A friend of mine once said she aspired to have everything in her house handmade. She’s a potter, and we were sitting at her table, set with plates she had made, and clay mugs she’d swapped with potter friends. A pink Hello Kitty plate was at her daughter’s place.

I love this goal — and that she didn’t give her daughter any grief about the Hello Kitty infatuation.  Her daughters — teenagers now — have left the Loving Pink realm, like my own 19-year-old, once so ecstatic about pink overalls my mother had mailed her.

Pink, she told her friend with reverence, lifting the bib.

We are now out of the Loving Pink realm, too.

… writing is rebellion. Art takes place when we’re unable to accept the boundaries we inherit, when we’re compelled to reimagine what others are willing or even eager to receive.

— Kim Brooks, Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear