When my eldest son was an infant, and I would take him into a crowded room, he responded by shutting his eyes and immediately falling asleep in my arms. Yesterday, as my children and I joined 50,000 Detroiters in urban streets for the Race for the Cure, I could see him wanting to do the same thing - only, at 7 years old, it’s not quite as easy.

Frankly, as I’m equally uncomfortable in crowds, I wanted to shut my eyes and kick back as well. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t close my eyes to the fact that every person there had in some way been impacted by breast cancer.

I couldn’t shut out my children’s questions: Mommy, why did Auntie Jody get cancer? my daughter asked. That’s a very good question, I responded, for which I have no answer.

And Asher, doing the math of 50,000 people giving donations to walk the streets with pink ribbons and T-shirts and bandanas, plus uncountable sums donated toward finding a reason and a treatment and an eradication. A future scientist who’s great at math, his mind calculated the magnitude in just this one city.

We stood in the beaming morning sun on the corner of Montcalm and Woodward, waiting for 50 friends and family members to arrive. People swarmed the streets and filled the parking lot beside Comerica Park.

And then, just a few hours later, after sitting and eating with 25 people around a rectangular table, I retraced our steps toward the parked car. Empty streets. Vacant lots. A lone man shluffing along the sidewalk behind us.

Echoes pervaded my city. Was it symbolic of something? I’m sure it was.

I rushed everyone into the car, folded the stroller and put it away. I pushed the door-lock button like I almost never do. In overcast day, what fear lurked behind the dash?

My sister was lucky not to be alone during her battle with breast cancer. It is at those moments exactly when we realize what surrounds us and what we lack.

Our black T-shirts matched yesterday. Pink script flowed over our backs, announcing our team of Jody’s Jems. My sister wrote a note of gratitude forever imprinted on cotton cloth for all to see.

Her hair is growing back, her life is starting over, the black cloud that covered our lives since last August 18 has lifted. But we are forever changed, in ways even impercetible to each of us.

Does your work fulfill you? Does it help others? Would it make a difference if you stopped doing it today? Would anyone notice?

If you’re a little bit like me, you ponder these questions and hope the answers fall in line with your personal goals. I’ve always focused on the meaning-of-it-all, striving to do well and do good at the same time.

This week I met Terry Grahl, founder and president of Enchanted Makeovers. This humble mother of four traded her for-profit interior design business for a not-for-profit endeavor which attempts to bring sunshine, light and hope to the disadvantaged by transforming their surroundings (shelters, orphanages, etc.). What a difference a wall mural and a new bed can make for an abused child who previously stared at cement slabs and slept on a falling-apart prison bed.

And the next question … does your work define you?

Last night, we gathered around my dining room table with friends to celebrate a little-known spring holiday called Shavuot. I brought out blintz souffle and baked ziti, salad and roasted cauliflower and leeks with tomatoes. An array of soul- and belly-filling foods to sustain us for more than a night. The conversations included work-talk but not until after we’d touched on our summer plans, school stories, funny items and fond memories.

I’m not going to preach about how a life is the sum total of its parts. But I will say that my life is not as I envisioned it when I was a dreamy teen and I am happier than I’d ever imagined possible. Success often carries no resemblance to the dictionary definition or societal expectation.

You’d think I might learn eventually … eliminate clutter of any kind and you create space. Blessed, peace-promoting space for energy and for accomplishment. For good times and for connections. Eradicate the tension and you have clean air purer than snow, inhaling with each gulp the possibility for good.

My grandfather sat over my left shoulder, the place he has taken to of late, as I sat in the grass at the cemetery, my eldest son leaning all his weight against me, his curly hair under my nose. My daughter sat to my right. Our fingers grazed the gray stone of my grandfather’s grave, their small fingers tracing the carved words.

Tall trees rustling in the heavy breeze above us, birds calling around us and no other sound except for our own breathing in and out in the mid-day sun.

“When I turn into the cemetery, I like to turn off the music,” I told the kids.

“I’m going to close my book,” Asher agreed.

And I drove slow between the embankments, in no rush, with no need in the open afternoon.

It has been a blissful weekend. All children and snuggling and open windows with blessed air mixing into the house.

We sat by the lap of the lake and watched the fish in the murky water. We played under trees, climbing whatever walls stood righteous before us. We watched a white heron high in a tree and listened to the flowing patter of fountains.

On Sunday, we opened the doors and the windows for my little guy’s friends. One hour, a birthday cake made by the careful eye of a mother in love with her children. Ice cream cups and sandwiches and lemonade pouches and we sang Happy Birthday to a beaming boy whose Friday haircut erased the baby and established the little boy.

Three years ago today … I lived a different world.

Three years ago today I emerged from the cocoon of childbirth and brought home a precious bundle wrapped in blue. My older two were innocent in their round cheeks and blue eyes and I explained as they climbed on the bed that a mother’s heart grows to hold more love with the addition of a new child.

Three years ago, it was two months beyond the realization that my marriage would die. Three years ago, my wise friend Salley said carefully over the long-distance line, “It’s ok, if you wait a year. You have a newborn.”

And so I sat in the shroud of knowing that I had chosen the wrong partner even though in the context of him I created the three most wonderful souls under the sun.

Today is for remembering, essentially those individuals who fought for the freedom of our country. But in theory a memorial day is a day to reflect and to acknowledge what laid the foundation for the day in front of us.

I remember being married to a man I couldn’t know. I remember feeling alone when I was supposed to be the most together a person could be. I remember gazing out my morning window in perfect silence and wondering how I decided to abandon myself for the illusion of connection.

It has been a blissful weekend. My children and I are seamless creations of perfection, our smiles infectious, the flavors abundantly pleasing as they dance on our tongues.

In my office, I keep a picture of Asher and Eliana in the blueberry orchard, four years ago, my little girl in blond pigtails so close to the ground. I remember them plucking the little blue orbs from the branches and popping them into their mouths, so few plunking resonantly into the bucket.

In becoming their mother, I was given life anew. And in braving the courage to leave a stagnant place mired in murky waters, I gave myself life yet again.

It’s a new day, you know, and it’s mine for the taking.

A year ago today … a stamp, a nod, a slam of wood against grain. Final. Final. And a new life begins.

A year ago … I sat in a coffee shop with someone new to me after walking down the freedom trail, under arches of tree branches in full leaf, and sipped cafe au lait and listened to the beat of my heart, rapid rapid fire. This will be a hard week, he said. I am here for you in any way that you need me.

A year ago … the garage door ceased opening in the middle of a sun-filled day. My father, my muse, peering at the motor for answers, finding none. I took to the seas and sat in my own thoughts and sipped a cold drink as the sun set below the nipping waves.

The next day, a year ago, a man fixed the garage and I ordered a new door, one that folds in pieces instead of one large awkward piece. Brown, like my parents’ house. Something new to match my new beginning.

I’ve strolled country lanes and watched the water ebb and flow. I’ve sat atop rocky outposts and kissed someone new, leaning into the wind. I’ve sipped Amarone from a glass bearing the imprint of my lipstick. I’ve slipped raw oysters down my throat in perfect rock-salt succession.

In another life, I drew careful lines and minded the contours. I dipped into the purifying waters and recited sentences I was told to read. I tried to dress the part, look the part, preach the part, live the part but the part conformed to another person, another time, another daybreaking experience inspired by something wholly unrelated to me.

In that other life, I began waking with the sun and carrying my steaming cup onto the porch to listen to the morning. Birds rustled behind the bushes. Squirrels skittered up the trunks of my very tall front yard trees. Because I left the windows open all night, I could hear the baby cry awake above me.

