From Darkness Light Is Found

(A reflection inspired by Emily’s story in Tattered & Mended)

Sometimes a story doesn’t begin where you expect it to.

Not at the start…
not at the moment everything changed…

but somewhere in the middle…
where things feel uncertain,
where the air is heavier than it used to be,
and where you’re not quite sure what comes next.

That’s where Emily’s story meets us.

Not as an introduction,
but as an unfolding.

There are seasons in life that don’t ask for permission.

They arrive…
and suddenly, the landscape looks different.

Familiar things feel distant.
Simple things feel heavy.
And the person you once were feels just out of reach.

Emily found herself in a season like that.

And while I won’t tell you the details of how she got there.
That’s part of what makes her story worth reading.
I will tell you this:

She didn’t turn away from it.

There is a quiet kind of courage
that doesn’t look like strength from the outside.

It doesn’t make noise.
It doesn’t try to prove anything.

It simply stays.

Stays when it would be easier to run.
Stays when the answers aren’t clear.
Stays long enough to begin to understand
what the darkness is asking of you.

Emily chose that kind of courage.

What unfolds in her story isn’t a sudden shift.

There’s no single moment where everything changes.

Instead, there is a slow return.

A noticing.
A softening.
A willingness to believe that something more is possible…
even before there is proof.

And maybe that’s what makes her story feel so close to home.

Because most of us won’t have a dramatic turning point.

Most of us will have moments like these:
where the light doesn’t rush in…
but gently finds its way back.

Through connection.
Through presence.
Through someone sitting beside us
when we don’t have the words.

There is something sacred in that kind of light.

The kind that doesn’t overwhelm,
but steadies.

The kind that reminds you, quietly,
that you are still here.

Still becoming.
Still capable of holding both the weight
and the wonder of your own story.

I won’t tell you how Emily’s story unfolds from here.

Not because it’s being withheld,
but because it deserves to be experienced
in its own time,
in its own rhythm.

But I will say this:

What she walked through did not diminish her.

It revealed something deeper.
Something that could only be seen
once everything unnecessary had fallen away.

If you’ve ever found yourself in a season that felt unclear…
if you’ve ever wondered if the light would return…

her story will meet you there.

You’ll find it in Tattered & Mended: Soulful Stories of Life, Love and Legacy…
held gently within its pages, waiting for the moment you’re ready to turn toward it.

Some stories don’t need to be explained.

They just need to be felt.

Soul Threads

A reflection from Tattered & Mended

When I think about the phrase soul threads, I don’t picture something bold or obvious.

I picture something quieter.

A thread you almost don’t notice at first…
until one day you realize it has been holding something together all along.

There are people who come into our lives like that.

Not with fanfare.
Not with a grand entrance.

But with presence.

Steady.
Faithful.
Woven in so gently that you don’t fully understand their impact until you’ve walked through something hard … and realize they never let go.

Misty is one of those people.

And her story, Soul Threads, carries that presence from beginning to end.

Some stories are built around big moments.

Clear turning points.
Before and after.

But this one moves differently.

It moves through connection.

Through faith.
Through friendship.
Through the quiet, steady reminder that even in the hardest seasons… we are not alone.

There are seasons in life that stretch us.

Seasons that ask more of us than we feel prepared to give.

Seasons where the questions feel heavier than the answers.

And in those moments… it’s easy to feel like we have to carry it all on our own.

But we were never meant to.

What I felt so deeply in Misty’s story wasn’t just what she walked through…

It was how she was held while she walked through it.

Held by her faith.
Held by God.
Held by the presence of women who stood beside her … not to fix, not to rush the process, but simply to be there.

There is something sacred about that kind of friendship.

The one that doesn’t disappear when things get hard.

The one that leans in closer.

The one that reminds you who you are when you feel like you’re losing your footing.

We don’t talk about this enough.

The importance of women walking with one another through life… not just in the light, but in the weight of it.

In the uncertainty.
In the waiting.
In the moments that don’t make sense yet.

There is a strength in those connections that can’t be manufactured.

It’s built over time.

Through shared conversations.
Through quiet check-ins.
Through showing up … again and again … even when there are no perfect words.

And somewhere within those relationships … something else is woven in.

Something deeper.

A connection to God that often reveals itself most clearly when we are walking through something we cannot carry alone.

Sometimes that connection looks like peace that doesn’t make sense.

Sometimes it looks like strength you didn’t know you had.

And sometimes… it looks like the right people showing up at exactly the right time.

As I wrote Tattered & Mended: Soulful Stories of Life, Love and Legacy, I began to see how often these threads appeared.

Not just in Misty’s story… but throughout the entire book.

The way faith, friendship, and shared experience create something stronger than any one of us could build on our own.

We are not meant to do life in isolation.

We are meant to be woven together.

Supported.
Seen.
Carried when we need it… and strong enough to carry others when it’s their turn.

Misty’s story is a beautiful reflection of that truth.

A reminder that even in the hardest moments …
there are threads holding us.

Threads of faith.
Threads of friendship.
Threads of love that do not break under pressure… but instead, pull tighter… stronger… more intentional.

And maybe that’s what Soul Threads is really about.

Not just the connections we see…

But the ones we feel.

The ones that remind us…
we are never walking alone.

If you feel drawn to stories that honor both the weight and the beauty of life…
stories that reflect the importance of connection, faith, and the people who walk beside us…

I believe this chapter will speak to you.

Soul Threads is one piece of the larger story woven throughout Tattered & Mended.

And each thread… tells a story worth holding onto.

If you’ve already read it, I would love to hear what it meant to you.

And if you haven’t yet…
this may be your invitation.

A gentle thought to carry with you:
Who has walked beside you in your hardest seasons…
and how did their presence remind you that you were not alone?

Pieces of My Heart

Mellisa’s Story … A Becoming … Pieces of My Heart
From Tattered & Mended

Some stories don’t just live inside a book.

They shape it.

They shift its direction.
They deepen its meaning.
They quietly ask everything around them to rise to meet them.

Mellisa’s story was that for me.

When I began writing Tattered & Mended, I thought I understood what it was about.

I believed I was gathering stories of love, memory, and the beauty of what remains.

And in many ways, that’s true.

But somewhere along the way …
Mellisa’s story entered and something changed.

Not dramatically.
Not all at once.

But in that quiet, unmistakable way where you realize:

This is asking more of me.

Mellisa’s story wasn’t rooted in grief.

It wasn’t about loss in the way we often expect stories like this to be.

It was about becoming.

About standing in that in-between space …
where who you’ve been no longer fits,
and who you’re becoming hasn’t fully taken form yet.

She didn’t come to me looking to hold onto the past.

She came carrying pieces …
of her life, her experiences, her unfolding …

and somewhere within that, there was an unspoken question:

What do I do with who I am now?

That question stayed with me.

Long after our time together.
Long after the pieces had been placed.

Because it began to echo into the pages of the book itself.

Up until that point, I had been writing from a place of honoring what was.

But Mellisa’s story invited something more.

It invited me to write toward what is becoming.

To see each story not just as a reflection …
but as a continuation.

Not just something to preserve …
but something still in motion.

It shifted how I saw every piece that followed.

The textures felt different.
The meaning deepened.
The stories began to breathe in a new way.

As if the book itself had taken a quiet step forward.

There is something powerful about witnessing someone in the midst of their becoming.

Not finished.
Not defined.

But willing.

Willing to be seen.
Willing to step into what’s next, even without certainty.

And that’s what Mellisa offered, not just to me,
but to the heart of Tattered & Mended.

A reminder that we are not meant to stay who we were.

That the pieces we carry are not only remnants …

They are raw material.

For growth.
For expression.
For a life that continues to unfold.

There is a season for everything.

A season to remember.
A season to release.
A season to gather.
A season to become.

And sometimes …
one story holds the doorway between them all.

Mellisa’s story did that for me.

It changed the trajectory of the book.
It deepened my understanding of the work.
It reminded me that this isn’t just about what we’ve lived …

It’s about what we are still stepping into.

Pieces of My Heart is not a chapter about something ending.

It’s a chapter about something beginning.

A quiet invitation:

If you’ve read Tattered & Mended,
I would love to know what part of the book stayed with you.

Which story lingered a little longer…
which piece felt like it was speaking directly to you.

And if you haven’t read it yet,
this chapter, Mellisa’s story, might just be the place to begin.

Because somewhere in these pages…
you may find pieces of your own story.

Not as something to look back on.

But as something still becoming.

After the Bloom

There is a moment after something long-awaited arrives
where the world grows unexpectedly quiet.

Not empty…
just still.

The kind of stillness that doesn’t ask what’s next,
but instead leans in close and whispers,
can you stay here for a minute?

For so long, I was moving toward something.

Toward the book.
Toward the stories finding their way onto the page.
Toward this birthday, this turning of a decade that felt both significant and sacred.

There was a rhythm to it…
a hum beneath my days.
A sense of becoming that carried me forward, even when I couldn’t quite name what I was becoming into.

And then … it arrived.

The book is here.
The pages are no longer just mine.
They are in your hands, in your homes, in your quiet moments.

And I find myself here … in the after.

After the bloom.

We talk so much about the blooming.

The becoming.
The courage it takes to begin.
The vulnerability of sharing something that has lived inside of you for so long.

But we don’t often talk about what comes next.

What it feels like
when the petals have opened…
and there is nothing left to push toward.

Only something to receive.

