The more I live, the more I see that poetry isn’t separate from the mess or the mundane, it’s right there in it. In the motion of everyday life, in what we love and lose, in what we carry forward. It’s not about finding beauty everywhere; it’s about recognizing that even the hard parts belong to the story.

POETRY IS IN THE LIVING

Poetry is in the living—
in the brewed cup of coffee,
the making of breakfast each morning
for your family.

It’s in loading the dishwasher,
running that second load of laundry,
walking your child to school.

It’s the squirrel scurrying up the bluejack oak,
the chilling breeze,
the sweltering sun.

It’s weekend trips to the beach,
salt in the air, sand on your skin,
the embrace of an old friend.

It’s riding the commuter rail to work,
the smile of the elderly woman beside you,
the man on the corner
holding a cardboard sign that reads Anything Helps.

It’s in the anger
when your boss gives the promotion to Rob.
It’s in the hollow ache
of losing someone you love,
knowing you’ll never again
hear their voice,
never share another conversation.

It’s in the expelling of a last breath.
It’s in the leaving—

poetry is in the dying, too.

It was in grade school when I found the book, tucked away on an old wooden shelf in the house I grew up in. The shelf was in my brother’s room, but the books weren’t really his. At least not all of them, and certainly not this one. Many of the books belonged to “the house,” and I suspect this particular one may have been my father’s. Though I still can’t say for certain who it originally belonged to, I remember the look and smell of it clearly: tattered cover, yellowing pages, and that heady scent of old paper and time.

For me, it was Birches. That was my favorite in the collection, a worn volume of Robert Frost’s poems. I was very young then, too young to know who Robert Frost was, and perhaps even too young to know exactly what poetry was. All I knew was that the words were beautiful. They spoke to something deep within me, something I didn’t yet have language for. I too wanted to go by climbing a birch tree, and so I carried the book with me everywhere. Days, weeks, months after finding it on that shelf, we were inseparable. No one ever noticed it had quietly left its place without permission.

I would read and reread the poems until I had memorized lines, even whole verses. I could recite them to myself whenever the book wasn’t close at hand. To this day, Robert Frost remains one of my favorite poets, and Birches is still my favorite poem. The very same book still sits with me now, on a new bookshelf a few towns away from where it once lived. I don’t open it often anymore, it’s more delicate now than it was back then, but it holds its place, safe among other well-loved volumes.

And sometimes, when I grow weary of considerations and life is too much like a pathless wood, I take it down again. I open to Birches and find myself climbing black branches up a snow-white trunk. In that moment, I’m transported, back to that small room with the brown rug, reaching for the book for the first time. That was the beginning of everything. A lifelong love affair with words, thanks to Frost and his birch trees.

After all, Earth’s the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

“Language itself had become a mark of alienation.” — The Story of a New Name

When I began reading Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet, especially the second book, The Story of a New Name, I thought I was reading a novel about friendship. But as I read deeper, it became clear that Ferrante’s Neapolitan world is also a study of what happens when a woman begins to climb, when she tries to rise above the place that built her, only to find herself suspended between belonging and estrangement.

Elena’s education is her ladder. It’s the tool that lets her see beyond the neighborhood, its violence, its hierarchy, its expectations. But the higher she climbs, the more she realizes that the ladder was never built for her. It was built for boys and men, its rungs measured to their reach, its weight meant to hold their ambitions. She climbs it anyway, unaware of what it will cost her. Only later does she feel the consequences: the thinning air of isolation, the accent that betrays her, the growing distance between herself and the world that once knew her best. She becomes, as Ferrante writes, “the Pisan,” a title that signifies both ascent and exile.

That phrase, the Pisan, echoes through the novel like a quiet accusation. Education gives Elena language, but it also takes away her dialect, and with it, her fluency in the world that raised her. Knowledge becomes both access and loss. The people who once understood her no longer can; the people she wants to impress still see the outline of where she came from. She stands between two worlds, belonging to neither.

