For most of my life, I knew how to recognize accomplishment because it gave me something visible to point to. I’m learning something different now: the life itself may be the most important thing I’m making.

An excerpt adapted from Remembering Myself: A Journey Through the Threads of Time I saw a woman once that I will never forget. She wore a red dress that blew in the wind as the boat we were on sailed into the sunset. She was older, like me, and larger than most women would call acceptable. Her dress was made of gauze, barely covering her form underneath. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I felt the sense of freedom she relished as the wind lifted her dress and revealed her ful

In my twenties, I wrote that my life would be my greatest work of art. More than fifty years later, I began to understand that the masterpiece might not be something I made at all.

For years, I tried to close the distance between who I knew myself to be and who others believed I was. One conversation with my son brought me to the point where preserving the connection mattered less than speaking the truth of who I am.