I’ll be honest …
this part surprised me.

I expected joy, and there is joy.
I expected gratitude, and there is so much of it.

But there is also a quiet I didn’t anticipate.

A slowing.

A gentle settling into a space that feels less like doing
and more like being with what has already been done.

Maybe this is what the seasons have been trying to teach me all along.

That blooming is not the destination.

It’s a moment.

A beautiful, visible, often-celebrated moment,
but not the whole story.

Because after the bloom …
comes integration.

Comes rest.
Comes the quiet work of letting what has been created
find its place in the world … and in me.

I think about the flowers I’ve brought into my home over the years.

Not the ones still rooted in the garden,
but the ones gathered, placed in a vase,
set where I could see them as I moved through my day.

Cut flowers.

They are never meant to last forever.

And yet … we don’t bring them in expecting permanence.

We bring them in for their beauty.
For their presence. For their aroma.
For the way they soften a room,
or catch the light just right in the morning.

We know they will fade.

And still … we choose them.

Still … we enjoy them.

Not for how long they last,
but for how fully they are experienced while they’re here.

And maybe this moment is a little like that.

Not something to hold onto tightly
or measure by how long it stays exactly as it is …

but something to be with.

To enjoy.
To notice.
To receive while it is here in this form.

Because even this … will shift.

Not in a way that diminishes it,
but in a way that carries it forward
into whatever comes next.

So this week, I am not asking myself what’s next.

I am not rushing to fill the space.

I am letting myself sit here
in the after.

Holding what has come to life.
Honoring the path it took to get here.
Allowing myself to feel the fullness of it
without immediately reaching for the next beginning.

Because maybe this, too, is part of the becoming.

Not just the reaching …
but the receiving.

Not just the bloom …
but what comes after.

You don’t have to rush past the moment you prayed for.

You are allowed to sit in it.
To feel it.
To let it become part of you
before you begin again.

Turn, Turn, Turn… There Is a Season

Spring has arrived!

A Threshold of Light

When I hear Turn, Turn, Turn … To Everything There Is a Season, the song made famous by The Byrds, almost without thinking, I find myself recalling the very words of Ecclesiastes 3:1–8.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…”

“Turn, Turn, Turn” was pulled directly from that scripture, by Pete Seeger in 1959, which speaks to the natural cycles of life and God’s timing. It reminds us that all things … birth, death, planting, healing, weeping, dancing, even war … have an ordained time.

It is one of many favorite passages for me … and it resonates especially now.

There is something about this week that feels like a quiet exhale.

Not loud.
Not urgent.
Just … full.

Spring has arrived, and with it, that gentle invitation to begin again.

And here I am, in my final days of my 50s, standing in a space that feels both reflective and expansive … a place where I can look back with tenderness and forward with excitement that doesn’t need to rush.

Welcoming the Season

We gathered this past weekend for our Spring Equinox sound bath session.

Different paths.
Different stories.

There were women from different decades of life in the room,
and still, the stories that surfaced felt deeply familiar:
woven with the same threads of love, loss, healing, and becoming.

It reminded me how little separates us when we are willing to be seen.

There was a softness in the space … an openness that didn’t need to be explained. As the bowls were played and the room settled into stillness, something unspoken began to unfold.

The intention we set was simple:

Renewal.
Softening.
Allowing.

Not forcing change … but making space for it.

What We Choose to Nurture

Spring doesn’t ask us to have it all figured out.

It asks us to tend.

To notice what is ready to grow.
To gently return to what matters.
To water what we want to see flourish.

As I’ve been sitting with this season, I’ve been asking myself:

What do I want to nurture now?

Not what needs to be rushed.
Not what needs to be proven.
But what feels true enough to grow slowly.

There is something sacred about choosing that kind of pace.

A Week of Quiet Milestones

This week has held its own quiet celebrations.

Finished quilts folded with care … each one carrying its own story.
A walk by the water, where everything felt clear without needing explanation.
Moments of stillness that somehow said more than words ever could.

And woven through all of it …

The nearing release of Tattered & Mended: Soulful Stories of Life, Love and Legacy.

This book has been a long unfolding. A gathering of stories, of memory, of meaning … of the things we hold onto and the things that shape us.

To see it arrive now, in this season, feels right.

Not because it is finished … but because I am ready to share it.

The Gift of Who Has Walked With Me

I found myself this week thinking about the people who have crossed my path.

The ones who stayed.
The ones who came for a season.
The ones who taught me something I didn’t even know I needed.

My family.
Jim … steady, grounding, always there.
My clients, who trust me with their stories, their stillness, their healing.

There is a quiet gratitude that sits beneath it all.

A knowing that none of this happens alone.

And that the life I live … this creative, soulful, simple life … is something I get to choose.

That is not something I take lightly.

The Privilege of Aging

There is a tenderness in approaching this next birthday.

A deeper awareness of time … not in a way that feels heavy, but in a way that feels meaningful.

Aging is a privilege.

Not everyone gets to arrive here.

And with each year, I feel a little less concerned with what doesn’t matter … and a little more rooted in what does. Maybe even a bit stoic. Accepting what I cannot change and making efforts on what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Presence.
Connection.
Creating something that means something.

And maybe most of all …

Listening.

Listening in Awe

Lately, I’ve been listening more than I’ve been speaking.

Listening to the rhythm of my days.
To the quiet nudges.
To the way life unfolds when I stop trying to control every part of it.

There is something deeply humbling about it.

To realize that this life … as simple as it may seem … is also incredibly rich.

And that what’s ahead doesn’t need to be chased.

It just needs to be met.

What Comes Next

I don’t have a long list this week.

Just a feeling.

A full heart.
A sense of readiness.
An excitement for what is unfolding.

Spring is here.
A new decade is just ahead.
A book is about to enter the world.

And I am standing in the middle of it all …
grateful, grounded, and open.

There is a time for beginnings.
A time for reflection.
A time for gathering what has been … and a time for stepping into what is becoming.

And maybe this is simply that moment.

A season …
just as it was always meant to be.

Prepare, Root, Harvest

Preparing the Garden

As the two-week countdown to the release of Tattered & Mended begins, I find myself reflecting on the quiet blessing of giving, and the way small offerings, like seeds in a garden, often take root in ways we never expect.

There is a joy that comes in the act of giving.

Not the kind that asks to be seen, but the quiet joy that comes from placing something thoughtful into another person’s hands.

These past few weeks have felt a little like tending a garden.

There has been preparation, patience, and the steady rhythm of small daily work. Emails written. Pages edited. Photographs chosen. Words shared. Conversations with friends and readers who have walked alongside me for years.

And now, suddenly, we are only ten days away.

Ten days until Tattered & Mended finally makes its way out into the world.

Preparing the soil for garden season.

Rooted Before the Bloom

Anyone who has ever planted a garden knows something important.

The beauty we see above the soil is only possible because of what is happening beneath it. The seeds planted, or the plants’ roots first. Then the nurturing.

For a long time, this book has been quietly growing quietly in my life.

Through stories.
Through loss.
Through the objects we carry that hold the memory of the people we love.

It has grown through the long seasons of becoming, moments when I didn’t yet know what the final shape of it all would be.

And now, as the days move closer to launch day and my 60th birthday, I find myself reflecting on something that has become very clear to me this year.

Before we can share our gifts with the world, we must first be rooted in who we are.

Rooted in our values.
Rooted in our stories.
Rooted in the quiet knowing that what we are creating matters … because we matter.

The Gift Within the Giving

One of the unexpected blessings of preparing this book has been the reminder that creativity itself is an act of giving.

Every story shared.
Every piece of art.
Every handmade object placed into the world.

They are offerings.

Little lanterns along the road that say,
You are not alone in this.

When someone reads a story and sees themselves in it …
when a memory awakens in their own heart … that is where the real magic happens.

Giving, it turns out, is not about what leaves our hands.

It is about what grows in the space between us.

When a Flutter Finds Its Way

Just this week I was reminded again how far a small act of giving can travel.

Back in January, as part of the Gifting Art Project, several of the paperweights I created were given away through a nomination process. People quietly submitted the names of someone they felt could use a small moment of beauty or encouragement.

One of those pieces, a little butterfly captured in glass, recently made its way into the hands of the person who had been nominated.

Later that day my phone rang.

On the other end was the woman who had received it.

Her voice carried that unmistakable tone people have when something meaningful has just happened. She told me how the piece had caught the light on her table and how she kept turning it gently in her hands, noticing the details.

Then she shared something unexpected.

There was a connection between butterflies, a dear friend of hers, and that friend’s late husband. The kind of story that feels too sacred to repeat in full, a private thread woven between memory and love.

But as she spoke, I could feel the goosebumps rise on my arms, the tears in my eyes and the joy in my heart.

Sometimes the things we create seem to know exactly where they are meant to land.

A small object.
A quiet flutter of beauty.

And somehow it arrives in the very place where it is needed most.

Moments like that remind me that giving is rarely just about the object itself.

It is about the connection it carries.
The memory it awakens.
The way something simple can suddenly hold a much deeper meaning than we ever could have planned.

And in those moments, I am always left with the same quiet thought:

Perhaps we are not just making things.

Perhaps we are sending small messengers of care out into the world.

And in that moment I was reminded that giving is very much like planting a garden … we never quite know where the seeds will take root, only that when they are offered with love, they almost always find the soil they were meant for.

Flutter

Aligning With the Roots

At the beginning of this year, I chose five words to guide me.

The first was Align.

And as this quarter is unfolding, another word quietly stepped forward beside it.

Rooted.

Because alignment without roots can easily be blown off course.

But when we are rooted in what matters most, our path becomes clearer.

Our choices become steadier.

And the work we offer the world grows from something deeper than ambition.

It grows from truth.

A Garden Nearly Ready

These final days before the book arrives feel a little like standing at the edge of a garden just before the first blooms appear.

The soil has been turned.
The seeds have been planted.
The roots have taken hold.

And now we wait.

Not with impatience … but with gratitude.

Gratitude for the people who have supported this journey.
Gratitude for the stories that shaped these pages.
Gratitude for the simple, sacred act of creating something and offering it forward.

In many ways, this book is a garden of memories.

And very soon, it will be harvest time, and I will get to place it in your hands.

A Gentle Reflection

As you move through your own season this week, I invite you to ask yourself:

What am I planting right now?

And perhaps even more importantly…

Where are my roots growing deeper?

Because every meaningful harvest begins exactly this way.

Quietly.

Beneath the soil.

And in just a couple of weeks, I’ll have the joy of placing this little garden of stories into your hands.

The Long Road to Here

Sometimes life asks us to pause long enough to notice how far we’ve come before stepping into what comes next.

A Moment at the Doorway

There are moments in life that feel like standing in a doorway.

Not quite in the room you are leaving.
Not quite in the room you are entering.

Just there … pausing long enough to notice the weight of what has been and the quiet pull of what is coming next.

This is one of those moments for me.

Later this month I will turn sixty.

That sentence feels both ordinary and extraordinary when I write it down. Sixty years of living, loving, losing, learning, creating, rebuilding, and becoming. When I was younger, sixty sounded like a distant place where you eventually arrived if you were lucky.

Now that it is almost here, it feels less like an ending and more like a widening of the path.

A deeper breath.
A softer understanding of what truly matters.

Around the same time as this birthday, something else I have been tending quietly for years will step into the light.

A book.

A gathering of stories about the objects we carry through life … and the meaning they hold long after their practical purpose has faded.

But if I am honest, the book didn’t begin when I sat down to write it.

It began long before that.

Where the Stories Began

It began in the stories I grew up hearing.

At kitchen tables where memories were shared between bites of food and laughter. In the hands of people who saved things not because they were valuable, but because they meant something.

A worn piece of fabric.
A button tucked into a jar.
A feather found along a quiet path.
A photograph softened by time.

Objects like these may look small from the outside, but they carry entire worlds within them.

They hold the weight of love.

The tenderness of loss.

The quiet proof that a life was lived, that someone mattered, that a moment once existed that was worth remembering.

Over time I began to notice something.

People don’t just keep objects.

They keep stories.

And sometimes those stories simply need a place to land.

In my own life, creativity became that landing place.

Sometimes it showed up through paint.
Sometimes through stitching pieces of fabric together.
Sometimes through writing.

And sometimes through simply listening when someone placed an object in my hands and began telling me where it came from.

Those quiet moments have always felt sacred to me.

A Pause Along the Path

The other day I found myself walking a quiet path with an umbrella in hand during a passing rain.

The sky had not fully cleared yet, but there it was: a rainbow stretching across the horizon like a gentle reminder.

I stood there for a moment thinking about the long road that had led me here. The storms, the unexpected turns, the seasons of rebuilding.

And then the colors appeared, just as they always do, when the light finally meets the rain.

Sixty years of walking this road, and I am still discovering the beauty that waits just beyond the storm.

The Work of Mending

As this birthday approaches, I find myself looking back across the years with a kind of gentle curiosity.

What did I carry with me from one season to the next?

What did life ask me to lay down?

What did I learn to mend?

The truth is that none of us move through life without a few tattered places along the way.

There are moments that stretch us.
Moments that break us open.
Moments that ask us to gather the scattered pieces and decide what we will do with them.

Some people choose to hide those places.

But I have come to believe something different.

The places where life unraveled us are often the very places where meaning begins to take shape.

Where compassion deepens.

Where creativity begins to grow.

Where we learn that brokenness and beauty are not opposites, but companions.

The Threads That Connect Us

The stories I have been writing are not just about objects.

They are about the way our lives are stitched together over time.

About the way memory lingers in the things we hold.

About the quiet ways we become who we are meant to be.

And perhaps most of all, they are about honoring the lives that touched ours along the way.

Because none of us arrive here alone.

Every one of us carries pieces of the people who shaped us.

Their laughter.
Their wisdom.
Their traditions.
Their love.

Sometimes even their belongings.

And through those small, tangible things, their presence continues to ripple forward.

That realization has been one of the greatest gifts of this journey.

Standing in the Clearing

Turning sixty doesn’t feel like arriving at the end of something.

It feels like standing in a clearing where I can look back at the winding path behind me and see how every step, even the difficult ones, led here.

And just ahead, another path waits.

Still unfolding.
Still inviting curiosity.
Still full of stories that have yet to be told.

For now, I am simply pausing here … grateful for the long road that led me to this moment.

And for the stories that are just beginning to find their way home.

Gathering With Creative Women

There is a particular energy that rises when women gather with intention.

It is not loud.
It is not performative.
It hums.

This past week, seven of us from The Turquoise Iris Journal met in the Brentwood and Franklin area of Tennessee for our annual in-person mastermind and retreat.

This was my first time attending, and I was really looking forward to seeing everyone.

Some of these women I had only known through screens and shared documents. Others I have known for years. Yet the moment we walked into the same room, it felt less like introductions and more like recognition.

We came to work.
We came to dream.
We came to deepen.

And we did all three.

The Sacred Work of Women in Conversation

We often underestimate what happens in a room where women are both safe and ambitious.

We planned editorial calendars.
We discussed content strategy.
We mapped upcoming issues.
We shared business wins and honest frustrations.

But between brainstorming sessions, something far more important unfolded.

We listened to each other.

Not listening to answer.
Listening with your whole body … breath steady, posture open, fully present.

When women gather this way, walls lower without anyone announcing it. Stories come forward that would never appear in a public post. Vulnerabilities surface. Dreams are spoken aloud that have only been whispered in journals. And the tears and the hugs. The realization that we have more in common than we are different.

It becomes more than a mastermind.

It becomes a remembering.

From Online to In Person: The Gift of Embodied Friendship

There is something sacred about moving from pixels to presence.

To hug someone you’ve only seen in squares on a screen.
To hear laughter without a speaker.
To notice the way someone gestures when she talks about what she loves.

Friendship shifts when it becomes embodied.

You realize that the woman whose writing moves you also drinks her coffee slowly. That the one who speaks boldly in meetings also tears up when she talks about her unfulfilled dreams and expectations. That strength and tenderness coexist in ways that are impossible to capture fully online.

We cooked together.
We walked.
We shared meals around a table that held laughter and our stories.

Work and play were not separate categories. They braided together naturally.

And that, to me, is the beauty of women who build things together.

A gift from my friend BJ. She gave us each one. They were choosen for the word that she felt captured our gifts.

The Creative Current

Something else happens when women gather around shared creativity.

Ideas multiply.

One sentence spoken across the table becomes a theme.
One vulnerable story becomes … a reminder of our similarities.
One wild idea becomes a future event.

Creative energy is contagious in the best way.

There were moments when I looked around the room and felt the quiet awe of it all. These women are not just contributors to a journal. They are artists. Writers. Wives. Mothers. Business owners. Leaders. Dreamers.

They are beautiful.

Each one carries her own story.

And when those stories sit together at one table, something larger forms.

A current.
A collective intelligence.
A shared momentum.

Sound as the Thread That Settled Us

One of the greatest honors for me during our time together was introducing these women to sound therapy through two early morning sessions.

Before the planning.
Before the brainstorming began.

We gathered in quiet.

The bowls were placed in the front, and centered in the room. The tones rose slowly, gently filling the space we had already filled with conversation the night before.

And something shifted.

The mind softened.
The nervous system exhaled.
The room felt held.

It was deeply meaningful for me to share this part of my work with women who know me primarily as a writer and curator. To let them experience the frequency beneath the words. The stillness beneath the strategy. For me to facilitate this beautiful gift of sound.

Sound does something conversation cannot.

It bypasses explanation.
It settles what is stirred.
It integrates what has been spoken.

By the second morning session, I could feel the difference in the room. The ideas flowed with less strain. The collaboration felt more grounded. There was spaciousness around our ambition.

To witness these women receive that experience, to see their shoulders drop and their faces soften, hear them exhale, see their tears … felt like weaving another layer into our friendship.

Not just intellectual support.
Not just creative partnership.
But nervous system safety.

And that matters more than we often acknowledge.

Support Without Competition

There is an old narrative that says women compete.

That narrative did not enter the room.

What entered instead was celebration.

When one shared a win, we all felt it.
When one voiced a fear, we leaned closer, not away.
When one needed clarity, the others offered perspective without ego.

This is what healthy female friendship looks like:

• Honest feedback delivered with care
• Celebration without comparison
• Space to grow without shrinking
• Accountability without shame

It is powerful to be surrounded by women who are building businesses, writing books, creating art, leading communities … and who still choose softness with each other.

In a world that often asks women to armor up, we practiced something else.

We practiced trust.

Why Women’s Friendships Matter

On the ride home, I found myself reflecting on how essential this kind of gathering is.

Women’s friendships are not extra.
They are not indulgent.
They are not optional.

