I’ve been pondering how one can write an introduction to the world, how I can possibly convey to my audience who it is I am and what it is I have to say.

How did I get here? Looking around at my co-writers (if one can look in this marvelously disconnected cyber-world), I see that I am the only woman. I am the only teacher. Does that make me an expert on women’s issues, or on educational issues? No, I don’t believe so. It does however give me a different perspective on the world, a different body of experiences, and a different personality with which you may identify.

I’m not as liberal as I used to be, nor am I as brave. As I’ve grown older, left school, started my first job, gotten engaged, and met people who I would never have imagined meeting, I’ve begun to question everything I hold dear. I think that’s what makes beliefs so dear in the first place, their ability to be questioned. I don’t claim to have all the answers, or to be an expert on those issues on which I will attempt to reflect from time to time. I can only offer my opinions, my experiences, my viewpoints and my personality.

Perhaps it is a cliche for me, the resident feminist to say that “The personal is political,” but I’m going to say it anyway. I completely believe that every choice we make in our own lives is in its way a deeply political statement. And so, while I cannot promise that I will not from time to time launch into a rant on a national issue, the majority of the stories I have to tell are smaller stories, stories of people I’ve known and things I’ve seen. You may think that makes them less important. I don’t.

And so on these small things, I suppose I am the expert. This is grassroots where it truly begins: from the bottom up, from the individual to the national and back to the individual. Now is not the time to rest, but now is the time to gather wisdom and strength and to begin to grow. I hope you’ll stick around to grow with me.