TheBanyanTree: My, how time flies!

[Suzanne Stewart]

In January 1996, my husband saw a magazine article on email mailing
lists--"Here's a good one for writers," he said, and I tried out Spoon. I had
just quit smoking--first time in over 30 years, gotten an internet connection
for the first time, and we had recently moved to a tiny house in the woods
where I felt quite alone. For several months, my experiences with Spoon were
inseparable from the the high mental and physical rush of struggling to be drug
free and the acute self-awareness of that experience, and the wonderful
mind-expanding experience of connecting with the whole world (I looked for
hours at spy cams and satellite photos from Russia to Anartica), and nearly
fell into tears when I got an answer to a message, just minutes after I sent
it, from the other side of the globe.  I was completely enamored with the
wonderful characters who inhabited Spoon:  YB who could turn the act of putting
air in her tires in a gas station on a wonderful spring night in Texas into a
story of epic proportions; Wes with his wild, rambling tales; and so many
more--some gone now, but so many of you  still here today.  I wrote quite a bit
at first, then just from time to time, but I mostly hung in ferns in the back
of the cafe, and was even quieter when we moved to the Tree.  Smoke-free for 8
years now; living in a more warmer, friendlier place in a home of our own; and
very busy at my job, I usually don't feel I need to keep moving, rather than
take time to write and read. But the Tree works at a nice slow pace; I can come
back into the neighborhood and check in on people who are such a pleasure to
know, and who were unwittingly part of a very critical chapter in my life. 

Suzanne
sstewart at sonic.net