They are stabilizing.

They remind us who we are when we forget.
They hold our vision steady when we wobble.
They mirror back our growth.
They gently call us higher.

They are necessary.

For me, friendships like this feel ancient. Circles around fires. Stories shared under open skies. Wisdom passed through conversation and shared bread.

We may now meet in rented homes, but the essence remains the same.

Connection.
Support.
Witnessing.

What I Am Carrying Forward

I came home with notes, plans, and even more excitement for what is next.

But I also came home with something far less measurable.

Gratitude.

For women who show up.
For conversations that reflected, “I see you.”
For laughter that heals without announcing itself.
For mornings wrapped in resonance and shared stillness.
For friendships rooted not in convenience, but in shared becoming.

There is something deeply strengthening about knowing you are not building alone.

And perhaps that is the greatest gift of women gathering.

Not just the work accomplished.
Not just the strategy refined.
But the harmony created when women choose to support one another in both voice and silence.

Why I Wrote Tattered & Mended

Such a labor of love … my passion project … proof day!

Today is preorder day.

That feels surreal to type.

Before I share links, bundles, signed editions, or special offerings … I want to begin at the beginning.

Because Tattered & Mended: Soulful Stories of Life, Love, and Legacy did not start as a product.

It started as a question.

What do we do with the things that hold memory?

Not the polished heirlooms. Not the china behind glass.

I mean the worn denim jacket tucked in the back of a closet.
The tie that still carries a faint trace of cologne.
The fabric from a muumuu.
The pin worn to a wedding.
The saddle bag promised years ago and rediscovered when the timing was right.

I have always been drawn to what is left behind.

Because what is left behind is rarely the end of the story.

Often, it is the beginning of becoming.

The Beauty of What Is Held

For years, I have taken what others might discard and turned it into something wearable, holdable, blessable.

Weathered belts became bracelets.
Spoons became jewelry.
Faded shorts became a crossbody bag.
Ties became a jacket.
Flowers from funerals were carefully dried and layered onto watercolor-washed handmade papers, placed behind glass, and accented with touches of gold.

Layer by layer, the memory settles. Nothing forced. Nothing pierced. Just gently held between light and time.

What I began to notice was this:

The transformation was never just about the object.

It was about the permission.

Permission to grieve.
Permission to remember.
Permission to continue becoming, even after loss.

Grief Is Not the End … It Is a Threshold

When Brian walked through his journey with ALS and eventually left this earthly life, I learned something I could never unlearn:

Love does not disappear when a body does.

It changes form.

It moves into memory.
Into ritual.
Into scent.
Into fabric.
Into the way we hold ourselves when we remember.

Years later, when my mother passed during the pandemic and I could not sit beside her in her final hours, that understanding deepened.

What do you do with that kind of absence?

You create.

You layer petals between glass.
You melt wax into vessels that glow.
You gather fragments and ask what they might become.

Because becoming does not stop when someone we love is gone.

In many ways, it intensifies.

Why Stories Matter

Each chapter in Tattered & Mended follows a woman who took something deeply personal and allowed it to become art.

An ornament made from a mother’s clothing.
Ties reimagined from a father’s wardrobe.
Paperweights preserving fragments of handwritten notes.
Dried flowers layered carefully into heirloom pieces that hold both fragility and light.

Layering is an act of trust. Each petal rests upon another, not stitched into place but allowed to belong. Grief, too, arrives this way. In layers. In transparency. In quiet weight. And when given space, it becomes something luminous rather than something heavy.

We live in a world that rushes grief. That expects resilience without ritual.

This book slows that down.

It says:
Your story is not an inconvenience.
Your memory is not clutter.
Your longing is not weakness.

It is part of who you are becoming.

The Why Beneath the Why

If I am honest, this book is also a love letter.

To my mother, who taught me to create with whatever was in reach.
To my father, who handed me that saddle bag with a grin that said history still matters.
To Brian, who taught me that presence is the greatest gift we can give.
To Jim, who has stood beside me through interviews, edits, and printing setbacks.
To every person who trusted me with their story.

And perhaps quietly, to myself.

Because writing this required courage.
It required patience.
It required trusting that I, too, am still becoming.

This is not just a coffee table book.

It is a record of what happens when women refuse to throw away what still holds love … and instead allow it to shape who they are next.

Why Preorder Matters

Today, as preorders open, you are not simply purchasing a book.

You are saying yes to preserving stories.
You are supporting art born from sustainability and reverence.
You are honoring the sacred work of becoming.

This first edition marks the beginning.

If this book speaks to you …
If you have ever kept something because letting it go felt like losing someone twice …
If you sense that grief and growth can live in the same space …

I would be honored to have you join me at the beginning of this journey.

Preorders are officially open today.

Thank you for witnessing this becoming with me.

Rocking Toward Bliss

Rebloom Retreat May 2025

I recently watched a short contemplation about the Fire Horse, the Chinese New Year … a reflection on pace, intensity, and the way life can surge forward if we let it. I expected insight. Something philosophical, perhaps. Instead, what arrived was stillness … not what comes because everything outside has gone quiet, but the quiet that finds its way inward after a season of constant motion, the one that feels familiar, almost like coming home.

Over the past year, my rhythm changed without asking my permission. A traumatic moment, my father’s heart attack, shifted something deep inside me. Life tapped my shoulder and whispered, slow down. I didn’t respond immediately, and certainly not perfectly, but eventually I softened into a different tempo.

I began paying attention to what truly mattered.
Not how much information I could gather,
but the wisdom already living within me.

After watching that contemplation, a memory surfaced … or maybe more accurately, a story I’ve heard so many times it feels like memory. I could see myself on my childhood rocking horse, leaning forward with each push, the motion growing bigger and bolder. My father used to laugh when he told it, saying I would giggle louder and louder with every forward swing. He also admitted it made them nervous; they were certain I’d tip it over or fall at any moment.

I never did.

What stayed with him was the joy.
What stayed with me, apparently, was the motion.

There’s something almost poetic in that: the early love of rhythm, the forward pull, the sense of becoming one with the movement rather than trying to control it. I sometimes wonder if that was the beginning of my affection for horses, not just the horses themselves, but the feeling they carry. Even now, being near a horse brings an unmistakable calm over me. Their quiet strength, their steady breath, the way they respond to energy rather than noise … it all feels familiar. Perhaps that gentle rocking back and forth planted something deeper than anyone realized … a comfort with motion, a trust in momentum, a partnership with movement rather than resistance to it.

Riding with Jim on our honeymoon 2014 … a Horse year.

I was born in 1966, a Horse year. It’s the same era that carried the spirit of the Summer of Love, innovation, and cultural change. There’s poetry in that timing. A life that began in a season of collective acceleration now finding deep appeal in the quiet center between breaths. The world galloped forward, and here I am, discovering the grace of a gentle rock instead.

These days, my work feels simmered rather than rushed.
Ideas unfold instead of being chased.

I feel less drawn to cramming knowledge into already full spaces and more drawn to listening, really listening, for understanding. One fills shelves. The other fills the soul.

Cumberland Island 2022

Bliss, I am discovering, isn’t a burst of fireworks or a grand arrival.
It is a rocking motion.
A returning.
A recognition of the wisdom that has been present all along, simply waiting for room to speak.

Physically, mentally, spiritually, this season of life feels less like a race and more like a rhythm. The world still moves quickly, but I no longer feel compelled to match its speed. There is a certain freedom in trusting my own pace, in allowing insight to rise naturally instead of forcing it to appear.

I think of that rocking motion often now … the forward tilt, the backward return, the gentle certainty of movement without urgency. Somewhere along the way I realized that bliss isn’t always found by galloping ahead. Sometimes it is found in the quiet back-and-forth, in the simple act of slowing enough to hear the wisdom that has been within me all along.

Pensacola 2022

Behind the Pages: When Publishing Isn’t Perfect

There is a quiet myth about publishing that I am now learning.

It goes something like this:
You finish writing.
You upload the files.
A pristine proof arrives.
You exhale.
The book is born.

Reality, however, is far more human.

This week, another proof arrived for my book. I opened the package with the same flutter of excitement I’ve felt every time … that mix of anticipation and reverence that comes from holding months, sometimes years, of thought, memory, and effort in physical form.

And once again … there were issues.

Not something we missed.
Not the sort that comes from missed edits or overlooked margins.
But technical hiccups. Formatting quirks. Small misalignments that ripple across pages like tiny pebbles tossed into still water.

Houston, we have a trim problem!

For a moment, frustration knocked at the door.

I let it in just long enough to acknowledge it, then I remembered something important: publishing is not a straight line. It is a spiral. A return. A refinement. A conversation between vision and execution.

The proof stage is not a failure.
It is a collaboration.

It is where the book quietly asks, “Are we ready yet?”
And sometimes the honest answer is, “Almost.”

There is something deeply humbling about seeing your work in this unfinished state. It reminds me that creation is rarely glamorous. It is iterative. Layered. Patient. A little messy. Very alive.

There is an alignment issue on their end … all of our photo pages have an unintended gap :(

I think many of us imagine that artists and authors reach a point where everything flows without friction. The truth is: friction is part of the process. It polishes the final piece. It slows us just enough to notice what matters.

This week’s lesson wasn’t about perfection.
It was about persistence.

Each proof, each correction, each unexpected delay is not a step backward. It is a step toward clarity, toward honoring the work enough to let it become what it is meant to be, instead of rushing it out the door just to say it’s done, and frankly I, we, have worked to hard just to put it out there.

