Castles in the Air

"It was rather a pretty little picture, for the sisters sat together in the shady nook, with sun and shadow flickering over them,- the aromatic wind lifting their hair and cooling their hot cheeks,- and all the little wood-people going on with their affairs as if these were no strangers, but old friends.

Meg sat upon her cushion sewing daintily with her white hands, and looking fresh and sweet as a rose, in her pink dress, among the green. Beth was sorting cones that lay thick under the hemlock nearby, for she made pretty things of them. Amy was sketching a group of ferns, and Jo was knitting as she read aloud."

Lousia May Alcott
"Little Women

Sometimes the passages I read paint very vivid pictures in my mind. This passage was one of those. How I long to join the girls and share in their conversation and their dreaming. I can almost see the flickering of the "sun and shadow" and smell and feel the "aromatic wind" lifting my hair and cooling my cheeks. Even though I am much closer to the age of Marmee, the little girl part of me longs for the dreamy days where my concerns are centered on what I might one day be.
I have often wondered which of the girls I would think myself to be the most like. I suppose as a girl I would have thought it to be Jo, for what girl does not want to write or own horses? But I suppose that I am really more of a Meg. I cannot say that I wish to have "heaps of money" or "a house full of lots of luxurious things", but I want to do good and I love being a homemaker. I hope dear mothers and daughters that you do too.

Written a few years ago for Little Women Home Companion. This was a newsletter that I co-wrote and edited with my daughter.