It was 94 degrees in Tucson when we finished but I was determined. Thirty-one miles riding my bike (longest ride ever) to honor what I was doing 34 years ago today: I was in labor.

Brook Wilensky-Lanford was born Sept. 25, 1977 at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Who knew where life would take us?

No surprise that my amazingly talented daughter would write a superb book. She’s always been the most perceptive person I know, and a brilliant writer since she wrote a play at age 11 that questioned democracy.

I was 31 when she was born, and had never ridden a bike more than 10 miles. We had a big vegetable garden in a makeshift field by Hartford High School in White River Jct., Vermont, where I taught social studies, what I thought would be my life’s work. (Maybe it was,  I put enough blood, sweat and tears into it at the time.)

While I was hugely pregnant I watched sugar snap peas sprouting from the earth. Back then, we didn’t know which sex babies were until we held them. It was all so f***ing amazing. Both emerging peas and babies.

I soon became Mother Earth, nursing and/or pregnant for five straight years…Ethan arrived in 1981 and nursed until he was 2, when the rocking chair we sat on every evening broke.

I haven’t planted a real garden in years. But I’ve grown. More important, I’ve watched my children grow into spectacular adults — compassionate, empathetic, articulate, bright human beings — contributing to the world.

I’m so proud of all of us.