Daring to Eat a Peach

Gail Sheehy's most recent book is "Sex and the Seasoned Woman." It's one of my favorites in her library of best-sellers that have so beautifully defined our journey of life, our "Passages." Yesterday I had the profound pleasure of introducing Gail to 300 women, as keynote speaker for the annual WomanSage Conference here in Orange County. For me, it was one of those "bigger than life" moments that take my breath away. Fortuntately, it didn't take my words away. Before I went to the podium for the introduction, I remembered what my friend, David Neenan, told me many years ago when I learned I would introduce another one of my heroes, Marshall Thurber, at a breakfast club meeting in Honolulu. This was at a time when I still equated speaking in front of a room with death. David said, "Speak from your heart and keep it simple." So I drew on that advice again yesterday. The only mistake I made was not being sure that Gail, who sat next to me briefly before her talk, knew that my name was Shannon. She said, "Thank you, Sharon" and then referred to me one more time as Sharon. But what the heck, that puts her in good company with the thousands who have called me Sharon before now. And to make it better, she was indeed communicating with me. I was just fine with being Sharon to Gail. Somehow, I'm certain our paths will cross again and next time she'll know my name.

Gail's first question to the audience was, "Do you dare to eat a peach?" She asks that question in "Sex and the Seasoned Woman." And she explained where the question came from; but I was more interested in thinking about eating that peach - biting through its fuzzy skin, juice running down my chin, my hand getting sticky, the smoothness of the yellow fruit, the incomparable scent - than in taking notes. Thoughts of the peach made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, which is just what Gail wanted. And frankly, I held onto that sensation for most of the day yesterday. It was phenomenal and fun to take time out from all the bad news and the media's non-stop election coverage. I was engaged in celebrating womanhood at midlife. Being with so many women made me remember that 100 years ago, women couldn't even vote for president.

Today I took the real dare and went out and bought some late season peaches. I'm daring to eat one right now - sticky fingers on the keyboard. Mmmmmmm.