If you are creating something right now … a book, a business, a painting, or even a new version of yourself … and it isn’t unfolding in a straight, smooth line, take heart.

Progress sometimes looks like pause.
Refinement sometimes looks like repetition.
And becoming often asks for more patience than we planned to give.

This week, emails have been sent about print quality.
Questions have been asked.
Adjustments are in motion.

So … we wait.

But it is a different kind of waiting now … not the waiting of uncertainty, but the waiting of almost. The kind where you can feel the finish line just ahead, even if you cannot quite step across it yet.

We are so much closer than we were yesterday.
So much closer than last month.
And each small correction brings this book one step nearer to the hands and hearts for whom it was written.

Stay tuned.
The story is still unfolding … and I cannot wait to share it with you when the pages finally land exactly as they are meant to.

Almost is not failure. Almost is the doorway to refinement.

If you’re on your own creative journey, I’d love to hear what you’re bringing to life this season.

The Quiet of Snow

Snow changes a place without asking permission.
It does not arrive to impress or announce itself. It comes quietly, almost apologetically, and yet everything bends in response.

When snow begins to fall, the world seems to enter into a quiet agreement. The usual edges soften. Distance shortens. Sound retreats, as if it has been gently called home. Even time loosens its grip, no longer demanding progress or productivity, only presence.

Snow has a way of revealing how loud life has become.

What we notice first is not the cold, but the hush. The way familiar spaces feel altered without being rearranged. The way the air itself seems to listen. There is less urgency in movement, less insistence in thought. The world feels briefly unburdened of explanation.

There is something deeply invitational about snow. Not an invitation to retreat, but to reverence. To step more slowly. To pay attention to what remains when the noise pulls back.

We move differently when snow is present. Our steps shorten. Our bodies grow more aware. We notice the way breath gathers in the chest, the way cold sharpens the senses, the way quiet settles not just outside us, but within.

And in that stillness, something ancient remembers how to speak.

And when we pass through it, we leave very little behind.

A set of tracks.
A soft disruption.
The only evidence that someone was here at all.

Snow holds the memory of its travelers without commentary. It does not name them. It does not keep score. It simply bears witness, until even that disappears.

The Quiet of Snow

Snow does not arrive with announcements.
It comes like a held breath.

The world softens first.
Edges blur.
Sound learns how to whisper.

Footsteps become careful,
as if the earth itself is resting
and we are guests passing through
a sacred room.

Our tracks are the only witnesses,
brief signatures written in white,
gone almost as soon as they appear.

Snow quiets what has been loud for too long.
It settles arguments,
pauses momentum,
smooths the sharp corners of thought.

There is a kind of mercy in it.
A reminder that nothing needs fixing right now.
Nothing needs explaining.

Under snow,
everything is allowed to be unfinished.

The fields rest.
The branches bow.
The ground receives what it has been waiting for.

Snow teaches us that stillness is not empty.
It is full of listening.

The Quiet Leaves a Trace

When the snow melts, the world will rush back in. It always does. The noise, the pace, the expectations return as if nothing happened. Roads clear. Schedules resume. The hush lifts.

But something has happened.

The quiet leaves a trace, even after the evidence disappears. Long after the tracks are gone, the body remembers what it felt like to walk more gently. To leave less behind. To move through the world without needing to announce itself.

Snow reminds us that not all presence requires permanence. Some moments are meant to pass through us, not stay. Some truths only arrive when there is nothing competing for our attention.

Even after the snow recedes, the earth remembers who crossed it.
And perhaps, so do we.

Snow doesn’t ask us to explain what we felt while standing in it.
It simply asks whether we noticed.

If this piece stirred something quiet for you, you’re welcome to leave a trace here.
Not a conclusion. Not a performance.
Just a small mark of having passed through.

What did the quiet of snow reveal to you?

Snow has a way of softening the world without asking anything in return. This week’s blog isn’t about winter or weather, really. It’s about what happens when sound steps back and presence steps forward. If you’re craving a few quiet moments, I left a path open for you here.
Read when the world feels loud.

Not for the Faint of Heart (That’s How I Knew It Mattered)

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
— Anaïs Nin

I submitted my book this week … and I realized something I didn’t expect to feel so deeply:

This wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Not mine.
Not anyone’s.

Because submitting a book isn’t just uploading files and clicking a button. It’s not simply “done.” It’s not a tidy finish line with confetti and a clean exhale.

It’s a threshold.

It’s standing in the doorway of something you made with your own hands and your own history, holding it out into the world, and realizing … this is real now.

And suddenly, it hits you.

This isn’t just a project.
This is a piece of your life.

The truth is … I felt exposed.

I don’t mean in a dramatic way. I mean in a quiet, honest way.

Like the kind of vulnerability that doesn’t announce itself.
It just shows up in your body.

A tight chest.
A lump in your throat.
A long stare at the screen.

Because when you’ve poured yourself into something that carries memory, grief, legacy, love, and the type of healing you can’t always explain … you don’t hit “submit” and skip away like it’s nothing.

You hit submit and realize you’ve offered your heart in public.

And for a moment, you wonder if you should pull it back.

But here’s what I know now:

If it scares me to share it, that’s usually the part someone needs most.

Not the polished part.
Not the perfect part.
Not the “look how productive I’ve been” part.

The real part.

The part that cost me something.
The part that required tenderness.
The part that asked me to be brave in a way that had nothing to do with confidence.

Because confidence is loud.

But courage … courage is often quiet.

Courage looks like showing up even when your voice shakes.
Courage looks like creating anyway.
Courage looks like saying, “This matters,” even when you’re not sure who will understand it.

This book asked more of me than I expected.

I knew Tattered & Mended would be meaningful. I knew it would be personal.

But I don’t think I fully realized how much it would ask of me until I reached this moment.

Because the stories inside it aren’t just words on paper. They are lived. They are carried.

They hold the ache of missing someone.
The strange holiness of keeping what remains.
The way grief lives in the fabric of ordinary things.

And they hold something else too:

The beauty of transformation.

The way a piece of cloth can become a keepsake.
The way a garment can become a story.
The way a woman can become herself again, one stitch at a time.

The fear didn’t mean I was doing it wrong.

This week reminded me that fear isn’t always a warning sign.

Sometimes fear is simply the nervous system recognizing:

“This is big.”
“This is sacred.”
“This is new.”

Sometimes fear is the cost of stepping into visibility.

Sometimes it’s the price of letting something private become shared.

And sometimes it’s proof that what you’re doing has weight, and meaning, and a pulse.

Not for the faint of heart… but for the willing.

For the ones who have lived through hard things and still believe in beauty.

For the ones who are learning how to carry love and loss in the same hands.

For the ones who are tired of rushing past their own feelings.

For the ones who want to make something meaningful out of what remains.

This is what I keep coming back to:

The things that matter most rarely come easy. They come honest.

And maybe that’s the whole point.

A gentle reflection for you (if you’re in a brave season too)

If you’ve ever stood at the edge of something you created … and felt that same tender fear, I want to ask you this:

What are you holding back because it matters so much?
And what might happen if you let it be seen anyway?

Because maybe the trembling doesn’t mean you’re not ready.

Maybe it means you’re standing in the exact place where growth begins.

And maybe, just maybe …

Not being faint of heart is simply another way of saying: You’re alive. You’re healing. You’re becoming.

“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen …”
— Brené Brown

What’s one brave thing you’ve done recently that didn’t feel “easy” … but felt true?

Tattered & Mended: The Story Behind the Story

Apron I made for my mother when I was twelve.

There are some projects you choose …
and then there are the ones that choose you.

Tattered and Mended didn’t begin with a business plan or a publishing checklist. It began the way so much healing begins, quietly. In the background. In the soft places of life where grief lives, where love lingers, and where the heart keeps reaching for something it can hold.

For a long time, I thought I was simply making art.

But somewhere in the process, I realized I was doing something deeper.

I was learning how to hold what remains.

Because when we lose someone we love, the world doesn’t just feel different, it is different. And yet … their presence doesn’t disappear. It changes form. It becomes memory. It becomes scent and sound. It becomes certain songs you can’t hear without tearing up. It becomes a kitchen chair you still glance toward. It becomes the way your hands still reach for them in the dark.

And sometimes, it becomes fabric.

A denim jacket that still smells like home.
A flannel shirt that once held a heartbeat.
A stack of quilts folded carefully and put away because the idea of using them feels like erasing something sacred.

If you’ve ever held onto something like that, you already understand the beginning of this book.

The Why

I’m writing Tattered and Mended because I believe we all carry stories, and many of them are stitched into the things we keep.

This book is about grief, yes.
But it’s also about love and legacy.

It’s about the way love doesn’t end, it transforms.
It changes shape.
It asks for a new language.

And for me, that language has often been made of thread and needle, paint and paper, scent and warmth, texture and time.

I’ve come to understand something that surprised me:

Mending isn’t what I do.
It’s who I’ve become.

Because mending is not just repairing what was torn.
It’s learning how to live again.
It’s learning how to carry what hurts without hardening.
It’s making something beautiful without pretending the broken parts never happened.

The Process (The Part People Don’t Always See)

The process of creating this book has been equal parts art and reverence.

Each story begins with a woman, a man, a life, a loss … and a handful of pieces that mattered. Sometimes those pieces come from a cedar chest. Sometimes from a closet that hasn’t been opened in years. Sometimes from a box that has traveled through multiple moves because no one could bear to let it go.

