I’m an artist and writer, both a novel and my blog. I’m a wife and a mom. I’m a sister and friend. I’m a hiker and naturalist. I’m a native Arizonan, with roots most recently in Bend, Oregon. My husband and I will soon be on a “coddiwomple,” traveling with no fixed destination.

I’m a clergy spouse. My husband has been an Episcopal priest for 35 years, and is retiring on July 30, 2023. (Clergy wives, I see you!)

I’m a former middle school teacher, federal employee, and life coach.

Here are three stories that illustrate important themes in my life. See if they resonate with you.

1983:  I was relieved when my husband, Jed, felt called to be an Episcopal priest. His important vocation meant I didn’t have to take responsibility for my own life quite yet. “Clergy wife” was a role I wouldn’t have to make from scratch, and one that felt safe to me at the time. I had survived my parents’ divorce with its attendant losses, the years living with an abusive stepfather, and my dad’s accidental death four years earlier when he was fifty years old. I simply didn’t know what I wanted, and I certainly didn’t believe that I deserved to have it if I did manage to figure it out.

I had just earned my Arizona teaching credentials when Jed, with my eager approval, chose the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts for seminary. I thought this was no big deal. I thought I’d be able to find a teaching job as satisfying as the one I’d have in Tucson. (I was wrong.) It was the beginning of a pattern where I put his career ahead of mine. We’d go on to have two kids and move five more times for his career. 

Once I put myself second the first time, it just got easier and easier. Having kids solidified this pattern.

1995: My mom, who always said she wanted to live to 100, died of a rare and aggressive form of cancer when she was 63. The cancer had metastasized to her lungs before her doctors found it in her uterus. I began to wake up, during and after her dying. I acknowledged that I’d been depressed on and off for decades. I started therapy. I began to learn to ask myself what I wanted, rather that automatically settling for what I could squeeze in around the edges of my husband’s and children’s lives. I believe my mom regretted some of her choices and the desires she put off, thinking she would have thirty more years. I didn’t want that to be my story.

2014: For 37 days in 2014, Jed and I walked the Camino de Santiago, 500 miles from southern France to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. Will you be surprised when I tell you this was his idea, and I went along with it willingly? Sheesh. I’m so grateful for my mystical moments along the Way of St. James. Two changed my life. One of them was on Day 17 of our Camino. Jed had stopped in a village to buy our lunch. He would easily catch up with me, so I walked on ahead. As I climbed yet another hill in the rain, I suddenly, surprisingly, felt viscerally connected to a womb-like

heart deep in the Earth. Through this Deep Heart I knew that I was connected to my fellow pilgrims, to the rocks and the trees, and to All That Is. This knowing has never left me. Now, when I say “God,” the Deep Heart of All is Who I mean.

(Jed happened to take a photo of the moment. I’m one of the pilgrims on that hill, having my revelation! How cool is that?!)

I chose these stories because they illustrate three of my core beliefs.

• A crucial component of healing, for women, is recognizing and changing the pattern of putting ourselves second, third, or last.
• Time in these bodies is not infinite, and we don’t know how much of it we have.
• The Deep Heart of Love is always supporting, nurturing, and connecting us.

Sisters, I’ve learned that the counterintuitive way through hard things is to soften.

That’s the secret. Let go. Surrender. It’s only by softening that we touch our deeper wisdom, the place within us where we connect to God and our true purpose. We’ve been strong for so long that it feels natural. Like there’s no other way to be.

Softness is ultimately strength.

Hardness is ultimately fragile.

As Rumi says, “Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are. You’ve been stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender.”

We’ll wear our armor when we need to, of course. We’ll always be warriors – warriors who’ve learned to be soft, relaxed, and gentle with ourselves and each other. We’ll be warriors who keep our armor at the ready, and warriors who no longer need to wear it day in and day out, year after year.

Experience, Education, Expertise – a few highlights:

Child of divorce. Thirty-five years as a clergy spouse. Mother of adult children, one of whom is gay. Mourner of both parents. Adult survivor of parental alcoholism and addiction. Successful maker of many moves. A woman learning to age gracefully.

Bachelor’s and teaching credentials (University of Arizona), 1984: Teaching middle school kids taught me to break complex subjects down into their component parts and then stack them in the correct order. I know what comes first, and I can facilitate real learning.

Master’s degree in Conservation Biology and Communication (Southern Oregon University), 2011: I learned left-brained analysis of what can be weighed, measured, and scientifically concluded, along with the importance of more right-brained feelings and human processes, while doing my interdisciplinary master’s work.

Wayfinder Life Coach Training, 2012: I trained with Dr. Martha Beck, a regular columnist for Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper and the author of many best-selling books. Martha is a Harvard-trained sociologist who combines brain-based, scientifically-robust tools and heart-based intuitive guidance. The result is a powerful method for achieving clarity, focus, and purpose, based on the core belief that you already have within you everything you need. The job of a Wayfinder life coach is to help you find what you already know.

2023. I’m writing and making art.