Giving thanks to 2021: Silver linings for a difficult year

January 1, 2022.Reading time 19 minutes.

I am a silver linings person. Ever since I was young, I have believed that things happen for a reason and that most bad things carry positive outcomes. I firmly believe the universe offers us balance, and I understand that it’s up to us to find goodness in even the most awful things. I learned […]

Letters to my children (3): Raising optimists in a complicated world

April 12, 2021.Reading time 12 minutes.

I have been writing in series; pieces that are written independently but which come together as a collection of related thoughts. “Letters” is one of them. I started writing these several months ago, when my children were all living at home due to COVID restrictions, but at the same time, they were getting ready to […]

LETTERS TO MY CHILDREN (2): RAISING OPTIMISTS IN A COMPLICATED WORLD

March 28, 2021.Reading time 8 minutes.

Letters to My Children: raising optimists in a complicated world

March 18, 2021.Reading time 13 minutes.

On choice, second chances and making it count

January 23, 2021.Reading time 14 minutes.

It is easy to go through life wishing you had taken the other path, or made a different decision. We spend too much time holding on to the option that we rejected wondering if that would have made us happier, better, more successful, wealthier. We sacrifice the ability to embrace this moment when we hold […]

Getting my second wind

October 25, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

Learning from burnout, allowing myself to be inspired, and finding joy. Twenty years with the same company and at the height of my career, I suddenly found myself uninspired. I genuinely loved my colleagues and the people I served, but I struggled to find the joy in my day to day. While I knew there […]

i wanted to miss him

July 31, 2020.Reading time 7 minutes.

At the intersection, there was a couple. Their clothes looked clean and they spoke to one another gently. Had I seen them anywhere else, they might have looked like a typical couple on a summer’s day. But under the bridge by the stoplight, a different story emerged. She drank from a plastic bottle, water I […]

it’s not about gardening

July 23, 2020.Reading time 11 minutes.

I don’t know anything about birds. But there are some mornings, especially in late winter and early spring, when I will go out on the front porch, cup of hot coffee in hand, and sit for long periods of time listening to the sound of the occasional passing car and the songs of birds. So […]

Learning to fly (tentative title)

April 26, 2020.Reading time 9 minutes.

I was 32 when my husband and I separated. I had three small children, ages 5, 3, and 1. I’m not going to lie – “hard” doesn’t even come close to describing what it was like, and there were times when I thought the pain would kill me. Once or twice, I found myself crumpled […]

International Women’s Day is about my mom, too.

March 8, 2020.Reading time 5 minutes.

March 8th is International Women’s Day. Below is an excerpt from the book I am working on, a memoir of sorts that will, among other things, celebrate my mother’s incredible strength. She sat in her car, hands gripping the steering wheel. She was so proud of herself for driving over here. She had been thinking […]