I am not the walrus

I dreamt recently of going to the beach with friends, only to find the water dense with walruses! I longed to swim but wasn't sure how to go about it. A few women walked by, dripping wet. I asked them, 'How did you do it?' One answered me, 'Just go on in. There are so many of them, they don't see one or two of us as a threat.'

I've never dreamed of walruses before. My favorite shamanic animal website noted that walruses are about group living. That's when I got it: as I prepare to launch my book, I needn't to worry about the crowded waters. There is room for me. Other women have done this already.

Hats off to them, the list is blessedly long. A few who come to mind this morning, from recent encounters: the fabulous artist Judy Chicago whose Dinner Party has found a home at the Brooklyn Museum. Margaret Starbird went out on a limb to bring us much of the real scholarship used in The Da Vinci Code. The old-world woman at the gym with pinned up hair and faded pink sweater, who told me triumphantly when I admired her bright red patent leather boots, 'I don't try no more to be who my children like me to be.'

I think too of another mother, somewhat more famous, who helped her daughter Muktar Mai risk everything, telling her, 'Someone has to be the first drop of rain.'

I would add: No matter how many walruses are in the water.