I found myself sitting on the back steps one midsummer morning just before 5 AM, gazing up at a pale moon with gritty eyes and the type of exhaustion I didn’t even know you could live through. I had just comforted my newborn back to sleep for perhaps the dozenth time that night, and I thought the sorrow—of what, I do not know—would crush me. And yet, as I gazed up at the moon, I imagined all the other mothers, new and old, who might be sitting on their own steps, gazing up at the same moon. I felt their companionship. I felt the cool air on my skin and fullness of summer all around me. To satiate my perpetual hunger, I took another bite of my oats, bursting with ripe apple and the sweetness of Vietnamese cinnamon. Sometimes, the ineffable beauty and sadness of the world are so overwhelming that you can only breathe in the scent of the sage blossoms beneath the moon. Then breathe out.