It’s been a hard first half of the year: losing my mother, preparing to become a mother, and watching one of the people I am accustomed to mothering move 3,000 miles away. When I haven’t been feeling sad, I’ve been disoriented, rudderless, unsure.

On Tuesday, I saw this poem (written by Barbara Wolf) on the 48:

Changes

What I’ve learned from water
is to welcome change,
flow when I can, become snow when I must
then a mist, hovering over the Earth
or a fog, snarling traffic, or even an ice cube, tinkling in your drink.

It helped.