My work centers around belonging. This theme shows up in writing about my family lines, inheritance, nature, and the intersection of people and place. Some of the questions I explore are: where do I belong? Where did my family come from and belong? Who has been displaced in the process? What has shaped me? How are we all connected - plant, animal, earth? How can I be part of the preservation, restoration, and healing of life on earth? 

 

Much of my writing is informed by my career as a bodyworker, esthetician, and practitioner of the healing arts. For over twenty-five years I have enjoyed exploring our bodies as a place we belong, our homes within, with our skin as boundary. I am captivated by the mystery and phenomena that is happening each moment within us all, and the connecting forces that bind us together, both inside ourselves, and externally to one another. I am fascinated by the resilience I witness inside and out. 

 

My writing also comes out of my life as a mother, working to heal generational trauma, raising young to wonder, love and respect, to be loved and be respected. My work as a gardener and beekeeper has taught me about what comes of tending the earth, caring for the hive, making sure the pollinators have what they need. I have learned from rose’s resilience, building the compost, observing the cooperation of the hive.

 

I enjoy working in forms that involve syllable counting, like haiku, perhaps related to growing up Catholic and praying the rosary. I also like finding order with words through forms like abecedarians. Ultimately I am looking to make sense of it all, with the hope that what I create will honor and be of service to other lives.