And then we begin.

I listened.
I asked questions.
I learned who the person was, what they loved, what they wore, what they carried, what made them laugh, what made them who they were.

Then I began to create.

Not to replace what’s gone, because nothing can do that.

But to honor it.

To shape something wearable, repurposed, and tangible that says:

I see you.
You’re not broken.
You’re becoming.

Sometimes the sewing is the easy part.
Sometimes the hardest part is simply holding the weight of the story with tenderness and care.

There are moments I sit down to sew, and what I really end up doing is remembering.

There are moments the fabric feels like a doorway, and I have to pause and breathe before I step through … a threshold.

And there are moments when I realize the most sacred part of this work is not the keepsake itself, but what happens in the person receiving it.

Because it isn’t just clothing.

It’s a continuation.

It’s a way of saying:
Love still lives here.

What This Book Is Really About

On the surface, Tattered and Mended is about up-cycled garments or keepsakes created from cherished relics.

But underneath, it’s about something more timeless.

It’s about how we carry legacy.
How we hold memory in our hands.
How we make meaning from what remains.
How we keep going, even after the unthinkable.

It’s about the courage it takes to let grief transform you instead of closing you down.

And it’s about creativity as a holy act, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s honest.

Because there is something deeply human, deeply sacred, about taking what was torn and saying:

I will not waste this.

I will make something from it.

I will let it become part of my healing.

Why I’m Sharing This Now

I’m sharing this now because I’m still in the middle of it.

I’ve created.
I’ve listened.

I’ve gathered stories and shaped them into something worthy of the people they represent. And I think there’s something powerful about letting you witness the process, not just the finished product.

We live in a world that celebrates the “after.”
The polished.
The final reveal.

But I’ve learned that the most meaningful parts of becoming happen in the “during.”

The quiet.
The in-between.
The slow stitching of a life being rebuilt.

And that’s where I am.

A Gentle Invitation

If you’ve ever loved someone deeply and didn’t know what to do with the love after they were gone … this book is for you.

If you’ve ever kept a shirt, a scarf, a quilt, a jacket, not because it was valuable, but because it held them … this book is for you.

And if you’re in a season where you are learning to mend, not just fabric, but your own heart … I hope you’ll stay close.

I’ll be sharing more behind the scenes as Tattered and Mended continues to unfold, story by story, stitch by stitch, arrangement by arrangement.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for witnessing.

And thank you for believing, as I do, that what’s been torn can still become beautiful.

Closing Blessing

May what we’ve lost become what we carry with tenderness.
May what we mend become what heals us too.
And may every thread of love find its way forward.

Rewriting Urgency: Choosing Ease

Pausing to admire the view, part of the Asheville skyline

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”
— Mary Oliver

The conversation that sparked this reflection didn’t happen in a rush.

It unfolded during a weekend workshop I attended in Asheville, in one of those in-between moments. It was during instruction, and we discussed it more in-depth during group discussion. It showed up in the pause that followed, when the room grew quiet and no one hurried to fill the space.

We had been talking about urgency. ASAP … as soon as possible …about how quickly we move to respond, to decide, to act. About how often speed is mistaken for clarity.

Then, in the stillness, someone offered a simple observation. It wasn’t framed as advice or teaching. Just something noticed and gently shared.

If we can stay in the pause long enough, and truly listen to the quiet, what we’re seeking often reveals itself.

No one rushed to respond. The room held it. And in that holding, something softened.

That thought stayed with me on the ride home as this weekend ended. Not as something to do, but as something to notice. A reminder that attention, not acceleration, is often what brings us back into alignment. That so much of what we chase through urgency might already be present, waiting not for effort, but for listening.

For a long time, urgency wore a convincing costume.

It sounded responsible.
It looked productive.
It promised that if I just moved faster, tried harder, pushed a little more, everything would fall into place.

ASAP became the quiet drumbeat beneath my days.
As soon as possible.
As fast as possible.
As much as possible.

What urgency rarely asks is whether the pace is sustainable, or humane, or even true.

Urgency is not the same as importance.
Urgency is not the same as devotion.
Urgency is often fear in a well-tailored suit.

The Subtle Cost of Urgency

Urgency compresses time.
It tightens the body.
It pulls us out of presence and into performance.

When urgency leads, listening becomes secondary.
Rest becomes negotiable.
Joy becomes optional.

Over time, urgency trains us to believe that ease is laziness and that slowness is failure. It teaches us to abandon ourselves just to keep up with an invisible clock.

And yet, so much of what matters most cannot be rushed.

Grief does not obey deadlines.
Healing does not respond to pressure.
Creativity refuses coercion.
Love unfolds on its own calendar.

Ease Is Not the Enemy of Progress

Ease has been misunderstood.

Ease is not giving up.
Ease is not apathy.
Ease is not doing nothing.

Ease is the right effort.
Ease is alignment.
Ease is movement that does not require self-betrayal.

When ease is present, the nervous system stays open. The body stays available. The work becomes a conversation instead of a command.

Ease allows wisdom to enter the room.

From Attention to Action, Gently

What that quiet moment in Asheville reminded me is this: attention shapes pace.

When we pay attention, we naturally move differently. We stop forcing timing and start trusting rhythm. And from that place, even our language begins to change.

That’s where my relationship with ASAP began to shift.

Reframing ASAP

After our discussion, I began to rewrite the meaning of ASAP in my journal. Not as a rejection of momentum, but as a reclamation of how momentum feels.

Here are a few new translations that were shared, and a few that came to mind:

• ASAP: As Softly As Possible

• ASAP: As Sustainable As Possible

• ASAP: At a Steady, Attuned Pace

• ASAP: As Supported As Possible

• ASAP: At the Speed of Presence

None of these eliminate forward motion.
They simply refuse harm as a requirement.

My favorite became this:

As Supported As Possible, Without Leaving Myself Behind

The Body Knows the Difference

The body can feel the difference between urgency and ease immediately.

Urgency is shallow breath.
Ease is a fuller inhale.

Urgency narrows vision.
Ease widens the field.

Urgency asks, “How fast can I get there?”
Ease asks, “Can I arrive intact?”

When we choose ease, we do not abandon responsibility. We abandon unnecessary strain.

A Different Kind of Discipline

There is discipline in urgency, yes.
But there is also discipline in restraint.

It takes practice to pause.
It takes courage to slow down in a culture that equates speed with worth.
It takes trust to believe that what is meant for you will not disappear if you move with care.

Ease is not passive.
Ease is deeply intentional.

It is the discipline of listening before acting.
Of choosing rhythm over force.
Of allowing life to meet you halfway.

Pausing before I paint

Closing

This past weekend’s workshop didn’t offer answers. It offered space.

And in that space, I was reminded that what I’m seeking rarely responds to pressure. It responds to presence.

Nothing meaningful blooms on demand.
Presence is not a delay.
Gentle is still forward.

And maybe ASAP was never asking us to hurry at all.

Maybe it was inviting us to move
as softly as possible.

An Invitation

If you find yourself living under the constant pressure of “now” and “faster” and “already late,” consider this a gentle invitation.

You are allowed to move at the pace of truth.
You are allowed to take up time.
You are allowed to choose ease and still be devoted, committed, and productive.

And maybe, just maybe, ASAP can mean something entirely new now.

Ode to 2025

A Year Lived Fully, Even When It Didn’t Go as Planned

“Becoming is not about arriving somewhere new.
It is about remembering what has always been true.”

2025 asked a lot of me.
Not in loud, triumphant ways, but in the quiet endurance of showing up again and again, even when the path bent, stalled, or disappeared altogether.

So much of this year was held together with emails. Long ones. Tender ones. Updates written from hospital rooms, hotel rooms, and kitchen tables. Messages sent to keep people in the loop when my own life felt anything but linear.

When Life Reorders the Calendar

Early in the year, my dad’s health shifted everything. Multiple hospitalizations, cardiac arrest, and a long road to regaining his health. The chaotic feeling of no control, wishing that you stop time and reorder priorities without asking permission. Days were measured in waiting rooms and test results. Gratitude became very specific: another day, another conversation, another chance to sit across from him and laugh.

We are, once again, borrowing time.
And I do not take that lightly.

Devotion, Disappointment, and the Page

Creatively, this was a year of connection and devotion.
And yes, also disappointment.

I wrote. Fully. Faithfully. I stopped circling the work and stepped into it. I embraced writing not as something I fit in, but as something I showed up for. I became consistent. I kept my word to myself.

My book did not get published as I had planned. My retreat I had planned, cancelled. That truth still carries weight. But the work itself mattered. The pages mattered. The voice that formed and strengthened through repetition mattered. Sometimes the harvest isn’t visible yet, but the roots are undeniable. Timing … divine timing.

Holding Space and Telling the Truth

In 2025, I became a curator for The Turquoise Iris Journal, a role that stretched me and grounded me all at once. Holding space for other women’s stories while continuing to honor my own felt like a full-circle moment.

I also spoke publicly about my story among my peers, something that once would have felt impossible. I didn’t polish it. I told the truth. And in doing so, connection happened.

Out of that shared courage, I became part of a YouTube documentary with 13 other women, centered on The Art of Becoming. Standing alongside other creatives and storytellers, each naming our own unfolding in real time, was both humbling and affirming. It reminded me that becoming is not a destination. It’s a lived practice.

