TheBanyanTree: My, how time flies!

[Maria Gibson]

Spoon.

*That* was a lifetime ago.  What a need it filled for me, a place to say things,
ever so gently and quietly, that I had needed to say for eons.  I had a chest
full of things that needed to be unloaded and a place to lay them down knowing
they'd be picked up later.  I miss that freedom.  I left Okinawa having a firm
grip and love on Spoon; one of the last posts I read was the one where YB was
going to the doc for her annual physical.  Was that a long time ago, or what?
When I was finally able to get to a computer and catch up I learned she was
termainlly ill and it seemed the bottom was falling out.  In retrospect I know
that the time I spent away in order to travel the country was a detriment to my
family but may have saved me and my sanity as events unfolded in the months that
followed.  I pray I am not ever again subject to the heartache that was the time
in my life labled post-Okinawa, pre-now.

I was so happy that the Tree became such a vital and thriving place so quickly.
For even as I dropped from sight to do what we do when we drop from sight I have
kept reading.  I say "Tree" now like I used to say "Spoon" and think of my self
as a Banyaneer much as I was once a Spooner.  It was the people in the room that
made it so wonderful, not the furniture inside the room.  It's always a treasure
to be one from way back but even better to be one from the here and now.

Meeting my fellow Banyaneers has been the highlight of the whole experience.
Yes, we know each other from the inside out way before we view the flesh and it
makes all the difference.  I hope we will all be getting together this summer
and if not this one then the next one.  I missed the meet and greet in Oregon
but I made it to meet YB just a few months before she died and I'll always be
grateful for the voice that said to stretch beyond the comfort zones of time and
money and just go meet this woman who had meant so much to me in her writings
and in our personal correspondence.  If at all possible, take the time and money
to meet one another.  You won't regret it; there's more time where that came
from not to mention that it's time you'll never get back.  And money?
Pffft....mere paper when it's all said and done.

My story?  Been there and back.  I very much miss the time I once had to sit and
think and write as the muse hit but I'm happy with my job.  Paradoxically, the
same job that prevents me from having time to sit and think and write as the
muse hits.  But it gives me money with which to visit friends.  Same husband,
less body fat, wiser.  Two cats up, two cats down, one dumb dog that will
probably outlive me for spite.  One kid married (yes, I am aware that I have not
mentioned this in the Tree yet!) one kid academically and socially driven.  In
one house for the longest time in my *life*, 5 1/2 years.  May or may not remain
in this area as Randy's job is fluid, as it turns out.  I thank God every day
for my blessings of which the Tree and all its wonderful inhabitants are
counted.

And I won't die without a good story or two left behind and that's a good
feeling.

Maria