Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-225).

From New York Times opinion writer Margaret Renkl comes an unusual, captivating portrait of a familyand of the cycles of joy and grief that inscribe human lives within the natural world. Growing up in Alabama, Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parentsher exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive fatherand of the bittersweet moments that accompany a childs transition to caregiver. And here, braided into the overall narrative, Renkl offers observations on the world surrounding her suburban Nashville home. Ringing with rapture and heartache, these essays convey the dignity of bluebirds and rat snakes, monarch butterflies and native bees. As these two threads haunt and harmonize with each other, Renkl suggests that there is astonishment to be found in common things: in what seems ordinary, in what we all share. For in both worldsthe natural one and our own“the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only loves own twin.”--,Provided by Amazon.com.