This duality, the ladder and the cage, is Ferrante’s genius. The same system that promises liberation also creates separation. Elena’s success depends on her ability to imitate the intellectual world of men, but that imitation demands the silencing of her own roots. It’s a quiet violence: to transcend your environment, you must disown its traditions.

And yet, Ferrante never presents education as a mistake. The ache of alienation is not punishment, but is instead the cost of awakening. Lila (Elena’s best friend), who never receives the same opportunities, remains trapped within the walls of the neighborhood. Her friend is brilliant, but without the same drive to climb becomes restless and cornered. Her resistance is physical, impulsive, and alive with defiance. Elena’s is internal, shaped by guilt and self-scrutiny. Both women are struggling toward freedom, but Ferrante reminds us that freedom, in this world, always comes at a price.

Reading these women, I couldn’t help but reflect on the quiet ways we all experience this split, between who we were and who we’re becoming. Education, creativity, even self-knowledge can pull us away from our beginnings. But perhaps Ferrante’s deeper message is that this tension isn’t failure, it’s the proof of growth. To outgrow one’s roots is painful, but it’s also the truest form of honoring them. I’ve felt that same pull between past and present, the ache of wanting to grow without outgrowing what made me.

Maybe the ladder and the cage are not opposites after all, but two parts of the same story: the climb and the memory of where we began.

Have you ever felt torn between your origins and who you’re becoming? I’d love to hear how Ferrante’s world mirrors your own.

Author’s Note: This essay was born from a creative exercise with ChatGPT. I asked it to act as a teacher and provide essay and book club questions for The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante. I then answered those questions and submitted my responses for review, again asking it to guide me like a teacher. Through that process of reflection, feedback, and revision, this essay took shape.

There are moments in motherhood when I catch a glimpse of the future, the way her laughter stretches toward independence, the way her curiosity reaches beyond my grasp. It is both beautiful and bittersweet, this slow unfurling of her own becoming.

I wrote this poem as a reminder to myself that love is not a tether, but a lantern we hold high, so they can find their own way in the dark.

A POEM FOR THE GIRL WHO WILL GROW BEYOND ME

I am your compass—
a steady star, a quiet tide,
a lantern held aloft
to help you find your way.

But I am not your conscience,
nor the keeper of your heart.
Your thoughts, your feelings,
your wild and wondrous mind—
they belong only to you.

We come from the same tree,
yet bloom on different branches.
The one I stand upon
will always be there,
steady beneath you,
a place to rest when the winds are strong,
a home to return to
when the world feels vast.

You are not the echo
of those who came before you.
You are your own becoming,
the dream and the dawn,
the melody still unfolding.

And I, with every beat of love I hold,
will be here,
watching you grow,
believing in the beauty
of who you are,
and all you will become.

While reading My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante, I kept thinking about the idea of environment as destiny, how the place we’re born, the family we come from, and the expectations surrounding us can shape the paths we take.

In Ferrante’s world, Elena is doing everything “right,” studying, striving, reaching for something beyond the narrow streets of Naples, but the weight of her environment, and of being a woman in 1950s Italy, presses against her at every turn. Her education gives her wings, but the air around her makes it hard to lift off.

That tension, between who we might become and the world that tells us who we’re allowed to be, stayed with me. This poem grew out of that space: a reflection on the women who rise in spite of circumstance, and on what it means to claim our own destinies, even when the odds are uneven.

ENVIRONMENT AS DESTINY

Does the place we’re born decide who we become,
how far we’ll go, even before we take our first breath?

If so, how do we explain Hamilton, Lincoln, Schwarzenegger—
men who rewrote the scripts they were handed?
And why, I wonder, are my examples all men?

Are they the only ones allowed to be outliers?
Is danger itself gendered,
its weight falling heavier on girls who learn too early
how the world can bruise and bind them?

Can we not rise from the ashes too,
not as symbols, but as selves,
manifesting our own destinies,
our own definitions of greatness?

Don’t get me wrong,
I know there are women who have risen,
who knew how to defy gravity and expectation:
Maya Angelou. Frida Kahlo. Malala Yousafzai.

