May It Be So For You

In a life of unearned joys, being able to live in a circle of amazing women is one of my greatest joys.

I've slept, in Stevie Nick's words, with poets, legends, priests of nothing.

I've been mother to a kind, good, sly-humored young man who has turned out to be, all unmentored, the most amazing father, a great writer, a v. good cook, a wonderful person, and a better son that I ever deserved. I've been lucky beyond luck to have a good and brilliant and kind daughter-in-law with whom I love to spend time. I have a G/Son whose picture I show to my dentist and to strangers on the train and who I knew immediately that I would love beyond imagining. I've lived past breast cancer to hear him say "Nonna," and if that's all that chemo bought for me, well, then, it was cheap at the price.

I've spent a lifetime reading poetry and seeing art and attending the ballet and walking in the gardens and the parks of some of the most amazing cities in North America.

I got to study law and to work for one of DC's best law firms and to handle fascinating, precedent-setting cases in great courts for a fantastic client.

And, yet, I count myself in nothing else so fortunate, in the words of the The Bard, than as a witch, in a circle of women. Tonight, a full moon under a rainy sky, was a confirmation of that for me. Wonderful, unearned things have been happening all my life, but having a circle of women sitting in my living room, eating dinner, drinking wine, relaxing from magic, sharing lives -- that's a gift from the Goddess that I never really expected to receive. Women applying for new jobs, sharing information about obtaining security clearances, renovating homes, going through pregnancy, watching their family members die, dealing with middle school girls who get called "easy," and coping with law firms where the chairman tells sexist jokes -- I count myself so lucky to be inside this swirl of energy.

May it be so for you.