Autograph books hit Lanham School when I was in 5th grade. All the girls had them. Mine was small enough to hold in one hand and had pastel-colored pages: green, yellow, blue and pink, if memory serves. Mostly the inscriptions were eminently forgettable and sappy. “Roses are red, violets are blue; no one loves you like I love you. Judy, your best friend forever.” Or else they were annoyingly uninspired and distinctly puerile, not funny except in the warped way of the young preteen mind. “Roses are red and violets are blue. You have a big head but I still like you. Ha ha ha,” the equivalent of today's LOL.

In a rash moment, I asked my mother to sign my book. (Just on the off chance that I might forget her??) Mother took the book, kept it overnight and then returned it to me with what seemed at the time an extremely odd poem. A real poem, not the “roses are red” variety I’d come to expect, and one I had never read before.

I didn't appreciate it, or even fully understand the poem at the time. But Mother's message stuck, as much a curse as a blessing.

I know now that passion is important in life. Loving someone or something more than reason dictates is a great gift. Just having that moment, in whatever form that fleeting instant takes, is transfigurative. It carries us out of ourselves and connects us with something akin to the divine.