The summer solstice is almost here, the longest day of the year.

I always love this time of year. Something about it feels like an invitation. Like the light is saying: stay a little longer. Pay attention. There’s time.

By the time you read this, I’ll be up the coast again, this time in Fort Bragg, chasing more of that same quiet I found at the beach a couple weeks ago.

And every year around this time, I ask myself a harder question. How many summers do I actually have left?

Not in a morbid way. In a wake-up way. Because if I only have so many, I want to actually be in them. Not rushing through them, not waiting for September, not too busy to notice my own life while I’m living it.

And I notice something, every time I get away.

I notice how loud the inside of my head gets when I don’t slow down.

The list. The second-guessing. The low-level hum of did I do that right, should I have said that differently, what’s next.

It takes a day or two by the water before it quiets.

And then...

I was excited to have Avery and Mabel come to my house and make lavender wands last week. We had planned it while the lavender was in full glory, burgeoning blooms from my two huge lavender plants.

Avery, my granddaughter, has been making wands with me since she was six years old. She is now the lead, making them with precision and a professional touch.

She brought her cousin Mabel, and we talked as we worked, mostly about school ending and what comes next year. They were polite and well-mannered. Avery thanked me for the snack of sparkling water, cherries, blueberries, and the Trader Joe's Unexpected cheese.

I wanted to go deeper, but something in me hesitated. There seemed to be a wall of politeness between us, these two beautiful girls on the verge of their teen years. I knew I was not privy to their world. I felt a slight distance I couldn't quite put my finger on. The politeness was real, but it wasn't the realness of them.

I found myself thinking about my grandmother.

On my ...

THE EMERGENCY LANDING

I remember thinking this was going to be a bumpy landing. There was turbulence, and the wind was tossing us around. I looked out the window and saw we were just about to touch down when all of a sudden the plane started climbing back up into the air.

OMG. WTF. 

Instantly, my nervous system launched into a full five-alarm panic. My heart was racing so hard I could feel it in my ears. I'm sure there was a massive flood of cortisol coursing through my body.

I grabbed my sister's hand. I was shaking. I heard her say, "It's okay, the pilot is doing the right thing. It's okay."

My brain wasn't having it. I wanted to scream. We touched down, and now we're going back up. WHY??????

I tried desperately not to go to the worst-case scenario. My heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear Maie say, breathe. 4-7-8. And I did the breathing. The one I teach my clients. The one I had actually taught Maie. 

She seemed calm. She's always been the calm one. I'm the histrion...

I've been privileged to be a mother and now a grandmother. My story may sound familiar and it might sound strange but I tell it to emphasize how mothers can learn so much about themselves and the surprises that happen along the way. 

This photo was taken in 2014 when my first two granddaughters were babies. I treasure these very special moments with them. 

When I was a little girl, I didn't think about becoming a mother; I just played with dolls and assumed I'd be a mother one day.

The joy of having my firstborn son

The moment I held my firstborn son in my arms, I knew something inside of me had radically shifted forever.  It was as if fairy dust had been sprinkled over me as I completely and unforgivably fell in love. 

Andrew was big ...9 pounds and 4 oz. The labor was rough but I was determined to have this baby naturally. And I did. In fact, when it came time to push, I heard the doctor say, “We're going to have to use forceps,” I said, "hell no, you're not."

That night, I got...

I returned home from camping feeling good. Really good. The kind of good I had forgotten was still possible.

The Eastern Sierra mountains. Bright blue skies. Desert sand and dry air stripped everything unnecessary from me. There's something about that landscape...the scale of it, the silence, the way color just sits there, unapologetic...it moved me in ways I didn’t expect.

I felt cleansed. Soothed. Like my nervous system exhaled, and I could breathe without the heaviness in my chest. 

For 24 hours, we had no cell service at all. No news. No scrolling. No bracing for what came next. Just the world as it actually was, right in front of me.

When we came back into range, I felt a flutter of real anxiety. What happened in those 24 hours? Had something new collapsed? Had he done something irreversible?

He had. And nothing had stopped it.

And just like that, the thing I’d put down for 24 hours was back in my hands.

Why can’t I shake this feeling of doom?

I know scrolling doesn’t h...

