Maldives dragonflies cross the Indian Ocean every year. They fly at 3,000-foot altitudes. They spend 3,500 km of that over the open ocean.

Dragonflies are less than four inches long.

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The dragonflies can take four generations to make their migration, breeding in temporary pools of rain. Those pools might be there and might not when the dragonflies arrive.

I suppose they don't really know before they start, whether their children will make the crossing. Whether the rain will fall in time.

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Ever since I started running half-marathons, I understand so much better how far a kilometer or mile really is. Road signs take on new meaning when I can imagine myself running the four miles to the next turn-off: how long it would take, how I would feel at the end.

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Yesterday I ran a little more than four miles without realizing it. The Runkeeper app made it look like I would just be tempo running for 25 minutes, period. I thought about giving up when I realized my mistake - that the app wanted a warm-up and cool-down mile on either end. I wasn't in the mood to run very far. I kept going because I really wasn't concentrating on the how far part of it. I was trying to go fast.

When I got done, I thought about seeing the sign posted four miles before my usual interstate turn-off, how very far four miles always seemed when I just wanted to get home.

It's better not to know, not to see the whole distance before you start.

It's better not to wonder about the rain.

It's better, I suppose, to just cross the ocean.

I spend a lot of time saying "you can't have that" to my daughter. That she asks for everything is a function of being seven, of being a kid, of not quite understanding the boundaries yet, how money works, how time works, how practicing works. That she's starting to get it sometimes breaks my heart.

The other day she said she wanted a cookie, but she knew she couldn't have one until after dinner. As she stared longingly at the cookies made by her grandmother and trucked 500 miles across Iowa, I realized that I could probably leave them out and leave the house and she still wouldn't eat one, because she is starting to get it.

Yesterday she brought home a baseball card she'd made for herself at school.

I thought about what it means to want anything, to wish for a magic genie to grant your heart's desires. I remember wishing for that, hell, I still wish for that. It's not even about money, it's also about accomplishments or love or friendship.

It stuck in my head, and as I went to bed last night I thought there are junctures in life where you probably could have anything, but to get to what you want, you sacrifice other things. You sacrifice time for money, money for time, family for career, career for family, dreams for peace, peace for dreams, relationships for autonomy, autonomy for relationships. It's all a trade-off. But you probably could have anything if you single-mindedly went through life focusing only on that one thing. I have a quote that I often read that says something like "the reason more people fail instead of succeed is because they sacrifice what they want for what they want right now." And what I want right now is usually a nap or a big Kindle download.

I've started saying more often to her, "You can't have that right now." That toy she wants? She might get it for Christmas or with her allowance or piggy bank money. That cookie will be hers in a few hours. That perfect turn-out might come with years of practice. It all boils down to what makes sense right now, in this moment, and maybe the key to happiness is accepting that.

So perhaps it's not "you can't have that," but "you can't have that right now." Or "consider what you'd give up to have that and decide if that's what you really want."

I can teach her to eat healthy food before she eats a cookie, but I can't teach her what her heart desires most. Only she can answer that for herself.

Every year I have goals. As a mother. As a wife. As a citizen of the world. But I also think for a long time about my goals as a writer.

I know you may sigh and roll your eyes when I trot out that bullshit about having to write down your goals to make them come true, but, um, it's for real. If you don't write them down (or at least think them out well enough to write them down), then you can't break them down into steps that get your butt propelled in the right direction.

I have three major writing goals for 2010. Last year I had two. I accomplished my two last year, but having written them down made me break a cold sweat when I got to July and realized I was in danger of not kicking one out. Writing down those goals puts on a little pressure, even if nobody on God's green earth besides you cares if you accomplish them.

And probably, when it comes to writing goals, nobody but you DOES care. That's what makes it so easy to ignore them.

There were many years when I didn't have writing goals, and in those years, I barely wrote anything. Without something to work toward, writing itself felt like work, a pointless chore that nobody but me cared if I did.

I think my three goals for 2010 are achievable, but they'll require a lot of work. The second and third goal are harder than the first, because I need people besides myself to make them happen. Editors, publishers. That makes it tough. Especially with the publishing industry going through what it's going through. But I have to try -- trying is what makes me a writer and not a hobbyist. Not someone who would like to be a writer, but really never writes. That's what I was when I wasn't working toward writing goals.

Now I'm a writer.