On the Road and On the Return

Travel became a teacher this year.
Madison Indiana, Chicago … Edgerton Wisconsin, Colorado Springs, Sedona, and back to Madison Indiana again. Each held a different lesson.

Some trips were about work.
Some were about rest.
Some were about remembering who I am when I’m not rushing.

Returning to Sedona felt less like a trip and more like a pilgrimage. A coming back to something ancient, steady, and familiar in my bones. Certain places don’t just welcome you, they recognize you.

Community, Craft, and Capacity

Friendships deepened. Some were forged on the road, others strengthened through shared meals, long walks, and honest conversations. A few fell away quietly, without drama, simply because seasons change. I learned again that not every connection is meant to last forever, but every one leaves an imprint.

There were shows. Some exhilarating. Some exhausting. Some that confirmed I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, and others that reminded me what no longer fits. I learned more about pacing, capacity, and honoring my energy. I met amazing people, and new opportunities.

I completed certifications this year. That matters. Even when outward momentum felt slow, inwardly I was becoming more rooted, more skilled, more sure.

I also faced the truth about goals. Some were met. Some were exceeded in unexpected ways. Others simply didn’t happen. Not because I failed, but because life intervened, priorities shifted, or timing wasn’t right.

A goal unmet is not a moral failure.
It’s information. I took note.

What This Year Was Really About

What stands out most, looking back, is connection.

2025 was about connection.
To family. To friends. To community. To my own voice. To the work itself.

And beneath all of it, I felt guidance. Quiet. Steady. Unseen, yet unmistakable. A presence that nudged, reassured, and reminded me when to pause and when to proceed. I am deeply mindful of that blessing.

Looking Ahead with Joy

And now… I feel excited.

As I look toward 2026, I do so with anticipation and clarity. This is a year I will align with my goals, beginning in March, with intention and momentum. It is also a milestone year for me understanding that it will mark 60 trips around the sun for this lady. I hold that with joy, reverence, and gratitude. Not everyone is granted this many revolutions.

I feel ready. Energized. Rooted and curious all at once.

I’m welcoming the rest of winter as a season of preparation and imagination, knowing that the work taking shape now will bloom in beautiful ways come spring.

A Thought to Carry Forward

You don’t have to rush the beginning.
Some of the most meaningful work starts quietly, beneath the surface.

And I’m curious about you.

Do you begin your year right away, mapping work and goals by the calendar?
Or do you ease into it, letting winter finish its work before you hit the ground running in spring?

I’m firmly in the second camp.

Here’s to 2026.
To alignment. To creativity. To courage.
To becoming, again and again.

Thank you for rooting for me.
Thank you for following along.

At the Turning of the Year: What We Carry Forward

There is a quiet that arrives at the end of a year.

Not the hush of everything being finished, but the softer stillness of something listening. The calendar turns, yes, but the soul lingers. It asks different questions than the ones we started with.

What did this year shape in me?
What did it loosen?
What am I still holding, even as the season asks me to open my hands?

As this year draws to a close, I’ve found myself less interested in resolutions and more drawn to remembrance. Not the polished highlight reel, but the honest remembering. The moments that taught me something. The ones that asked me to slow down. The places where grace met me quietly, sometimes without announcement.

The Year Didn’t Go as Planned … and Still, It Was Good

If I’m being honest, this year didn’t unfold the way I imagined when it began. Some doors opened later than expected. Some stayed closed. Some plans softened into something else entirely.

And yet, when I look back with gentler eyes, I can see how much was still at work beneath the surface.

There were lessons in patience.
In tending what is already here.
In trusting that fruit can grow underground long before it shows itself.

Scripture reminds us that “to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, NKJV). This year may not have been a season of arrival for everyone, but it was very much a season of preparing, rooting, and becoming.

What I’m Choosing to Carry Forward

As I reflect, there are a few things I know I want to take with me into the coming year:

• A deeper commitment to presence over productivity

• A softer relationship with time

• The courage to keep creating, even when the path isn’t fully visible

• The reminder that rest is not a reward, but a rhythm

I’m also choosing to carry forward gratitude. Not forced, but genuine gratitude for the people who showed up. For the work that continues to evolve. For the small moments that felt like quiet blessings along the way.

What I’m Gently Releasing

Just as important as what we carry is what we lay down.

I’m releasing the pressure to have everything figured out.
The need to explain every step.
The belief that growth must always be loud or fast to be meaningful.

There is a freedom in allowing the year to end without rushing to name the next one. Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is simply trust the turning.

A Moment for You

Before the year slips fully into memory, I invite you to pause for a moment too.

You might reflect on these questions:

• What did this year teach you about yourself?

• Where did you notice unexpected grace?

• What are you ready to release as you step forward?

• What feels quietly hopeful right now?

You don’t need perfect answers. Just honesty.

Looking Ahead, With an Open Heart

As we step into a new year, my hope for you is not that everything becomes easier, but that you feel more anchored. More connected. More willing to trust the unfolding.

May you enter the next season with curiosity instead of pressure.
With faith instead of fear.
With room for both intention and mystery.

Thank you for being here, for reading, for walking alongside me in this shared space of reflection and becoming. I’m grateful for this community, and I look forward to what we’ll create, explore, and hold together in the year ahead.

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”
— Numbers 6:24–26 (NKJV)

Thought to Carry

As this year closes, remember this:
you are not behind.
You are becoming.

What feels unfinished may simply be waiting for the right season to bloom. Carry forward what has rooted you, release what has asked too much of you, and trust that the work of becoming continues—even in the quiet.

“Where we stand determines what we see, and what we see determines what we do next.”
— Parker J. Palmer

The Day After the Solstice

The Solstice came and went quietly yesterday.

No fireworks.
No dramatic shift.
Just the steady turning that has been happening all along.

I always feel something settle in the day after. A soft exhale. As if the year itself pauses long enough to say, you made it here. The longest night is behind us now, and even if we can’t quite feel it yet, the light has begun its return.

This day has become one I treasure. Not for what it announces, but for what it allows.

Looking Back, Gently

I’ll be honest. December has always been a hard month for me.

It carries memory, absence, and the weight of years layered one on top of another. There are moments when the season feels tender in ways that are difficult to name. For a long time, I thought I had to push through that discomfort, to move past it quickly.

This practice has taught me something different.

Honoring the Solstice has given me permission to embrace my feelings, whatever they are. Not to fix them. Not to explain them. Just to let them be present alongside the beauty of the season.

When Beauty and Tenderness Share the Same Space

There are moments when it all comes together in the most unexpected ways.

Like standing in a room on a Solstice night, listening to children sing beautiful Christmas songs, their voices clear and unguarded, surrounded by people you love and cherish. In moments like that, the heaviness softens. The beauty doesn’t erase the ache, but it sits beside it, offering warmth.

Those moments remind me that joy doesn’t require the absence of sorrow. They can exist together, quietly holding hands.

A Year That Unfolded Differently

This year did not begin the way I thought it would.

There were early days filled with uncertainty. Plans shifted. Expectations unraveled. At times, the path ahead felt unclear, and not in a poetic way.

And yet, as this year comes to a close, I can say this with a grateful heart: it has wrapped itself up in ways I could not have imagined.

I have been blessed by our Creator in ways I could not have seen arriving. Through people, conversations, opportunities, and moments that revealed themselves only once I was already walking forward. Looking back, I can see how grace met me along the way, not always where I expected it, but always right on time.

Blessing, in Both Directions

One of the gifts this season has reminded me of is this: when you are able to bless another person, you are often being blessed as well.

There have been moments when a simple conversation, a shared tear, or an unexpected embrace revealed that I had crossed paths with someone in the middle of a struggle I knew nothing about. In those moments, it becomes clear that you may have been part of an answered prayer without even realizing it.

Sometimes, the embrace afterward is all that’s needed. No words. No fixing. Just presence.

I no longer question why I meet people. I trust now that there is always a plan, a rhyme, a reason. And sometimes, that reason is simply to remind us of the goodness of God, made visible through one another.

Intention Without Expectation

As I look toward 2026, I do so with hope, but without demands.

Much like when I travel for shows, I carry a simple expectation: I will meet cool people, and I will enjoy my time, however it unfolds.

That way of moving has changed me. There is freedom in being intentional without being attached to outcome. In showing up open-handed. In trusting that blessings will meet us along the path as we are traveling through it.

The Quiet Work of Winter

Winter invites us into a slower, deeper kind of work.

It is the work of reflection, rest, and discernment. Of choosing what to carry forward and what can finally be laid down. It may not look productive from the outside, but it is deeply formative.

This is where roots strengthen.
Where vision clarifies.
Where the heart steadies.

An Invitation for Today

If you’re reading this today, the day after the Solstice, I invite you to pause for just a moment.

Light a candle.
Take a breath that reaches all the way down.
And ask yourself gently:

What am I allowing myself to feel right now?
Where have I noticed beauty or blessing meeting me, even unexpectedly?

There is no rush for answers.

A Thought to Carry

As you move through the days ahead, notice where the light is already returning in your own life. Not all at once, not loudly, but quietly and faithfully. Let this season be an invitation to honor where you are, trust what is unfolding, and remain open to the blessings that meet you along the way.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
— Madeleine L’Engle

“Weeping may endure for a night,
But joy comes in the morning.” —Psalm 30:5 (NKJV)

A Wintering of the Heart

There are seasons that arrive gently, like a familiar song, and then there are seasons like winter … quieter, heavier, carrying memory in both hands.

