We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.
Ursula K. Le Guin

Last night I had the pleasure of spending a few hours in the company of my friends, all women, all remarkable, all different. Walt provided the excuse, Jill provided the place, the food, and the sweet warmth that is her gift. She is a rare friend.

My sisters from church were there. Jen, beautiful in her honesty and humor--such a relief to be around. Lyssa, always grounded and willing to help in a pinch, as well as a fellow lover of really good television. And Deidre who is quiet, perceptive and articulate...wise beyond her years really. They came and met my other sisters, who I've come to know over the years through preschool and now elementary. Leslie, with her positive energy and ability to both entertain and put everyone at ease with immediate friendliness. She, my comrade in kindergarten room parenting and life in general. Laura L. who is smart, interesting and often allows me to look at things from a different and valuable perspective. Brandy was there, kind and unselfish. She has taken my two little boys on occasion without flinching and given me a welcome hour of respite in spite of her own busy schedule. There's also Sarah who, in many ways, understands my spiritual life though we belong to different faiths--and who has played, most patiently, the role of guide to our neighborhood school. Cindy came too, smiling and down to earth--loving my kids and always being willing to haul them to and fro. She is someone who quickly feels like a very old friend even though she's relatively new. Hadley and Charlotte (her #4) made the trek from their new home--my sister in the insane endeavor of mothering many small people all at once. Of course, she seems to be managing the transition with ever instinctive grace. And Diane who has taken Atticus on endless walks around the school, identifying trees. I love to talk with her because of her sincere, frank and funny take on herself and life. Finally, Laura W. with whom I felt an immediate affinity and connection--which everyone must, because she is open and real. I don't see her nearly enough these days.

Of course this doesn't begin to explain these women or the connection that I feel with each of them, but I am grateful to know them. I see qualities in them that I long to create and nurture in myself, in their varied styles of mothering, in the giving of their friendship, in their pursuit of passions and dreams. This is my community of women and over the course of the evening I was blessed with their good wishes, with the poetry and prose that has touched and provided them with new perspectives and which, in their sharing, created for me new mountains--the gift of being lifted out of the valley of my own narrow perspective and reminded of the view, the possibilities, the blessings, the humanness and the divinity of womanhood and mothering. Thank you, thank you. There are not words.