The Maiden

Daughters-in-Love

Once they were little girls who sat in my front room in a circle and talked a million miles an minute and laughed very loud. Now they are young professional women who are spread all over the entire globe. They are Peace Corps workers, film producers, ecologists, teachers, mid-wives, actors, artists, writers, doctors, Shakespeare Scholars . . . They are brilliant, knowledgeable, talented and extremely well educated. They are giving, kind, ecologically conscious, politically and socially aware and they constantly teach me about living the change that you want to see in the world.

They are also firmly aware of things that the women of my generation, have spent years trying to reclaim. The most important of these is how much they value and care for each other. Their relationships with each other are among the most important things in their lives. They care for each other and they take care of each other. They always have .Clarissa Pinkola Estes speaks of how women must be an “Allelujia Chorus” for each other, exalting and endorsing each other, and each other’s creativity. This is something these women knew from the time they were little girls, and they have never lost it. Nor have they lost each other, they take great care and make sacrifices to be sure that they keep in touch and are able to see each other as often as possible. I call them my daughters-in-love and there is nothing in the world I like as much as having as many as possible of them around as often as possible. When they come home for Christmas, Chanukah, Solstice, New Years, Somethinginbetween, they still flop all over on my front room floor, they still talk a million miles a minute and they still laugh very loud. It is just about the most beautiful music in the world. They are the reason that I believe in the future.