As we work to reweave the strands of connection, we can be supported by the wisdom and lovingkindness of others.

Somebody once told me I treated my smart phone like Wilson, the volleyball Tom Hanks turns into a friend when he's stranded on a desert island in that movie 'Castaway.' It's an apt comparison: parenting a toddler occasionally feels like being marooned, and your phone is your only connection to the rest of the world.

Not on one strand are all life's jewels strung.

For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them.

Climate change, demographics, water, food, energy, global health, women's empowerment - these issues are all intertwined. We cannot look at one strand in isolation. Instead, we must examine how these strands are woven together.

As a child, I saw my mother prepare for Christmas every year, and it never occurred to me that labor was involved. I thought it was my mother's joy and privilege to hang tinsel on the tree strand by strand, to make sure that every room in the house had a touch of Christmas, down to the Santa-themed rug and hand towels in the bathroom.

In order to understand why George W. Bush doesn't get it, you have to take several strands of common Texas attitude, then add an impressive degree of class-based obliviousness. What you end up with is a guy who sees himself as a perfectly nice fellow - and who is genuinely disconnected from the impact of his decisions on people.

Introspective souls are often tormented by their passionate visions. This is because visionaries see what shall be and wake up to what is. However, if you couldn't see a glimpse of the city lights while stranded in the forest, how would you ever know to walk in that direction? Sometimes, your vision can't be put into action, until you gather the learning experiences, along your journey first.

Her beauty must have been exhausting and not to mention troublesome. Glitter swiftly made its way into the vibrant strands that graced her lavish eyelashes. Each blink, each pressing moment, time seemed to have stopped and I felt as if her charm could fill an entire room and with every set of eyes locked onto her, somehow the glare of her shimmering wet lipgloss could take care of everyones problems, at least for one evening. That as soon as her heavenly music flowed through their wine glasses, that they too were apart of something such bigger, much grander. I believed, when I stood beside her, I became more handsome.

Being under stress is like being stranded in a body of water. If you panic, it will cause you to flail around so that the water rushes into your lungs and creates further distress. Yet, by calmly collecting yourself and using controlled breathing you remain afloat with ease.

You know, my sister and I can't understand what Dawson sees in you. You're just a silly little human." His arm shot out so fast it was a blur, picked up a strand of her hair. "And you're really not even that pretty.

Each of us is a unique strand in the intricate web of life and here to make a contribution.

Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.

Is it not rather what we expect in men that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

The greatest work of art about New York? The question seems nebulous. The city's magic and majesty are distilled in the photographs of Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand.