I don’t remember who said that life is in the details. It is. Life is what happens when I’m busy making lists and running from one place to another. When I’m up late or up early worrying about what-ifs and maybes.

Life happens. And I certainly can miss it if my eye is not trained on the moment.

Take this awareness test: Moonwalking Bear.

I built a business on the principle that community-building can boost business success, by focusing on relationship marketing. And so I thought all of my new clients shared the characteristic of caring about community.

And while they all may very well do that, I realized today that what connects these inspiring companies - Hiller’s Markets, Yoga Shelter, YogaMedics, Zoup!, Hacienda Mexican Foods, the Grekin Skin Institute, the Hiller ALS Center - is awareness and intention.

Seems like an easy thing, doesn’t it? Obvious, even? Of course, by asking the question I am establishing that it is not, in fact, easy or common at all.

The other day, in a moment of swirling anxiety, someone told me, “You’re already doing the work. Don’t focus on the destination.”

I’ve known that forever - why didn’t I hear myself saying it? Why does it take another voice for me to listen?

And today, in an orientation for Zoup!, an adage of the decade-old company hit me from a new angle: the customer is always … the customer.

Of course they are! “It is not what we do; it is who we are,” someone said today.

It is who I am. And who is that?

Lately, I’ve been basking in the superficial glow of people admiring my straight hair. No, my hair is not straight. But on a lark, I used big brushes and a powerful hair dryer and a pink-for-breast-cancer-awareness straightening iron to elongate my curls and frame my face with silky, flowing locks.

I haven’t changed at all. The reactions of others to my appearance has. And I will consider that by changing who I am in the mirror, I somehow boost who I am beneath the surface? Maybe?

This seems like a silly topic for a blog and I have work to do and it’s already after 9 o’clock at night.

And so I will leave you with this: think of who you were on the side of the mountain, when all you heard was the rush of a far-off waterfall that you couldn’t even see, and the call of the birds from very high treetops. You stopped to catch your breath and inhaled the scent of pine needles beneath your feet. The distance was everywhere. The drumbeat of your heart inside your chest was all the music you needed to know you were alive and living and in this very moment unlike any other moment before or ahead.

You didn’t even know that in an hour, you would sit on a bed of wildflowers and eat strawberries until your fingers bled with their juice and below you, the salmon were running their course against the current of the Columbia River.

You thought not of love or of loneliness or who would inhabit your bed that night or a week later or months before. You thought not of writing a poem or of the angst you clutched in your 20s like a tattered soft blanket dragged behind you through the years.

You did not think at all as you listened to the fast-call of the wind against an open arching mountainside and you were not even at the summit and you were so far from the base. And all was good and all was good and that sun shone like white into a night-dark tunnel and you tilted your sweaty head back against the air and closed your eyes. You could still see the jewel-blue of the water.

To understand your daughter, you must first understand yourself…

His voice on the phone was calm and firm. “She’s you. What would be best for you? Then you’ll know what’s best for her.”

Why was it so easy to know the sons, to clearly see their needs like the outline of a leaf landing on the water of a simple pond? And the daughter, her sweet face, her bright smile, with one little reach of the mother’s hand, one eye-to-eye connect, one Hannah Montana song spent dancing together in the family room, she came alive with the vibrant smile and 5-year-old abandon that always lurked beneath the surface.

What is best for me, so best for her? The mother contemplated in the streaks of sunlight that day and then as night fell, and the candles flickered against the backdrop of the red dining room walls, and the daughter burrowed into the ex-husband, spending the weekend alone with her father.

The mother had walked every path toward knowledge and enlightenment, some extreme, some narrow and winding through familiar forests so serene she could breathe as if taking the very first breath beneath a canopy of trees that understood their unique place in the world. She was 37 years old and she still didn’t know.

The moment is the reality. She had only now. The candle flickered its yellow wick. Pandora radio played songs emblematic of her tastes at this moment - so quickly, it created a perfect playlist. She saw metaphor.

What is my purpose? What is my passion? What would I be happiest doing every single day, knowing it was my calling, my talent, my inherent joy?

The furnace blew heat through the vent at her feet. It was almost 11 o’clock and she still hadn’t accomplished much for the day. In the kitchen, roast slow-cooked under beer, tomato sauce, onion soup mix. There would be a full table for Shabbat that night, though her daughter would be gone.

Earlier that morning, before it was necessary to awake, the littlest boy came coughing into the mother’s bed. The oldest boy groped his way through the foggy dark to climb up onto the second pillow. And just as the mother almost fell back into a light sleep, the daughter appeared like an apparition or a mirage or a dream not yet dreamt at the side of her bed.

“Oh! You scared me,” she said, grabbing the girl in a purple flannel nightgown and pulling her on top of the mother and holding her there, their hearts beating one against the other, their skin intermingling as if the same. She stroked her daughter’s silken hair. She held her against her body.

She thought of the Winston Churchill quote: ”We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

She held the daughter as long as the little girl would lay there and thought of nothing but the warmth beneath her hands and the sweet softness inside her arms.

As in the words of Anais Nin, “Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

I think in threes. Derivatives of 3, groupings, words easily divided into three letters at a time. Maybe I’m OCD or maybe I’m driven by mastery, since the number 3 in spiritual circles of many faiths signifies the higher powers that steer us toward mastery in this world.

Except I am not the master yet. Each day, I step in that direction but I have not reached the point of knowing my calling, of hearing it in the night and letting it soothe me back to sleep.

Every day another face behind a smile with hesitation, an obstruction to the fairy-tale ’80s-movie dream of how it was supposed to be. I don’t think anyone plans a wedding with clarity. We waltz toward a dream on a path of soft petals that an hour later can be shaken clear and rolled up to put in storage.

Last night, I found kindred spirits and broken ones. Today, I write of the sea which I do not know. I imagine, because I am good at that and then I believe that because I know the words, because I constructed the image on paper, I lived it.

Is it the job of a writer to live in angst and then shout it to the world? What a cliche. I’m tired of walking the path alone. I’m tired of worrying about how it’ll all work out.

Many days I return to Dog Mountain and the Oregon coast, my bare feet cool on the gritty sand, the teeth of the waves tasting shore then leaving again. Many days I am as if holding my newborn son in the purple dawn as he sleeps perfectly beside my skin. Many days the tines of my fork tear into the soft white flesh of just-caught sauteed fish tossed in artichoke hearts and I sip my wine from grapes grown and pressed up the street and it is quiet and I am happy.

There is an answer. It may be held in the clutch of clouds over which I’ve crested on my way to a perceived destination and it may be buried beneath the mounds of snow in my backyard. I am certain it is self-evident if I can learn its language and only then will the arms of the dream unfold so that I can run into them.

In the height of summer, I sat at a patio table under an open umbrella as night fell behind the silhouette of the building.

The dinner was nice, the conversation quick and invigorating, the wine swelling on my tongue and warming as it descended. Every few minutes, he picked up his Blackberry and transferred his glance from my smile to the bright screen in his hand.

Since I began my second-time-around dating career, I’ve noticed a trend of escaping from the intensity of the moment into messages, texts and Tweets. It’s rude, and I hate it. Or is it simply the way we step back from potential intimacy today?

Alan Wolk wrote on a recent blog, “Twittering, status updating, blog commenting all involve taking yourself out of whatever real life situation you are in and inserting yourself into a virtual one. It’s every bit as annoying and disrespectful to the other people in the room as the coworker who feels compelled to answer several personal cell phone calls in the middle of a meeting.”

The other day, my ex-husband called and texted several times while I sat in a client meeting, planning our marketing and PR calendar for 2009. I didn’t answer, nor did I look at my phone. Rather, I switched the setting to quiet, so I would not be bothered by interruptions.

When I emerged from the meeting, I looked at my Blackberry. Dialed his number.

“Did you get my texts and calls?” he demanded.

“I was in a meeting.”

“You’re the only person in the world who doesn’t check messages during a business meeting,” he retorted. And suddenly, I had more clarity about his approach to business. And that’s all I’ll say on that.

But this practice of being with one person while you escape to check on another troubles me. Admittedly, I’ve been on some dates when an escape is required. Thankfully, few.

I had dinner recently with one person who turned off the phone so we could truly talk. Another night, I went out with a lovely person who had eyes only for the moment at hand, as did I. Of course, we laughed as we each emerged from the bathroom, Blackberrys in hand, eyes focused toward the small screen, eager to see who had messaged.

I’ve spent my entire life feeling as though no one is listening - perhaps that propelled me into a career where I listen intently and am judged by the accuracy of what I record.

The other day, I listened to a beloved friend emote sadness and fear about turning points. I listened. I listened. I heard.

We are both smart women repeating mistakes like we all repeat mistakes, choosing those who do not listen while we yearn for those who do. Or at least that is the mirage.

People don’t change but then sometimes they do. Today it’s cold but the sky is a crisp blue and I have made progress, crossed tasks off my to-do list.

The biggest question that I am left with is not who is listening to me, but am I listening to myself?

From Thursday:

Hi everyone,
It is with great sadness that I write this email. This morning, we encountered a very sad and unexpected situation. Asher’s beloved fish Clifford died.
 
We found him floating at the top of his tank serenely and Asher bravely used a net to fish him out. Asher, Eliana and I had a brief memorial ceremony before sending him down the toilet to his ultimate resting place. It was emotional for everyone.
 
Clifford was almost 2 years old. He was a hardy goldfish who endured much neglect amid the bustle of our crazy life. He was fed most days by all the children and many family members helped care for him when we were out of town. Of course, it’s never easy to say goodbye to a loved one and certainly not when it is an unexpected farewell.
 
As Eliana remarked before leaving for school, “I’ve never known anyone who died.” Too true.
 
Asher kept himself together although he said he was quite sad. But I suppose we must remember that with every ending comes a beginning. Shaya took the news hardest of all - possibly because, resting after a night of strep throat and high fever, he was not present at the farewell. Everyone needs closure.
 
I hope your day had a happier start than ours did. We will persevere despite the absence of our little Clifford.
Love, Lynne

Since then, several parents have suggested that I could have gotten rid of Clifford and replaced him unbeknownst to my children with a new identical goldfish. Truthfully, it didn’t even occur to me - I think I would feel guilty for years if I were to masquerade a similar but altogether different fish as our little Clifford.

And besides, isn’t this a sort of rite of childhood passage?

“This one,” she said, handing the mother Robert McCloskey’s Time of Wonder.

The mother sighed. “This is such a long book,” she said and then, noticing the disappointment on her daughter’s face, the mother realized the wisdom in the gift of time.

She stretched her own feet into the flannel sheets, all decorated in pink and purple and green flowers, then pulled the white blanket and quilt up to their noses. The little girl laughed. They snuggled in close enough to touch, no space between.

The mother pulled back the book cover and took her time with the words.

And that other sound –
not the beating of your heart,
but the one like half a whisper –
is the sound of growing ferns…
slowly unfurling…

And later: “…you awaken to an unaccustomed light…” And the ending: “Where do hummingbirds go in a hurricane?”

And when the book ended, the mother flicked off the sparkly pink bedside lamp and turned her face until it touched nose-to-nose with her daughter. It had been a cold weekend, full of sickness and staying-in. Now, the daughter smiled - maybe to have the mother set in close, maybe to feel well again and without fever. And the mother smiled because she felt it too.

The baby was already asleep in his bed in the next room over. The mother air-kissed the little girl goodnight as she walked down the hall to the oldest boy’s room. Still naked on the floor from a bath half-an-hour earlier, the mother tsk-tsked her dreamy son.

“I can’t lay with you tonight,” she said.

“Wait!” He rushed to the dresser, slammed open a drawer and extricated flannel pajamas in blue and yellow. Pulling them on, the mother confirmed the toilet hadn’t been flushed nor hands washed. “I’m going!” He ran as if in a race and the mother couldn’t hide a small smile. Of course I’ll stay, she admitted in her head, understanding the gift of a little alone-time in the early evening.

Under the covers of another bed, the boy asked for Rabbi Harvey, but the mother shook her head.

“Why not? He’s so funny,” the boy pleaded.

“I think it’s dumb,” the mother said.

“Maybe you just don’t understand it,” he challenged and she had to laugh.

“The Little Prince, then?” he asked, handing her the royal-blue translation of the book she read in high school. “Yes,” the mother said.

Settling against the pillows, she opened the book that the boy could read by himself to the seventh chapter.

“What good are thorns?” the little prince asked the traveler. When the traveler lashes out, mired as he is in his own worries, the little prince pushes forward.

“If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself, ‘My flower’s up there somewhere…’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?”

The mother turned to the little boy, who had sidled his head under her arm and leaned on her lap, listening to the cadence of her voice.

“I love stories like these,” the mother remarked. “They’re full of metaphor. That’s when they seem to be about one thing but are really about another.”

The little boy couldn’t care less for this line of conversation but he listened anyway.

“This is really about love,” the mother said. “You’ll understand some day.”

That night, the children fell asleep without complaint. The mother stayed up until midnight working by the light of a Tiffany lamp in her corner office. The blue of the book covers, which she carried under her arm downstairs to hearten her mad race against the clock, match the soothing blue of her office walls.

Wondering why she always raced through all the many tasks of the day. Wondering why she rushed bedtime, that sweet quietening down time at the end of each day, when she can perfectly inhale the scent of her lovely little ones. Wondering why she couldn’t catch her breath when all was well, all was good, and she was so incredibly fortunate.

Someday, she told herself, you’ll understand everything.

So it’s cold. Big deal. Single-digit temps, black ice, yes, it’s frigid and no one likes to go out in this brisk weather but we have to.

It reminds me of the whole ongoing discussion of perspective. My daughter - so dear and sweet, so strong and tough - will notice the have-not over the have any day. An example: last night, she wailed about not getting dessert. Except I don’t make it a habit to serve sugary-sweet desserts on regular days.

What she did not focus on was the roast chicken drizzled in the fresh-squeezed juice from an orange or the roasted cauliflower which was actually really good. She did not focus on the four of us sitting around the table or the fact that we were warm inside the belly of our home instead of being thrust onto the cold, cold streets.

She’s 5. I get it. Children are at the core gimme-souls whose sole purpose is to learn, grow, develop and enhance at every turn. They don’t yet know about appropriate or glass-half-full philosophies.

But we do. A candle flickers against the backdrop of my computer screen. Dave Matthews on my iTunes insists on his guitar, his voice sweet like honey and soothing as a long sunset.

This week has been an overload of to-dos. I’m getting it done but I’m not getting it done. I haven’t done yoga in two weeks or been to the gym in four. I’m up late and up early. But I’m not complaining.

I have work. I have three beautiful children. I made the space to make home-cooked dinners three nights this week. My sister is doing well. My brother has a new baby and a hilariously cute toddler son.

It will be warm again. It will even get hot.

Read in ELLE recently that most of the “confirmed-bachelor mega-designers” have their very own fashion muse. Karl Lagerfeld: Lady Amanda Harlech. Alexander McQueen: Isabella Blow. Tom Ford: Carine Roitfeld. Yves Saint Laurent: Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise. Marc Jacobs: Camille Miceli.

Ah well. The job description: Be fabulous. Put clothes together well. Give input on the collections. Be an asset at any dinner table. Inspire creativity and joie de vivre.

Except for the collection input, I’d say I might fit the bill on the rest. Maybe. And so it set me thinking about the concept of a muse, who should have one, who should most definitely NOT have one, and how one goes about figuring out her muse in the first place.

For the longest time, my muse was my perceived angst, all the worry, wear and tear that goes with a plum suburban life. Imagined angst, you might say. And when I pulled out into the clear, my muse became whatever or whoever I loved at the moment - or whomever I had loved in the past.

I cannot count how many poetic essays I’ve penned about John - whom I only recently realized was as much a figment of my imagination as he was my college boyfriend. This past weekend, I spent two wonderful days with my brother, his wife, their children and my daughter. Talk about muses…

My brother has been married for six years, though they met in high school. Theirs is the type of relationship I’ve never had - quiet and love-filled, respectful and endearing, loving-to-be-together. Their secret, I’ve always thought, has been that they are both strong, independent, content individuals - not an ounce of needy between them.

I believe angst runs big in muse circles. We spoke about a common friend whose long-time relationship banter borders on the psychotic. That is love? Or maybe it’s a replica of something long forgotten.

I’ve written for most of my life and I don’t think I’ve had an identifiable muse. But I’ve succeeded in chasing the angst out the door into the nature preserve behind my house. It is happy there, among the gnarled vines and broken branches and the critter communities that keep each other company in the long winter.

Times are tough but life is good - I don’t need much to attain true happiness.

This afternoon, Asher, Eliana and I watched the Rubberbandance Group at the Power Center in Ann Arbor. A mix of hip hop, ballet, martial arts and yoga on stage. “What are they doing, Mommy?” Asher whispered in the dark. He tilted the program toward the stage in hopes of finding the title - an answer! - of a particular dance segment.

After a while, Eliana nestled into my lap, he gave up asking what the dance meant and settled in to watch.

“Look at how strong they are,” I said. “Wow - what is the story behind this one?”

Freed to imagine, their breathing eased into rhythms.

I am only constricted when I have to drive long distances again and again. Free to sit with my soft, sweet children and absorb music, movement, breath - I am inspired. My muse, perhaps?

A poem to start off the new year (this tattered New Yorker page from so many years ago hangs by scotch tape to the wall beside my computer; I see it all day long):

Now, When The Waters Are Pressing Mightily

Now, when the waters are pressing mightily
on the walls of the dams,
now, when the white storks, returning,
are transformed in the middle of the firmament
into fleets of jet planes,
we will feel again how strong are the ribs
and how vigorous is the warm air in the lungs
and how much daring is needed to love on the exposed plain,
when the great dangers are arched above,
and how much love is required
to fill all the empty vessels
and the watches that stopped telling time,
and how much breath,
a whirlwind of breath,
to sing the small song of spring.
– Yehuda Amichai (translated from Hebrew by Leon Wieseltier)

I have an MFA in Writing from Goddard College and two published books of poetry but I don’t think in poetic line, form, or cadence anymore. Perhaps I’d be better off if I did.

And, on a lighter note this Monday morning after the turn to a new year, here’s the eggplant recipe, requested by a faithful reader of my blog (thank you!). The recipe comes from Claire’s Corner Copia in New Haven, Connecticut:

Eggplant with Mascarpone

1/2 c. flour for dredging
3 eggs
2 T. chopped parsley
2 T. grated Parmesan
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 c. oil for frying
1 medium eggplant, peeled and sliced lengthwise into 1/4-inch rounds
4 c. marinara sauce (I prefer Don Pepino pizza sauce)
8 oz. mascarpone or whipped cream cheese
15-20 spinach leaves, rinsed, drained, tough stems removed

Beat the eggs in a bowl, then add parsley, parmesan, salt and pepper. Dredge eggplant slices in flour (I use white-whole-wheat), then in the egg mixture, then fry in the oil for 1-2 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Drain slices on paper towel.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour marinara sauce in a glass baking dish. Hold an eggplant slice in your hand spoon a tablespoon of mascarpone onto one half. Place 1-2 spinach leaves on top of the cheese. Fold the top half of the eggplant slice over the filling, pressing lightly to hold together. Set seam-side down on the sauce and repeat with all eggplant, making sure not to stuff baking dish beyond a single layer. Bake about 30 minutes, until sauce and cheese are heated through.

Although I have lived most of my life in Detroit, it never felt like my legacy or my responsibility to buy American cars until recently.

As a child, very few of my friends came from automotive companies - at least that I knew about. And as a girl, I didn’t care much for cars anyway - only to oppose the awful Dodge Caravan that my father brought home minutes before my 16th birthday. Eyeing its fake wood paneling and runner-board to lift us from ground to vehicle cavern, I knew this automobile would complicate my popularity status.

I can say I was spoiled. I didn’t appreciate the magnitude of my parents’ third-car purchase so that I would have something to tool around in. When I crammed my entire tennis team inside the van to prove the point that it was so huge, I didn’t realize the vehicle’s safety qualities nor its endurability.

But now that I look back on it, my parents always drove American until their later years. My father’s dream car, the Corvette, was uniquely local as it fish-tailed its way through rainstorms and stood protected and still in the garage come winter. We never spoke about how his aspiration toward that car was a lower-income Detroiter’s dream of making it nor the importance that he did get there, through hard work and determination.

Since I began buying cars, I have chosen Japanese vehicles - mostly because of a perceived staying power that I didn’t think American cars shared. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I chose my Toyota Sienna more than four years ago because it was the only minivan at the time with second-row windows that rolled almost entirely down.

And yet I’ve always believed that life is in the details. A car is a means of transport, a getting from point A to point B, easily, seamlessly, comfortably. Sometimes, as I careen along the interstate, I marvel at the very existence of automobiles, that we sit in a box of metal and plastic and catapult like bullets across the landscape. How is that even possible?

With innovation comes complication. It’s inevitable. Times were simpler, easier, with nowhere near as many questions before everyone had a car, let alone two, three, or more.

Were they better, though? Maybe yes, maybe no. For better or worse, we stand here today, in all its haze.

The sun has yet to rise so I can’t say what sort of day it will be. What I do know is this: some good, some bad, some minutes in-between, and at the end of it all, we will be richer and wiser if only for living through it.