Women who rose in spite of circumstance,
who carried the weight of inequality
and still created, still spoke, still burned bright.

But there are far fewer women
who have surfaced in the story of history,
their names scattered between the long lists of men,
their stories told less often,
their triumphs softly echoing across oceans and continents.

Let these few teach us what it means to rise,
to educate ourselves, to speak for ourselves,
to create something larger than the self,
to become who we are, despite where we begin.

And I, too, am learning to rise,
to unlearn the limits I was handed.
So I write—
not to rewrite history,
but to widen it,
to leave space for the women still becoming,
myself among them.

What started out as a poem I intended to be written for my daughter, who has shown a love for words and reading, ended up being not just for her, not just for me, but for book lovers everywhere.

There’s a certain kind of magic that lives between the pages of a book, the kind that asks nothing of you but your attention, and gives back pieces of yourself you didn’t know you’d misplaced.

I’ve always believed that stories find us when we need them most. Some arrive like soft candle light, others like a sudden storm. They teach, comfort, challenge, and, sometimes, completely undo us, only to rebuild us in a gentler way.

Each book I’ve loved has left a quiet mark, a new thought, a deeper empathy, a small shift in how I see the world. Reading, at its best, is a kind of becoming.

This poem is for the ones who read with open hearts, who travel without leaving home, who find pieces of themselves tucked inside the chapters of another’s story.

From one book lover to another, may you always find yourself among the pages.

I’d love to know, what book has stayed with you long after you turned the last page?

READ VORACIOUSLY

They will take you places
you’ve never been,
through wild landscapes
and quiet corners
of the soul.

With a heart open wide,
adventure can be written
at the tip of a sword,
or whispered softly
between turning pages.

Some hold power so great
they’ll fill you with color,
a kaleidoscope of feeling
that hums beneath the skin,
spilling over into who you become.

Read long enough
and you’ll find yourself shaped
by borrowed light,
a gathering of morals,
principles, and quiet truths
to carry you through the days.

Never judge one by its cover.
Keep an open mind.
Some stories are meant
to leave you uncertain—
let them.

And remember:
if joy doesn’t rise
from the ink and paper,
it’s all right to set it down
and reach for something new.

There’s a certain hush that falls over the house once the morning rush fades, toys half-forgotten, stories paused mid-scene. It’s in that hush that I often find myself tidying the remnants of play: tiny worlds built and left behind, echoes of laughter still lingering in the corners.

Motherhood, I’ve learned, lives in these quiet intervals just as much as in the noise and motion. The pauses are their own kind of sacred, a reminder that even ordinary moments hold the shimmer of imagination waiting to return.

THE QUIET BETWEEN ADVENTURES

Cheerios trace soft constellations
across the kitchen tile.
Cars and Lego drift
like tiny planets in orbit
around the living room rug.

The couch is a refuge
for woodland creatures,
a fox, a fawn, a sleepy bear.
In the doorway,
a row of small guardians,
astronauts, unicorns,
and a rainbow cat, stand watch.

By the bookshelf,
an unfinished tea party waits,
a doll and her stuffed bunny
paused mid-laughter,
cups still half full of pretend.

I sweep up the fallen stars,
gather the planets to their bins,
tuck each creature
into baskets and beds.
The guards may rest for now.
The tea party will resume at three,
when the door bursts open
and this quiet house
breathes magic once again.

After reading Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid, I found myself imagining what that “other life” might look like: another country, another love, another version of me entirely. Another Life is a poem about possibility, longing, and the quiet contentment that settles in when we realize we’re exactly where we’re meant to be.

ANOTHER LIFE

There’s a road she once ignored,
now she walks it in another life.
In high heels on cobblestones,
she moves with purpose.

A glass of white wine in the Piazza della Signoria,
him occupying the space across from her,
curly black hair,
piercing blue eyes,
a devilish smile resting on his lips.

You’re not there,
and she doesn’t even exist.