Each year, this time marks itself in my body and heart. It is the season when people I deeply love made their journey home. Their absence becomes more pronounced against the stillness. Their names surface more easily. Their stories drift through my days like breath on cold glass.

Winter asks me to remember.
And remembering asks me to feel.

Grief has its own weather, and for me, it often settles in during these colder months.

Over time, I’ve learned that this season will always hold a certain ache. What has changed is how I meet it. I no longer try to outrun the sorrow or rush myself toward “better.” Instead, I have learned to live beside it, to make room for it, while still tending to my own wholeness.

This is not resignation.
This is devotion.

Learning to Live Without Physical Presence

When people you love leave this world during winter, the season itself becomes marked.
Certain dates carry more weight.
Certain rooms feel quieter.
Certain traditions ache in ways they never did before.

Loss reshapes the landscape of our lives. It requires adjustment, not just emotionally, but practically, spiritually, creatively. We learn how to walk through the world again, carrying love without bodies, memories without voices, presence without proximity.

But I have come to believe this: love does not disappear when physical presence does. It simply changes form.

The people I have lost are no longer beside me in the ways they once were, but they are woven into who I am becoming. They are present in my work, my art, my pauses, my prayers, and the way I tend to others. Their lives continue to inform mine … quietly, steadily, faithfully.

Practicing the Work I Teach

This winter, I find myself returning again and again to the practices that have carried me through grief and toward wholeness. Not as concepts. Not as theory. But as lived experience.

I am practicing the work I plan to teach.

I light candles at dusk, not as decoration, but as a ritual of returning, a reminder that light is never fully lost, even in the shortest days.

I sit at my quiet table and write a few words, touch color, arrange objects, tend beauty. Creativity has become one of my most faithful healing companions … a way to speak when language feels thin.

I warm my body intentionally. Baths. Oils. Soft fabrics. Slower mornings. These are not indulgences; they are acts of self-respect. Ways of telling my nervous system that it is safe to rest.

I walk outside, even when the air is cold, letting nature mirror what I’m learning: that stillness holds life, that dormancy is not absence, that something is always preparing beneath the surface.

I practice sound, breath, stillness, and presence, not only for those I serve, but for myself. These practices are not something I step into when I teach; they are the way I move through my days.

Becoming a Living Visual of Self-Care

Somewhere along the way, I realized that the most honest teaching comes from embodiment. Not from perfection, but from presence.

If I am to guide others toward wholeness, I must first be willing to walk the path myself, in real time, with my own tenderness fully included.

This season, I am choosing to be a living visual of self-care.
Not polished.
Not immune to grief.
But attentive, grounded, and honest.

I am learning that wholeness does not mean the absence of sorrow. It means tending to myself while carrying it. It means allowing grief and love to share the same space without trying to force one out.

Integrity is built quietly, in the moments no one sees. In the way I rest. In the boundaries I keep. In the compassion I extend toward myself when old waves return.

Winter is teaching me how to slow down enough to listen.

A Season of Remembering and Renewal

As I move through this winter, I hold two truths at once. I grieve what I have lost. And I honor what is still growing.

This season will always be tender for me. But it is also a season of deepening … a time when my roots are strengthened, my practices refined, and my sense of purpose clarified.

Grief lives here.
So does love.
So does creativity.
So does healing.

This is my wintering of the heart … a season of remembering those who shaped me, practicing the care that sustains me, and learning, again and again, how to live fully in the presence of both loss and love.

As this winter unfolds, I am learning to let tenderness be a teacher rather than something to overcome. I am allowing myself to move at the pace my heart requires, trusting that wholeness is not something I must achieve, but something I practice, moment by moment, breath by breath.

This season may always carry grief for me. But it also carries devotion to the life I am living now, to the love that remains, and to the care that allows me to stay present to both. Winter is no longer just something to endure. It has become a place where I listen more closely, rest more honestly, and tend the parts of myself that ask to be held.

A Thought to Carry

Wholeness is not the absence of ache, but the way I tend to myself while walking with it. Each gentle act becomes a lantern, lighting the path back home to my own heart.

Winter reminds me that grief and renewal often arrive together. That even in the quietest season, something within us is listening, learning, and preparing to rise again.

If you find yourself struggling in this season too, know this: you are not broken for feeling deeply. You are human. And even here, especially here, there is room for gentleness, for rest, and for renewal.

If this time of year is tender for you too, I hope you allow yourself the same grace. To slow down. To rest. To practice care in ways that feel simple and sustaining. You don’t have to rush your healing or explain your sorrow. There is room here for remembering, for mending, and for becoming whole in your own time.

“I am learning that grief and grace can share the same room within me.” —PC

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” —Psalm 147:3 (NKJV)

Borrowed People

Borrowed (adj.): Something taken or received for a limited time with the understanding that it must be returned, often with care, gratitude, or improvement.

A Reflection on the Sacred Temporariness of Our Lives

I was inspired by something I read recently, a simple line about borrowed people, and it caught me in that quiet place behind the ribs where truth often settles long before we have words for it. The idea was tender, almost fragile: that every person in our life is borrowed.

No one belongs to us, and we do not belong to anyone else. We are entrusted to one another for a little while, held lightly by time, shaped by presence, and then ushered forward into whatever comes next.

The more I sat with it, the more I realized how deeply this idea speaks to the way I love, the way I grieve, the way I create, and the way certain people live forever in my work long after their physical presence is gone.

This isn’t a lesson in loss.
It’s a lesson in reverence.
It invites us to cherish the sacred temporariness of our lives.

The Ones Who Stay and the Ones Who Visit

Some people thread themselves into our story so completely that their colors become woven into the fabric of who we are. These long-haul hearts are the companions and witnesses who stay across seasons, holding space through winters and summers alike.

Others appear for only a short moment … a conversation, a kindness, a shared breath of understanding … and somehow, they change the shape of our inner landscape. They remind us that meaning doesn’t require permanence; it requires presence.

Sometimes the briefest encounters carry the deepest lessons.

Returning What We Borrow Better Than We Received It

There’s an old saying I’ve heard all my life:
“When you borrow something, you return it better than you received it.”

And suddenly, this wisdom feels like a compass for how to love people well while they are given to us.

How do we “return” someone better?

Maybe by offering gentleness in a world that’s often sharp.
By speaking encouragement at the exact moment their heart needs steadying.
By listening without rushing to fix.
By honoring their story without trying to reshape it.
By reflecting back to them the parts they’ve forgotten are beautiful.

Maybe it’s simply this:

That people leave our life feeling a little more themselves … more whole, more seen, more cherished … than they were when they arrived.

We don’t get to keep them,
but while they are in our care,
we can treat them with the respect we give to anything borrowed:
with tenderness, gratitude, and an open hand.

Borrowed things require gentleness.
Borrowed people require reverence.

Grief as Proof of Borrowed Beauty

When someone’s chapter in our life ends, whether through distance, transition, or passing, grief rises as the unmistakable signature that something sacred was here. Grief is the echo of love that was never meant to be owned, only experienced.

Every loss I’ve lived through has left a room inside me.
And each of those rooms glows with the memory of someone I was entrusted with … family members, mentors, friends, clients, loves, strangers who became sacred, and the people who taught me how to live with a softer heart.

Borrowed people shape us long after they’re gone.

We Are Borrowed, Too

One day, someone will say of each of us:

“She was borrowed too,
and while she was here,
she loved with her whole heart.”

There is freedom in knowing we are temporary.
It invites us to lighten our grip, to tell people what they mean to us, to soften our pace, and to savor the ordinary moments that become extraordinary when viewed through the lens of impermanence.

We are not here long.
But we are here meaningfully.

A More Tender Way to Live

If the people we love are borrowed, then every encounter becomes a blessing.
Every shared moment becomes something precious.
Every goodbye becomes a sacred return.

Borrowed does not mean lesser.
Borrowed means precious.
Borrowed means chosen for a breath of eternity.
Borrowed means we were trusted with each other …
not to possess, but to honor.

We are all traveling this earth as borrowed souls, carrying borrowed stories, shaping borrowed moments that somehow stitch themselves into permanence within us.

Seasonal Reflection on Loss

This time of year has a way of stirring old aches, doesn’t it? The colder nights, the quiet pauses, the familiar rituals … they all seem to make room for memories to rise. Many of us walk through the holidays holding both gratitude and grief, celebrating with one hand while touching the tenderness of absence with the other.

I feel it too. The longing for my own “borrowed” people, the ones who shaped my life and then had to go, settles differently in my heart as the season turns. If you’re feeling it as well, please know you’re not alone. This reflection is for all of us who loved deeply, who were entrusted with souls we could not keep, and who are learning to carry both the blessing and the ache of their memory.

Maybe this is the quiet invitation of our lives:
to love people in such a way that when the world receives them back, they carry a little more light than when they arrived. To add gentleness to their journey. To reflect their worth back to them. To be a soft place for their becoming.

Closing Reflection

Maybe, when our own time comes to be returned, we will go carrying the imprints of all the borrowed hearts that loved us into the person we became.

What a sacred exchange:
to borrow one another for a moment
and call it love.

A Thought to Carry

May we tend to the hearts entrusted to us … gently, honestly, reverently … so that when their season with us ends, they leave feeling more whole, more cherished, and more themselves.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
— Ecclesiastes 12:7 NKJV

“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
— Victor Hugo