I discovered the first grey in my hair on Christmas day – several grey hairs, actually. Grey is not easy to detect in blond, but there they were, unmistakably. They looked quite beautiful (if I may say so myself): My head of straw was given a quiet shine of distinction by just a dozen strategically located, individual hairs. For all…

A few years back, Oprah Winfrey announced she would be devoting an entire hour to the importance of “girlfriends” in women’s lives. As I groped for the remote control to turn off the TV, the camera panned an audience of smiling faces—as young as 25, as old as 70—and I found myself reaching for the tissue box instead. Here were…

I fell into motherhood like a stone into a pond, and I lay on the soft, warm mucky bottom through the birth of a second child, through the toddler years and elementary school. I loved underwater life, but when the elder of the two entered middle school, the life-before-children siren-songed me toward the air and the light. When the younger…