Days later, I sit again at the computer willing myself to begin, but my mind wanders off. It's almost as if I've trained myself to mentally walk away from this task. Even laundry and dirty dishes seem more interesting and compelling than placing my memories on the page. Brushing Gretyl, my twelve-year-old white German Shepherd, feeding the turtles, watering the plants, talking on the phone, taking a walk, or taking a nap have priority over writing. "Why can't I start?" I wonder, "Concentrate and focus! Go ahead, write. Think. What is the argument?" This last question appears out of the memories of my doctoral comprehensive examination advisor's repertoire--week after week, year after year, course after course, we discussed the arguments within the academic texts we read. Why do we always end up at offensive-defensive positions? Arguing a particular case against other academics, after all, is the essence of scholarly work. If this is the tradition, then what is the point of writing about my personal sexual harassment experiences? The blank slate of my mind responds indignantly with silence, a silence that seems familiar to me. Is this silence trained, a habitual place within which woman are forced to stay? Will this forced silence cause me and the other women in my study to censor our tales? How possible is it for women to move beyond this silence, this self-censorship? As I recently watched the snowflakes dropping from the sky, the lawn slowly became a mixture of brown and white. The birds frantically responded to these white intruders by wildly fighting each other for dominance at the bird feeders. The blue jays puffed up their smoky blue and white feathers and bickered over who got the best place to eat. The chickadees and finches kept their distance when the jays flew in, and generally held back from landing on the feeders where they perched. Once the squirrels arrived, the birds scattered quickly away from the feeders, and the squirrels maintained their superior status, stuffing their cheeks with as many sunflowers as they could hold. The birds no longer felt free to gather at the feeders, although while the squirrels were involved in their work, the jays screeched loudly in protest, and taunted the squirrels relentlessly by buzzing by their heads. For some reason, as I watched the birds and squirrels I began thinking of my maternal grandmother and of the time my sister, Dana, my cousins, Gina and Sue, and I spent with her. On many summer days during black raspberry season, we would get up early and pick raspberries until all of our containers were overflowing. When we returned to Grandma's house, she would make us lunch, then we would help her make black raspberry jelly. We collected jars from the spring house, washed and dried the jars, and helped grandma wash the berries, then boil them with sugar and Sure-jell. While we picked berries, she always baked homemade rolls on which to spread the still warm jelly. During the jelly making, Grandma always had stories for us . . . . " . . . In those days, girls didn't wear bras when they began to mature. The boys would stare at our chests as we developed breasts, and some of the ruder ones would say nasty things," Grandma said. "It made me feel very uncomfortable to be paid attention to like this. There was not much I could ever do to stop them. I remember one boy in particular . . . his name was Alan. He was a few years older than me, and of course, much bigger. He had dark, curly hair, and was tall and gangly. He was actually a pretty attractive boy, at least until he opened his mouth. When we were walking home from school he would walk too close to me. I didn't think much about it at first--I didn't think it was intentional--until it went on for several days in a row, and each day he always paced his walk with mine, so if I sped up, he sped up, if I slowed down, he slowed down. If I stopped or made excuses about needing to go to the store before I went home so I could get away from him, he would say he needed to go to the store, too. If I delayed leaving school and lingered to talk with the teacher, he was waiting in front of the school building when I left. When I got a girlfriend to walk with me, he always managed to walk on the other side of me and interrupted when she and I would try to carry on a conversation. When I had more than one girlfriend to walk with, he would either walk directly in front of us, facing us and walking backwards, or he would walk closely behind us. At some point, my girlfriends, Sarah and Mary, said to him, 'Why don't you leave her alone? She doesn't want you bothering her--go away!' That only seemed to motivate him. He replied, 'Oh, I think she likes me, and I know she's loving the attention I pay to her, aren't you, Ann? Why don't you tell your girlfriends to get lost so we can be alone?' I shouted, 'Leave me alone, Alan. No, I don't like your attention--you are very rude, and never take a hint. I've told you over and over to go away, but you don't listen! What could possibly make you think I want anything to do with you?' He never understood that I didn't like him, and he couldn't grasp that I wanted him to stay away from me even though my friends told him to leave me alone, and so did I. At first, he just walked too close, and said annoying things; then he started brushing his body up against mine, sometimes grabbing my behind, other times trying to grab my breasts. I didn't like it, and I told him so. Then he said, 'But, your apples are ripening . . . pretty soon they'll be ready to pick. Let me rub your apples to make them nice and shiny. I bet those apples of yours really taste good.' Then he put his arms around me and started to move his face toward my chest. I shouted, 'Leave me alone! Stop it!' And, I kicked his knee really hard. After that, he left me alone, but soon afterwards, he found another girl to tease." So began my grandmother's journey into womanhood. I was young when she told me this story; I remember asking her why the boy acted the way he did. I did not yet understand what it meant to be a woman--that it often meant, and still means, being reduced to our physical appearance, being taunted and teased by boys and men about our physical attributes. I don't think I grasped what it was my grandmother must have been trying to tell me--her story implied that women must stand up for themselves against men that would not leave them alone. Grandma's words exemplified the necessity to break the silence. I never heard those words; perhaps her words did not penetrate my mind because of the messages I received elsewhere . . . .