reached forward while another hand was angled toward what was behind us. Somewhere in between, we were standing still, in the present, learning to be there and empty our minds of everything but that single moment.

Reaching ahead. Looking back. Standing still.

All that has happened brings us to this moment. Then we push forward to what is yet unseen, knowing anything could lay ahead in front of us.

The lights were low, the songs familiar. Similar to the repetitious refrain of Jewish songs I’ve heard other times, in other places, believing then that my path was absolute and directed, not knowing what I was walking toward.

A plane buzzed beneath the clouds. Insects whirred and screeched in the trees, unseen. Sunshine striped along the soft skin of my children, whose faces were turned with trust toward the man strumming his car and singing into a microphone.

Behind us, the muddy water of a shallow river coursed along its way. I don’t remember his words but Shaya said something in two-year-old speak about how the river leads eventually into something bigger.

On the grass, Asher sipped a smoothie. The conflicting scents of the farmers market - fragrant basil, roasting corn, fresh-cut flowers - mingled with the musty hint of the perimeter wood.

That morning, Asher had the singular role of sampling tomatoes and deciding which to purchsae. Juice and small round seeds dripped down his chin and over the skin of his upturned arm.

We passed sunflowers crowding into buckets like eager faces and pickles cut into wedges for sampling. At the ice cream truck, I rushed the kids along, wanting nothing too processed for our morning.

Before we left, the singer broke into “You are my sunshine,” and we joined in with the words. Asher bopped his little lean body to the notes. “Mommy, almost everybody here is kids,” said Eliana.

Today, Seth Godin wrote a blog about being authentic. A handwritten note, a meal created by a chef who loves the art of the ingredients. Nothing too electrified or huge to have eluded the definition of real.

I know what he means. On Sunday, we had bliss at the farmers market. The sun shone like it should for a homecoming. Yesterday, I sat suspended, awaiting answers that I have yet to get. Last night, Eliana and Shaya caterwauled until late, never able to settle into the serenity of night. Asher is clouded by a cold, his breathing labored.

There is peace and there is ruckus. That is the authentic life of a family. One day in, one day out, one day turned upside down.

I sat on the concrete porch, the late-day sun warming my face. Pen in hand, I pored over a business book, highlighting words to remember.

As each car passed on the street, I looked up in search of the familiar.My kids had been gone since Monday, their second summer vacation week with their father. All week, I’d been working, exercising, catching up with friends and with myself, and calling my little ones to hear their sing-song voices and know they were ok.

In turn, they were surrounded by beauty - the mountains of Banff, a gondola-ride over snow-caps, a dip in a cold pool, hot dogs roasted over the open fire.

When the blue truck pulled into my driveway Friday evening, I tossed my book inside the house and walked barefoot to greet them. They were asleep in their carseats, heads tilted. My ex smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders.

Asher was the first to open his eyes. “Mommy!” He threw his arms around me. Avy lifted Eliana from her seat and she nudged her eyes awake. She smiled when she saw me and reached her arms out.

By then I was holding Shaya, in a dead sleep against my shoulder. With my free arm, I embraced my girl.

All through the night, I got spontaneous hugs. Shaya slept for another hour on the couch. I watched Asher’s digital-camera video-tour of the trip and heard their excited stories. When Shaya awoke, he would not let me put him down.

Finally, the four of us lit the candles and covered our eyes. We recited the Hebrew blessing to inaugurate the Sabbath aloud, our voices in unison. Then we held hands and sang the silly made-up song I created as a post-candlelighting ritual when Asher was little. We danced in a circle, then fell into each other at the end. I can’t remember a happier time.

So many people’s eyes go wide and their voices drop when they hear I got divorced. “OH,” they say. “I’m sorry!”

I shake my head to let them know it’s not like that. Although no little girl dreams of her grown-up life as including the demise of a marriage and a dream fluttering skyward like a captive bird set free, every day I realize how right this decision was.

We are all adjusting, figuring out how to survive and how to transcend the moments.

Those happy faces, those little bodies sleeping beside me Friday night. Asher’s full-body hugs, Eliana’s endless smile, Shaya’s neck-cuddles.

They had a great week with their father. And they were so happy to be home with me.