My Story
In 2016, the trajectory of my life jumped the guard rail and went off course when I quit my teaching job to become my husband’s caregiver. When he died of Lewy Body Dementia 18 months later, I took off looking for healing.
First, I went whale watching in Maui.
Second, I attended the International Writers Conference in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Third, I walked the 800-kilometer Camino de Santiago pilgrimage across the Pyrenees and Northern Spain.
I returned from my pilgrimage and my travels with a hot desire to simplify my life. I sold my Pacific Northwest home of 25 years, put a few things in storage, and prepared to live without a home for a while. I traveled to southern California, where I finished the first complete draft of my manuscript, went hiking in Montana and Idaho, backpacked nearly 50 miles around Three Sisters in Oregon, and spent 10 days in New York City where I attended the NY Pitch Conference.
Then, the pandemic changed the trajectory of all of our lives.
During the 2020 lockdown, I hunkered down with my daughter’s family in the PNW, bonding with my then 3-year-old grandson. Later, I released what was left in my storage unit and moved in with my sister on Maui. While on Maui, I decided to do my part to help out the cause, and I took a job as a Covid investigator for the local health department. When the world started opening up again, I started playing live music again.
The pandemic set me back in my grieving process, and honestly, I think it will be a long time before our society genuinely understands full effects of the past couple of years. It’s been hard for everyone.
We all need to step out now with buckets full of grace.
All the while, I continued to write, and walk and heal. In the fall of 2022, I embarked on a legacy pilgrimage along 800-mile Arizona Trail, from the border of Utah to the border of Mexico. My father helped design and build the trail in the 1990s, and he died before it was complete. Dad believed that if we want to conserve our wild, we need to get people out in it. He also knew that time in the wilderness empowered people. He believed in service.
When I returned from my long hike, I decided to embark on a new pilgrimage: one of entrepreneurship and real estate investing. I’ve been learning so much! I am currently involved in a Hawaii-based network of amazing people who invest in the midwest, WNN Properties. It’s time for me to create a sustainable financial life, a home for myself, and a way to give back to the people who have been there for me during my crisis and grief.
Regarding my book: You Remind Me Who I Am is my first full-length manuscript. Feedback so far has instructed me that I need to add more chapters, so that is what I am doing now. Stay tuned!
Photo Credit: Anne King, Finesterre, Spain, 2018.