I miss hats. Not the pull-over-your-ears, knitted, ugly wool creations designed solely to keep your head warm, the kind we are all being forced to wear right now. (Note: Despite advertisers' creative claims, there really is no such thing as a "Fashion" Windproof Pullover Cat Ear Warm Knitted Hat Toque.) No, what I miss are the totally superfluous, impractical pillboxes, cloches, and wide-brimmed beauties designed solely for sitting on top of a head and making the wearer look pretty.

He has to prod me to go. It's been this way all of our married life. I've attributed my reluctance to pack up and go anywhere, any time, to genetics. His parents emigrated from Scotland and England. They left all they knew to come to America. My parents moved from Somerville to Randolph and spent the next decade shuttling the mothers they left behind to and from our unfinished Cape for every birthday, holiday, and tiniest celebration. Packing up and leaving home is in my husband's genes. But it isn't in mine.

The 20-month-old lived here for a week in December. The last time he and his family visited was August. Then, Euan, my youngest grandchild, was a brand-new walker, his steps unsteady, and he fell down a lot. But he didn't let falling down get him down.

The Masai of East Africa do not celebrate birthdays. They do not look back at births, at deaths, at last year, at last week, at yesterday. In their culture, there is only now. Our culture, for the past week, has been obsessed with the past year, with what was popular in 2014. What movies were blockbusters, what books were best sellers,

“Even the labels in the stores don’t tell you what you really want to know,” my friend said when I told him I was writing a piece about all the labels that are attached to people. I am a woman, a mother, a grandmother, a writer, a wanna-be singer, a friend. I am a baby boomer, a college graduate, a home owner, a recovering Catholic, a mother-in-law…