I am thinking that what we are doing here is writing our autobiographies. But very special ones.
As we post over and over again we get closer and closer to what we need to know about our lives and ourselves. As we post we re-vision our pasts.
By imagining a reader, in my case, you Cedar, and Feeling, and New Leaf, we strive to write clearly. As we write clearly we begin to think more clearly.
As we think more and more clearly, we bring the adult's point of view into what was a small child's experience; a child who may not have had more than a few hundred words, and did not have experience beyond her own family and home.
These stories are not so much remembered, but recreated, by applying our wisdom and learning and experience as adults to our early experience. At the same time our adult selves are enriched by the child's suppressed energy, optimism and depth and purity of feeling.
The children who we remember did not exist as we see and feel them now. While they could have under other circumstances, they could not have existed in the families in which we lived. We have nurtured them together, giving them that chance to thrive which they denied themselves, in order to survive.
It is interesting to me that each of us came here because of grief and fear having to do with mothering. And when here found a way to mother ourselves and each other.
I am so grateful to each of you.
COPA