As we can all feel, we were not made for this keening loneliness.
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About Me
I’m a writer, speaker, and psychotherapist living in California’s Wine Country with my two plump dogs and one skinny cat, enjoying occasional visits from my college-age daughter. Most days are spent trying to figure out how to do the working professional, recently widowed, newly single mother life. But in-between these challenges, I sit back and…
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Thriving in the Thick of It
What do you do when hit by a sneaker wave of crisis or loss? I’m still working out the answer to this question, but have learned a few things in the process I’d like to share with you. Working as a therapist for over 25 years, I’ve been privileged to come alongside ordinary people facing…
Read MoreSequestered Good Friday
Spotlight, Please…
I’ve been yearning for a spotlight. I don’t mean a brash stage light, as in “Light me up for all the world to see!” (Far from it these days.) But what I want is a massive overhead floodlight. I want one that will illuminate the entire path in front of me so I can see…
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#MeTooJesus
(Originally published in The Redbud Post, 9.1.19) A lovely young woman sits across from me in my small therapy office, buttoned up so tight it looks like she’s hardly even breathing. Her lips are pressed together as she carefully folds, then refolds, the clean Kleenex on her lap. Then she stops, looks up at me,…
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Insistent Life
If you could peek into my heart on this fifth anniversary of my husband Steve’s death, it would look something like the neighborhood I walked through the other day.
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Not…
It was five years ago: a night like tonight…but not.
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Shadow Boxing
(Originally Published in the Redbud Post) Too many nights, in the quiet of my bedroom, I’m an unwilling actor playing a part in my own private drama. It’s like a movie set where the raucous din of the beer-swilling ringside crowd fades away and the bright arena lights dim, leaving a solitary, naked bulb…
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Stretchy Heart
6.16.19 “Is she yours?!” The question would always catch us off guard. There we were, quietly doing our day together: moving through our errands, exploring the zoo, eating ice cream outside Baskin Robbins on a hot day. We were just a little family of three enjoying our time together when some stranger would feel compelled…
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Redemption
We have slowly found our way to a measure of redemption.
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Still Standing
Seeing them in this victimized state was just as shocking as it would be to see our beloved Snoopy with a black eye.
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11:59
If I have any say in the matter, I will not take a step forward.
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