In this world of refinement,
of having it all,
would she feel a small ache somewhere deep inside
as she went about her busy days?

Working — living in another country,
waking up in an apartment in Tuscany,
phone calls in cafés,
evening strolls along the Arno River,
weekend trips to museums, exploring other cities,

would she know something was absent,
lost to another life?

And yet, the same moonlight spills through my kitchen window.
He’s asleep in our bed,
and she is in hers,
a bunny tucked under her arm.

I know we are well into October now, and late September has already passed, but I wanted to share a poem I wrote back when my husband and I first started talking about leaving Florida for Connecticut. I think, in some small way, my heart had already moved before we did.

After seventeen years of endless summer, I began to crave the rhythm of seasons again, the changing light, the quiet streets of old towns, the familiar curve of roads I once knew. So many of our early memories were made here: long drives past the harbor, movie nights, weekend hikes through Sleeping Giant. Writing this was my way of calling that life back, not just the place, but the feeling of beginning again where something once bloomed.

Sometimes the pull of home is less about returning and more about remembering who you were when you first dreamed.

LATE SEPTEMBER

My heart began to ache for you
in late September—
smiles, arcades, and theaters,
trips to the city,
hikes through a sleeping giant.

So wrapped up in you.

Please, become my early mornings.
Let me have your late nights.

My heart still thumps remembering
when you came to pick me up,
driving past the harbor and marshes.
I’ll remember your long hair,
your smile.

We found ourselves living
seventeen years in summer,
missing late September.

Let’s move back
to where we started.
We’ll make new memories
in an old town—
all my early mornings,
and all your late nights,
beginning and ending again
here.

“Because you are alive, everything is possible.” — Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ.

In 2015, without realizing it, I planted a seed. I sat down to try meditation, not out of wisdom or deep calling, but simply because my anxiety needed somewhere to go. Around the same time, I discovered the gentle teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who devoted his life to peace and to teaching others the art of mindful living. I didn’t know then how deeply his words would echo through my life.

For a long while, those seeds of Buddhism lay dormant. I dabbled in meditation, read a book here and there, or watched a video, but the practice never fully bloomed. It wasn’t until two years ago that I began to nurture those seeds with real care, and they started to grow into something rooted in my daily life.

At first, meditation was simply a tool to ease anxiety. Over time, I began to notice how the practice wasn’t only helping me, it was shifting the way I related to others. These days, when I sit on the cushion, I don’t think of meditation as mine alone. I practice with the shared human experience in mind.

Buddhism has changed how I measure my relationship with myself and with the people around me. For example, I used to suffer from extreme FOMO. That anxious sense of missing out once dictated too many of my choices. Now, I can recognize when that feeling arises and pause before letting it steer me toward regret. To borrow from Pixar’s Inside Out, I no longer let Anxiety grab the wheel. Of course, I still feel the tug of FOMO and the hum of anxiety, but my relationship to those emotions has changed. I can notice them in my body, name them, and stay grounded using the tools meditation has given me.

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” — Thich Nhat Hanh, Stepping into Freedom: An Introduction to Buddhist Monastic Training.

What Buddhism teaches, in part, is that within each of us are seeds—of love, compassion, and understanding. With practice, we can water those seeds so they rise more easily to the surface of daily life.

This spiritual path has also shaped my creative life. Poetry, too, is a shared human experience. It isn’t only the poet sitting alone with their words. It is also the reader, the listener, the fellow poet who might be moved or inspired by them. Writing has become, for me, another way of practicing interbeing, the recognition that we exist in relationship with everything else.

Over the summer, I took a Buddhism 101 course that deepened this understanding. One chapter focused on interbeing, the idea that we could not be without the trees, the clouds, the animals, and the whole web of life. We are not separate. We are the earth breathing itself in many forms. A class prompt asked us to explain interbeing with metaphors, and my answer arrived like a small poem:

The goats are the grass.
The painter is the painting.
The bumble bee is the flower.
The gardener is the garden.
These words on the page are the whole cosmos.

