“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.” John Muir As soon as we approached Auburn on the I80 and saw the Sierra mountains in the distance, something happened.The stress that had been gripping my brain released its clamming hold. The loneliness that had threatened my heart vanished. And that pit inside my stomach? I looked at the opening
Please tell me you see me. Please notice my breaths and efforts. Currently I feel invisible and alone. We all do. How can you see me, you ask? What exactly should you notice? Anything, as long as it’s specific. 1. Praise me for keeping the kids alive another day. One begged me to drink Windex and the other one asked to jump off the deck. I held strong. 2. Tell me
Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse, it did. Ruth Bader Ginsberg died. We lost a feminist, civil rights leader and icon of badass perseverance. And gained a glaring open seat on the Supreme Court. My hope for a better tomorrow vanished. I was sliding faster down a depressing slide into the pits of despair. I explained my feeling of loss over a salmon dinner I made for
It was the end of days. Pantone Orange 9-2020. Images of the orange sky in California went viral. Looking at the sun confused my daughter. She thought the orb in the sky was a bleeding moon. She wanted to give it a band-aid. I didn’t know if the earth could be healed. Then Oregon caught fire and I knew we were closer to the apocalypse than ever before. I’ve been
I moved to San Francisco in 2004 to be a writer. Within two months of trying to pay rent, I became a management consultant. It was known as the great Heidi sell out. To counterbalance corporate Heidi, Writer Heidi wrote short stories and blogged 16 years later I am still trying to negotiate my passion for the written word with my desire to advance a corporate career with a climbing
“Maybe I’m just a masochist,” I sighed. “Isn’t this mama masochism a front?” my friend asked. She leaned her head into her screen and whispered in a low tone, “Don’t you secretly miss it? You know….your old life? Where you didn’t have to be anything for anyone?” “No. Yes. Sometimes.” I whispered back through the Zoom screen. I had been there and done that….but had I done it quite enough?