 A letter to all of us who are exhausted, outraged, and still here.

I'm writing to you about something I feel in my body and in my soul.

The exhaustion.

Not tiredness. Exhaustion. The kind that settles into your bones. The kind that is still there after a full night of sleep. The kind that makes ordinary things feel heavier than they should.

I feel it. And I know you feel it too.

We are carrying something enormous right now. And most of us are carrying it without anyone acknowledging the weight of it.

So I want to start there. Before the call to action. Before anything else.

You are allowed to feel all of this.

The outrage. The exhaustion. The powerlessness. The confusion about why they keep getting away with it. The fear of giving up. The shame of what our country has become. The worry for our grandchildren.

All of it. At the same time. Without having to choose between grief and action, between anger and tenderness, between fighting and resting.

You are allowed to hold a...

The Weight of the Gear

I remember in 2008 when my son Andrew was a 2nd Lt in the Marine Corps, deployed to Afghanistan on a forward operating base. I visited him before he left, in Twentynine Palms, Southern California. I tried on his backpack and gear. It was so heavy I could barely stand up wearing it.

Andrew smiled and said, "Mom, you don't even have a weapon on you."

My younger son, Rob, was a student at UCLA at the time, so I flew into Ontario airport, and he picked me up on the way to 29 Palms -- a mother-son trip before Andrew shipped out. We ate as much Mexican food as we could find. We drove by the hospital where Rob was born. We looked for our old home nearby and drove past it slowly.

I could not have imagined, in my wildest dreams, that both of my sons would one day be in combat. That my two beautiful little boys would grow up and become Marines.

What I Already Knew

I remember the day I learned Andrew had joined the Marine Corps and that Rob -- who had a Navy ROTC scho...

I’ve made 76 trips around the sun.

That number stops me cold every time I say it out loud.

76 is how old my grandparents were when I spent weekends and summers on their farm. I remember them as the elders…not old, just people who had clearly been through things. I never stopped to wonder what those things were. Two world wars, the great depression, and farming the land with no guarantees were probably a few things. 

My grandmother took my mother to school in a horse-and-buggy.  And I remember her holding one of those candlestick phones, telling the operator to connect her to the person she was calling. It was the kind of life that was simple and hard at the same time.

And now here I am. That elder. The one who has been through things.

Do I feel wise?

Honestly… a bit. And also, some days, not at all. But I’ve lived a full, rich life that has asked everything of me. And I'm still here. That counts for something.

So on the occasion of my 76th birthday, here is what I actually know:...

Originally published in 2021. Updated February 2026.

When something goes wrong in your life, your relationships, even in the world around you...where does your mind go?

If you’re like many thoughtful, capable women I work with, it turns inward.

What did I do?
What did I miss?
How did I get this wrong?

It feels responsible.
It feels like maturity.

But often, it’s a habit.

You don’t lack confidence.

You’ve learned to blame yourself first.

You don't have to blame yourself

In fact, it won’t help you in any way.   

For sure, it’s easy to get stuck listening to the blaming and shaming voices inside of you that tell you that you did something wrong…spiraling you down into negativity, into funky land.

Those are the times when nothing seems right. You feel off but you don't even know what's wrong.

It might be that you woke up feeling happy and everything was going great and then, BAM.

Some small thing happens.

Your phone goes off in the middle of a yoga class, with a voice messa...

 Women are angry, and most of us were never taught what to do with that kind of anger and power.

We are saying it out loud now. We are pissed off. We are done swallowing it. And yet many of us are also unsure where to put it, how to use it, how to rise without burning ourselves out.

We're Angry and We're Done Hiding It

I'm less angry today.  I have been so, so mad this week. 

But I am tired.

Tired of the onslaught.
Tired of waking up to another outrage.
Tired of feeling like every day requires vigilance.

I'm sick of all of it.

And yet I love hearing women say, “I’m pissed off.”

I love it when a woman finally says, “I’m angry.”

Not apologizing.
Not softening it.
Not stuffing it down to keep the peace.

The Good Girl Story Is Breaking

For decades, we women have kept things even keel. We have swallowed what we really thought. We have carried the emotional weight for everyone around us. We have been the good girls.

But now something is breaking open.

Maybe what all of this corrupti...