There are one hundred times in any day when I look at my child and feel an overwhelming, heart-exploding love. This feeling, familiar to so many fortunate parents, can feel so acute, like a parachute drop, like an eruption of light from the sudden birth of a star. Big stuff. From such small things. A crooked smile or his delight at some word play while driving in the car.

Few things compare, though, to looking at him when he is asleep, with his arms curled around Foxy and Baby Nothing. Those moments when I whisper to him that he is loved, by me and by his father, and when he does not stir, because he is so far into the land of sleep of safe children. I have such profound, soul-squeezing love in those moments that I could drop to my knees and weep.

His safety is a privilege. I know that every day, and I feel gratitude for it every day. It is a luck of birth, of geography, of race, of gender, of choices made by my parents and grandparents and all my forebears, of my own choices, of our moment in history, the timing of my arrival in this world, and his. It is a function of living in a place where water falls from the sky in abundance. It is fortune. Which, for those of us not buffered by unimaginable wealth, is ephemeral.

Like any mother, I want to fight for a future of riches for him — riches in friendships, family, kindness and grace. Riches in knowledge and insight, and in compassion. Also in food. Also in peace.

I’ve never been a good student of history, nor truthfully of politics. I’ve believed myself to be part of the masses rather than an agent of impact. (Ironic, for someone who helped build a public library.) But I think that the privileges conferred on me in my own life demand more of me than what I’ve given in recent years. I’m not one for grand pronouncements and resolutions that I can’t follow through on. But I do want to start by assuming the posture of student, and studying. To that end, I’m building my book list, and will embark. Reading may not ensure safe sleep for all the future nights of my son’s life. But it is also likely one of the most powerful tools I currently have.