It was bliss, then, because I covered myself in blankets of belief that I was where I was supposed to be. Lots of shoulds peppered my conversations then and I strode in the afternoon sunlight toward a seemingly meaningful destination, only to be met by barriers.

And so it wasn’t bliss. Late, I called the mountains of Wyoming and they echoed in response. If I listened carefully, I could hear the roar of the fast river on the other end of the line and the coyotes in the yard nipping at the dogs.

I couldn’t listen until my heart cried like the river and then, it was no longer time for listening, but time for doing in the ebb and flow of a life misconstructed.

There is always fallout from a grenade, even one carefully placed. Shrapnel that lives in the skin and becomes a story to tell. The skin scars and heals and covers itself over but war wounds dance in the mind, vivid memories like paintings under spotlights.

The trail of the music from that delicate dance becomes a soundtrack behind so many lives. Our problems have nothing to do with you, I told them as I tucked them in at night. You are so completely loved, more than anyone in the entire world.

Holding a stuffed animal in the crook of an arm, sleep came quickly, a slight smile, a quizzical look, alight on a soft, gentle face as the night settled in to stay.

“Figure-ground theory states that the space that results from placing figures should be considered as carefully as the figures themselves.” Space is called negative space if it is unshaped after the placement of figures. 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick

I love when the sun rises very early in the day because it feels like an invitation to awake and fully embody every single minute of sunlight. Unlike the long Michigan winter, when darkness pervades the morning and the evening, these few months of brightness and dawn are my best time of year.

So many people to choose from - potential friends, clients, lovers, neighbors. Yesterday, I arrived home in full sunlight with two of my three angels asleep in the back seat. My neighbor stood at the bottom of her driveway, watching for her one-and-only to walk the block home from school.

The sun beamed down in perfect temperature unobstructed. Wasn’t too hot, nor too cold. In the day, I hiked in the forest with my daughter’s Kindergarten class, not a cloud breaking the perfect blue of the sky.

It’s these moments, you know. These little raindrop-sized awakenings that are everywhere.

How many times have I said lately that when a door closes, a window opens? Cliche, I know, but evidently true.

In a different life, a former life driven by fear and what-ifs, I made dinner every night. I baked in the mornings and fed armies every weekend. It has seemed like a dream to generate fodder for my family on a daily basis ever since I started this path toward a different existence.

But last night, I sauteed onions with olive oil, oregano, pepper and salt for split pea soup. Carrots cooked soft, red potatoes, skin still on, split peas and white beans and vegetable broth. Delicious, parmesan cheese sprinkled over top of each steaming bowl.

My table was set with a variet of options. Creamed herring (only I ate it of course), tuna fish (an offering for Asher), the last of the noodles, new dills and pull-aparts with cream cheese or whipped butter, and roasted cauliflower with a sprinkle of curry.

It was a good night, a filling night, a brief gathering of everyone I love around a single table. These are moments for which we all live. These are the moments to love.

I was sick in bed with bronchitis, reeling between fever-induced sweats and chills and coughing continuously. My three angels were understanding about the weekend of continual television, of everlasting cuddles and quick-to-throw-together meals. Mommy’s sick, I explained, not for a minute wishing that they were at their father’s house so that I could sleep without worrying about what a boring weekend they were having.

It was my favorite Mother’s Day yet.

Because I got a paper bag decorated with stars and hearts and big capital letters and fat exclamation points.

Because I got a handmade book, written in careful scrawl by my kindergartener, which said her favorite thing to do with me is have time alone and that in her eyes, I am 50 feet tall and 30 pounds.

Because my not-quite-three-year-old painted a wooden box for me and filled it with Hershey kisses for all of us to eat.

This year, I did not get one store-bought present for Mother’s Day but it was my favorite celebration of motherhood yet. My children’s warm hugs and sweet kisses, our synergistic weekends together, seeking meaning, seeking light, seeking connection with each other and with everything around us.

