TheBanyanTree: Pam, will you send this to the Tree??? Thanks, love..............

[Pam North]

And... as requested.....

The Day After a Year Later

I am currently in Ohio visiting my aunt and grandmother.  With me are my
second child, my husband and my mom and her husband.  A van of folk rumbled
north a few days ago.

Last year I came here, same folks, and my cat died.  I had just about come
to terms with the then newly discovered crisis and new found woman hood.  I
am now a kitten richer, hopefully no animals will die while I'm gone, and I
am more familiar with my woman hood and my crisis.  I take comfort in laying
those thoughts to some kind of rest as my grandmother regales us with
stories of her immigrant parents and my mother's childhood.  It doesn't last
as long as I need it to, though.

I am reading an Erica Jong novel, yes, THAT one, recommended and well
deserved of the recommendation.  It brings to the forefront of my existence
how deeply I yearn to write loads and loads and how deeply I yearn to just
engross myself in being a woman of all ages to all people and yet no woman
to any one person.  These two don't live independently of one another but
unfortunately live independently of life in the here and now.  Erica is
serving me well but it is up on a platter and none too comfortable.

Tonight we will have the for real T-day dinner, always the day after, here.
The table will be full of family, a family I rarely see and who, for all the
love I have for and excitement to see them, wear me out emotionally.  The
table, set well and loaded with food, will seem as if in a movie.  The
camera will pan amongst us all as we laugh and tell tales of yore but as the
wine flows, the camera will follow at an ever faster and faster pace until
vertigo sets in.  I may be making phone calls.

Introspection through magnified living.

Maria