A life in light : meditations on impermanence / Mary Pipher.

From the bestselling author of Women Rowing North and Reviving Ophelia-a memoir in essays reflecting on radiance, resilience, and the constantly changing nature of reality. In her luminous new memoir in essays, Mary Pipher-as she did in her New York Times bestseller Women Rowing North-taps into a cultural moment, to offer wisdom, hope, and insight into loss and change. Drawing from her own experiences and expertise as a psychologist specializing in women, trauma, and the effect of our culture on our mental health, she looks inward in A Life in Light to what shaped her as a woman, one who has experienced darkness throughout her life but was always drawn to the light. Her plainspoken depictions of her hard childhood and life's difficulties are dappled with moments of joy and revelation, tragedies and ordinary miseries, glimmers and shadow. As a child, she was separated from her parents for long periods. Those separations affected her deeply, but in A Life in Light she explores what she's learned about how to balance despair with joy, utilizing and sharing with readers every coping skill she has honed during her lifetime to remind us that there is a silver thread of resilience that flows through all of life, and that despite our despair, the light will return. In this book, she points us toward that light.

I. Attachment and loss: The fountain ; A motherless child ; Golden light ; My father's shirt -- II. Becoming: Light filtered through water ; A best friend ; Animal companions ; The library ; House calls ; Storytelling ; Girl Scout cookies -- III. In another light: Shelling peas ; The coffin and the chenille bedspread ; Harbor lights ; Prairie dog villages ; Ozark summers ; Shafts of light ; Heart light -- IV. Identity: The burning tree ; Summer solstice ; The light from ideas ; The A&W on Highway 81 ; San Francisco -- V. Leaving home: The fiery furnace ; Campfire lights ; Dock of the bay ; Pregnancy and exile ; Sunrise ; Fireplace light ; My father's death -- VI. Settling down: The Fourth of July ; Butterscotch light ; Daughter light ; My mother's death ; Writing ; Fame ; Okinawa ; Teardrops in the snow ; Equatorial light ; Chinook salmon ; The Fabtones' last night at the Zoo Bar ; Snowfields ; January ice -- VII. Reslience: Helicopter lights ; Buddha light ; Morel hunting ; Sunset ; The Perseids ; Strawberry moon ; Prairie grasses ; Musical light ; Rescue -- VIII. Wisdom light: Will they remember? ; Winter moon ; Wisdom light ; My son's kitchen ; The cranebow ; The light we can always find.