These reflections, like my poems, are seeds I wish to share. One of my recent poems, Leaves Without Witness, grew directly from this soil of Buddhist practice and the idea of interbeing. I’m not sure it would have come into being without the mindfulness, the teachings, and the quiet guidance of this path.

“Our appointment with life is in the present moment. The place of our appointment is right here, in this very place.” — Thich Nhat Hanh, Our Appointment with Life.

Nearly a decade ago, I planted a seed. Today, I write to you from a garden still in process, tended with meditation, nourished by poetry, and watered by the teachings of Buddhism. My hope is that what grows here might also offer a small seed of peace for you.

I’d love to hear if mindfulness, meditation, or poetry has shaped your life in some way. Feel free to share your own seeds of practice in the comments. I always imagine these essays as conversations, not monologues.

Until next time, may you find a moment of stillness today—a breath, a pause, a soft place to land.

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Autumn asks for no audience, yet its lessons remain. The leaves do not wait for our notice; they turn, release, and fall whether or not we pause to see them. There’s something humbling in that truth, the reminder that beauty is not diminished by being unseen, and change does not need our permission to arrive. In the quiet woods or the busy city street, the season carries on, teaching us in every drift of gold how to let go, how to move forward, and how to trust the rhythm of time itself.

LEAVES WITHOUT WITNESS

Leaves turn quietly,
their colors falling unseen,
a hush in the woods.

Even in silence,
branches answer the season,
another leaf drifts.

What the forest knows
is lost upon the city,
boots scatter the gold.

Yet autumn’s current
flows steady beneath it all,
time keeps its own pace.

Back in the still woods,
the quiet earth gathers leaves,
soft blankets of dusk.

As we leave summer behind us and step into autumn I would like to share a poem that I wrote at the close of the season. Summer evenings have a way of slowing us down. Maybe it’s the sound of cicadas rising and falling like a chant, or the way fireflies blink their quiet constellations in the fields. Maybe it’s simply the iced tea sweating on the porch, reminding us to pause and notice.

I wrote this poem because I’ve been thinking about the stories we tell ourselves, especially when we’re young. For me, there was a time when I thought I wanted to be “famous.” I didn’t even know what that really meant, only that it seemed like proof of mattering. Over time, I realized the deeper longing was simpler: I just wanted to matter.

The hard and beautiful part was discovering that “mattering” doesn’t come from an audience, or applause, or the outside world deciding you’re worthy. It begins inside. It begins when you choose to matter to yourself. And once you claim that, you start to see that the thing you’ve been searching for was never actually missing.

This poem is a reminder to me, and maybe to you too, that summer isn’t just a season of brightness and noise, but also of quiet revelations.

SUMMER

She wanted to be famous.
She told the story in summer —
iced tea on the back porch,
the evening cicadas 
a background cadence,
the fireflies stitching the field.

With time, she realized
she just wanted to matter.
Once she learned to matter to herself,
she saw:
what she had long wanted
was already hers.

Sometimes memory plays tricks on us. I’ve always associated the whirling seeds of maple trees with autumn, though they fall in spring. Maybe it’s the cool air, or the way seasons blur as we look back. This poem grew out of that small slip of memory, how time reshapes what we remember, and how sharing a simple moment, like tossing maple seeds with my daughter, can feel like both past and present folding together.

MAPLE SEEDS

The twirling whirlers twist to the ground
and land at my feet.
Long ago, at the bus stop as a child,
I gathered as many as I could,
threw them high into the air,
and watched red and green blades spin,
dancing their way down around me.

This memory feels like fall,
though the trees drop their seeds in spring.
Funny how the mind stores itself,
a single moment stamped with
smells, tastes, even whole seasons.
Over time, memories age with us.
The reel shifts, blurs,
spring in Connecticut becoming autumn.

I zip my coat against the May chill,
step beneath the maple’s crown,
gather a fistful of helicopters.
On the porch, my daughter at my side,
we toss them into the air,
watching them spin,
she laughs as if the world itself
had just remembered how to fly.