With all the anxiety about the move, my brain flipped a switch, and I went from sleeping all the time to being utterly lost in sleeplessness. In exhaustion, my memory faltered. Black holes gaped open before me as I spoke; in the middle of a sentence I groped zanily for safe passage to the next word. During the moments of sleep that I could snatch, I had vivid, disturbing dreams. I was being born — I was blinded by a bright light — and seconds later I was dying. I was reaching for the telephone to call an ambulance but couldn’t remember which number to dial: 411? 911? 411? 911? 411? 911? What did I need? Help? Information?

I turned to the wisdom of the ancients. I went to Ovid, where women run from rapacious gods, and Dante, where women writhe in purgatory, and Homer, where women unravel their work, and finally I pulled off the shelf the old black leather-clad King James Version of the Bible I was given in high school. I read feverishly from cover to cover. I had forgotten how much of it is about fear — over and over again, the response to change, even to the miraculous, is fear. I was fighting fear. And what was I so afraid of? Being alone with myself long enough to wonder what is the purpose of my life?

I turned most frequently to the Psalms, whose gorgeous, intricate, sensual prayers blanketed me in wonder. There I found my anthem for that year, the most eloquent expression of grief I ever read: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.”

One night, at four in the morning, in a panic of sleeplessness, I went to my piano and on impulse pulled an old volume of music off the shelf, J. S. Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations. I picked my way through the first aria, which has a quiet, dignified, spare quality. It is elegant, contained; it holds much in reserve. The music did nothing for my sleeplessness; if anything, within hours I was more completely, wonderfully awake than I had been in a long time. Unexpectedly, I felt a peace suffuse my bones as I lost myself in Bach’s lines. My own anxieties were no longer drumming through my brain; my mind, that hobbled old draft horse, stopped loping along in the same rut it followed night after night. It was locking into someone else’s harmony.

Bach has become a nightly visitor. I am obsessed with him: his musical tricks, jokes and puns; his charismatic energy and passion; his resilience through tragedy; his rigorous discipline; his bedrock belief in a force greater than anything human.

I have to teach myself, all over again, how to practice, how to silence the critic in my head. I have to remind myself that the repeats matter, that respect for the rests is important. What my fingers lack in speed, my heart makes up in feeling. If I have to, I will crawl through sarabandes and quadrilles, letting the dance fill my soul.

Slowly, slowly, the months go by, each one a variation transposing loss, loneliness and anger to gratitude and hope. I no longer dread the advent of another rosy dawn. As I stop struggling so with fear and simply accept the slow tempo of my days, all those inner resources start kicking in — those soul-saving habits of playfulness, most of all: reading, thinking, listening, feeling my body move through the world, noticing the small beauty in every single day. I watch the worms, watch the hawks, watch the fox, watch the rabbits. I open my heart to new friends. I settle into my new home; its healing balm has been there all along, nestled in a sofa that beckons me to pick up a book, hovering outside the window inviting me to take a walk. I find room in my life again for love of the world, let the quiet of solitary moments steal over me, give myself over to joy. What a surprise! That I can cook a meal for my children, or take a long walk on the beach, or watch an osprey wheel through the sky, or set down a page of thoughts — these are moments of grace. Old Testament loving-kindness, the stuff of everyday life.