A few weeks ago, we spent a warm Saturday hiking through the Cranbrook campus. The children took off their shoes and waded in the trickling waterfall of the Japanese garden, felt the soft massage of pebbles underfoot. We inhaled the scent of pine needles and stopped to stare at flowers and listen to the rush of water narrowing from a serene pond into a cascading tumble over concrete blocks.

It was the perfect day.

Every day with my children is a perfect day, even those when I become exasperated and lose my cool. Even the times when their tantrums ring hollow and long. Even the times when we rush from point A to point B to point C.

Late in the afternoon on this Mother’s Day, my ex-husband sent me a text: I know we’ve had our differences, but I want to wish you a happy Mother’s Day.

It was icing on the proverbial cake. That’s very nice, I typed into the smartphone. Thank you.

Last night, my plane taxied twoard the gate and I edged at my seat, eager to deplane and get home to the people whose hearts beat in sync with mine. I had gone to New York in search of escape and connection with self, in search of inspiration for my multi-tiered quest.

New York has lost the allure for me. Its bustle and rush too frantic, and the distance between me and those three important souls around whom my life revolves too great.

Coming home was more than an end to a trip, more than a mere arrival.

We have lift-off.

Sometimes, in the search for silence and focus, the only answer is to journey away from that which is familiar. And so I find myself in Manhattan for less than two days, walking the city streets aware of the fabrics and hues and tactile impressions of a city always moving, never stopping.

I find it hard to say no to those who inquire, difficult to simply request of myself the quiet, the solitude, the time for reflection that a life of creativity demands. My plane soars and crests over cloud, over field, and then eases into the plane of a bustling city by diving so close to the surface of the water, that I intake breath, before exhaling completely.

Yesterday, the sun shone. Streetsides hummed. I ducked over and beyond the streets that I knew, spun wide creamy-coated noodles around a fork in an urban garden. The cappuccino was excellent even though the bread was cold.

I found pressed tin ceiling and red brick wall in a Soho bakery. The lemonade was cold and exactly as I wanted. Even in the far reaches of a city not mine, I found a familiar voice, a smile, an embrace from a person who has paralleled my own trajectory since we were small. Moments like those are absolutely delicious.

We spoke of reunions and celebrations and the awe that comes from finding someone you can spend four nights with and never grow bored. I don’t have four nights, I told him, because my life revolves around three precious souls who are everything at once.

The city awakes earlier than I, which is miraculous if you know me, and today I lingered between the sheets because it was possible to do. An old movie, an early sunrise, the promise of adventure in a city that is always new to me, even though I know the contours of its hands.

Today, I insist on solitude. Soon, there will be pastry and coffee and delicate bites of exquisite flavor as I pore over a newspaper that begs to be read and which arrives on doorsteps everywhere in the world because it has something to say. I am acutely aware of the lack of stories being printed in my own city but I will not give in to the fear.

I will return to my children soon and my expectations of to-do lists and tasks, all important, all necessary, but the enlightenment that comes from a day away, a moment alone, an inhale of air not quite the same as that which I always breathe, that is the fuel propelling this dream forward into something better than French fries.

Keep doing the work. Keep climbing the mountain. The peak is just the peak; the downward walk is just as exhilarating as the climb up.

This summer, I will learn to sail. Because I can do anything, I can do everything, and if I’m smart enough, I absolutely will.

Last Sunday, I listened to Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s Splendid Table show and heard things I’d never heard before. Maybe it had always been there or maybe it was new, but the subtitle caught my ear: the show about life’s appetites.

To crave, to have room for, to create space to fill with flavorful bites. Appetite has the typical food connotation but of course we encounter many different appetites through the course of a day, a week, a life and this moniker expands the show beyond a mere food conversation.

Life’s appetites. A desire for quiet in the early morning and the opportunity to relish an early sunrise. The way a new day arrives without announcement or question, the light filtering through the bamboo shades, a gentle nudge awake like a loving finger stroke of someone beside you.

A craving for foods sweet, salty and with exquisite crunch or something not tasted in too long. A desire to be out on the open water without care or concern, no deadline to meet, nowhere to be, no one to worry about as the sun works its way in an arc overhead until it can rest as you do.

The exhilaration of a solo hike in mountains you’ve never known and the sound of a waterfall beyond the thicket of branches that you can’t see but know is beckoning. The anticipation of someone you have yet to meet. A remembered touch. A desire yet unmet.

Life’s appetites. There are so many in this complex web of streets, arteries through our days, clear-cutting across open field and obscured views. We judge ourselves too harshly.

In the quiet of a soft couch, in an evening padded with cool breezes, there was a horse bucking its feet against the dirt, kicking it up in waves and clouds. The horse represented freedom, a desire, a need, to run free from the chains of a previous week or an expectation.

There were jungle images, cowboys stuttering around a blackened campfire, men clawing at the fence and begging for entry. There were lions and donkeys and then, another horse, this one unbridled, bucking off any rider who attempted to mount.

It’s about the wilds, the teacher’s careful voice interpreted. You are seeking your freedom. Do not judge the emotions; it’s all perfect. You are where you need to be.

Life’s appetites. That’s what it’s all about.

I’m laughing this morning. And for those of you who know me, you know that is not a common occurrence. Here’s why.

 A month or two ago, college-age cousins of mine took ME to task for being so into Facebook. I let them know why I, the eldest cousin with the biggest mouth, have every right to be on Facebook. I told them that the key to any success is evolving and that’s exactly what has to happen with Facebook, which they insist began as a network of college students and should remain so.

(Of course, when Facebook started, these particular opinionated cousins of mine were in high school…)

This conversation started because my 70-year-old father (who still plays hockey, thank you very much) joined the FB craze. What’s the big deal, I ask?

There is a light-hearted way to look at this - as in, Mom and Dad, please don’t encroach upon my territory. And a serious one: the hipper and savvier you are, the further you’ll go - in business and socially.

I use Facebook to market my business and my clients, and to connect with friends new and old. The lines are very blurry these days - the two shall meet frequently and vociferously.

Today, I reconnected with a high school friend via Twitter. (Yes, I tweet and I’m not too old to know that this verb usage is not offensive slang!)

It seems that all paths serve to connect past, present and perhaps, future. Don’t fight the current. Let it take you along its way.

It’s that time again, the time to breathe in the fresh air through my nose and close my eyes as I inhale the scent of spring. Birds on branches sing their songs as my children fall into sleep. The sky changes colors like a painter’s palette and suddenly, flavors are sharper, tangier, more enticing.

Under a heavy branch, in the shadows of full leaves, we can believe anything is possible. We trudge over broken branches and fallen trees, inspect the maze-like workings of the bark’s heavy grain and taste the sweet citrus of sunshine.

It is time to appreciate the stillness and listen to the silence. It is time to understand the signs the universe is sending. It is time to notice the colors and the words and the images in our wanderings, all of them significant.

There have been mornings when my children go outside in their pajamas and rain boots and climb atop the roof of the playhouse. They pick dandelions, believing they are flowers, and because their soft little hands hold them, I, too, believe in the transformation. It’s all about how we see things and through the eyes of my children, everything is right, beautiful, amazing.

The morels are ripe at the base of dead trees now in the forests around us. Yesterday, I received an invitation to take the kids morel hunting. Doubtful they will eat any dish I make with these delicate rare mushrooms, but that ceases to matter, as it is all about the journey, the exploration, the search.

Right now there is warm air blowing from the vents and cool air promising through the window screen. I am prepared to celebrate all that my hometown has to offer. It’s not all bad news, you know. It’s all in how you look at things. And I prefer to see through my children’s eyes, the endless possibility, the hope for the future, the absolute belief that anything is possible.