The Gray Wave

Cheryl Nicholas

Emotions, me. Red, puffy eyes looked into the mirror. I saw myself , huddled in the corner frightened, hurt, invisible. A sad and fearful child, lacking the trust to surrender and accept the Good. I had been coasting, all the while sinking into an ego-based abyss.

A Place at the Fire

Joyce Wakefield

When I was a child, I lived in an atmosphere that was cold and dark. My family was scattered by circumstance, mental illness, and a sense of secrecy and isolation from the rest of the world. In l988, my life circumstances were so painful that I began to look for answers outside my own experience. Ten years later, I have a place at the fire of a group of women that sustains me feeds me, and brings me a laughter of the most sacred kind.

In the Company of Women

Elizabeth Wicker Bennefeld

I was not often in the company of women during my early years. The few friends I had were men, but for the most part, I was an outsider and content to be so. As the pace of life slows, I find myself in the company of women who are no longer confined by earlier expectations or demandsthat life begin and end with parenthood and family. My mother, who had a degree in accounting, then abandoned a career to bear nine children, inquired about computers. Now, 77-year-old Rhoda surfs the web, is planning her own quilting web site and learning HTML.