I wake up early to write because there are no distractions at 5 a.m. No telephones ringing, no radio from another room, no one making demands.

There's just the dark, the silence and me.

Throughout December, night lingers, day breaking late, school buses already on the road, traffic a steady whoosh by the time it's light enough to see outdoors…

Whenever there's a headline like "World crushes U.S. kids in math, science," and headlines like this are perennials these day, there's an immediate rush to condemn public schools and public school teachers for all that our children are not…

The room was different. I remember it as bigger, though it probably wasn't. How big can a hospital room be? I remember the day was cold, but that's easy because it was February. I remember Caryn sitting up in bed, smiling, putting on her robe and the two of us walking down to the nursery to look through the glass at her new baby…

Here we are in sunny Scottsdale, not quite as sunny as it usually is and definitely not as warm, El Nino wreaking havoc with weather here, too. But it is lovely nonetheless, a little sun, intermittent blue sky, flowers blooming, birds singing, mountains of red rock everywhere you look…

I wonder: If we all wore name tags with photos of ourselves as children, would we hate each other so much?

If we carried a video and before we could kill or be killed, we got to say, "Time out. Watch this," and we showed our enemy just 10 minutes of our lives and he showed us 10 minutes of his, would we still be…

His name is Charlie Wiseman and he plays piano in a small bar in Norfolk. His name's not on the door or in lights or anywhere except on his card, which he'll give you if you ask.

He plays Friday and Saturday nights and he plays other places other nights and glasses clink and patrons laugh and there is conversation and men tell jokes while he makes the piano..

It was an ordinary February day, not sunny and mild, a prelude to spring. Not the kind of day where you can smell the earth and feel its softness under the hard ground.

It was gray and raw and barren, the trees like stick figures drawn by a child, everything dull and muted and smudged. It was hat and scarf weather, but even these couldn't keep you warm. It was a day to endure, not to enjoy…

God bless him. He hasn't given up on me. He keeps right on trying no matter how trying I get.

He prods, cajoles, bribes and cheers, "You can do it! I know you can," offering me multi-colored files with multi-colored tabs…

Ask Linda Pacheco how she is and she says: "Busy. Too busy. Just once I'd like to be able to say there's nothing going on here."

"Here" is the Bristol County Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Pacheco is executive director. She answers the phone and a million questions, collecting and dispensing all kinds of information about drinking and driving. Plus she's the rock…

It's a Southern tradition sent north by my friend, Marianne. I begged for it. I asked a long time ago, even before there was a boyfriend, never mind a fiance in the picture, if some day, when a marriage was being planned in our family, she would make a wedding wreath for my front door.

The wedding is in May. The wreath arrived…

I never knew the man. He was a story told by my mother-in-law, a toy soldier moving along the game board of life, one step forward, two steps back, until he was finally cornered and died.

Her father's life seemed distant despite all her tales. He was a tailor, in his mid-30s, the father of five, when he left Scotland to fight the Germans in 1915…

he owl is a little scary-looking. I have to admit this, now that he's sitting in my office, next to my computer. This isn't his permanent home, mind you, just a resting place for this traveler.

He's headed south in a few hours, on a plane, in a trash bag, next to gloves, a face mask, ammonia and a shovel.

Off the store shelf and away from the dozens of other identical plastic…

Someday, we will look back on January 1998 as a time of peace and prosperity, and wonder how we could have been so stupid not to have enjoyed what we had when we had it. Someday we will wonder why on earth, when times were good, we had to wallow in someone else's bad news.

We have already wasted way too much energy, way too many words and brain cells and waking moments, speculating and moralizing about our president's…

The last episode of "Roots" was on television 21 years ago tonight. It was a Sunday, and I watched Part 8 on a small hospital screen, the sound mute. For a whole week, the 12-hour series had riveted me. But it couldn't hold my attention this night, because, just hours before, my daughter Julie had been…

I call Joan to see how she's doing and she says she's okay, but there is no joy in her voice, only sadness.

Her best friend died a month ago. Joan was with her when she died. She moved from Connecticut to be with Grace and seldom left her side during the long, slow month…

"Next to God, he is the most important man in the whole world." That's what Kait says. That's why, when her fourth-grade teacher announced the assignment, to go home and read and research, then write a report about the person you most admire, Kait never hesitated.

She chose President Clinton.

Clinton is her hero. She has a picture of him when he was young…

Brown towels. They're the metaphor this morning. They say it all. Brown towels are what the Boston Public School system gives to its kids.

At the Mattahunt Elementary School in Mattapan, brown towels are actually soaked in water, put in plastic bags, frozen, placed in a dorm-size refrigerator in the nurse's office and called "ice packs."

Necessity truly is the mother of invention…

It's a simple story of simple goodness that won't make Oprah or headlines because these kinds of things never do. People helping people. One ordinary woman making a difference in the lives of thousands.

Ho hum. Pass the clicker and turn the page.