The essay “Searching for the Middle Path” was originally published on Medium.com

It’s my second winter living in Utah and we’ve received record breaking snow fall. Last year at this time, it felt like there would never be another real winter and as I write this with the calendar about to turn to April, it is snowing with a forecast for it to snow for the next 10 days and the temps are cold which means this white stuff isn’t melting anytime soon.

Of course, the skiers are ecstatic, we’ve had incredible conditions. But what has everyone really smiling is the respite it brings to our drought ridden state, for the filling reservoirs, even a few feet added back to the depth of the Great Salt Lake.

Reporters and state officials are quick to mention, however, one winter isn’t going to solve all our problems. We would need two or three similar winters to restore to pre-drought levels. But still, it is something. As the snowbanks around my house eclipse ten feet, I can’t help but wonder how it isn’t enough while also feeling like man, this is too much. It will cause springtime flooding and a diminished urgency around climate issues. Or should I eschew the negativity bias and try to see the record snowpack as evidence of earth’s abundance? The answer to our prayers?

Continue reading at Medium.com

This essay was originally published on The Disruptive Quarterly.

The irony is that a year ago, I hadn’t set foot in the state of Wisconsin. So why, you might ask, am I sporting Carharts on a 420-acre farm outside Madison? The answer has something to do with that angsty, helpless feeling most of us experienced during COVID. I watched the “Kiss the Ground” documentary with my family one night, sparking a lengthy discussion about how to spend the rest of our lives. My husband and I have never been ones to envision solutions to the world’s problems through a high-tech lens, so there was something appealing about addressing “the root of the problem” or more specifically where the roots live, in the topsoil.

There is an urgency around addressing food health and equity as well as climate change, for sure, but in all honesty, there’s a deep seeded attraction this city girl has always felt toward understanding her food source. I was the young woman who distrusted the grocery store’s offerings as much as she distrusted the patriarchy. It was a feeling that would contribute to an overall anxiety around eating. As an adult, I’ve experimented with various healthy diets as well as cultivated an abundant vegetable garden for my family and friends. I share the bounty out of love, while also loving the sense of control it provides.

My husband leads the sustainability practice at a large consulting firm, but after watching that documentary, I challenged him to join me in getting our hands dirty. We sold our townhome in Boston and embarked on several cross-country drives, envisioning how we might go about this. Validation came in the form of like-minded people showing up on our path. We reconnected with a family friend who wanted to transition from chef to farmer and had some leads in Madison. Pretty soon, we were on a flight to Wisconsin to meet the founder of Forage Kitchens, a small but growing fast-casual concept that was interested in sourcing produce from a proprietary farm. Wow, a farmer and a customer, two pieces of the puzzle were falling into place.

Touring the driftless region October 2021 was magical. As I write this, it’s the same crisp time of year, and it’s a little surreal to be the CEO of Flynn Creek Farm. We’ve built a team busy master-planning our produce operation and regeneratively thinking about all the land, while also trying to introduce ourselves to the community. From hiring core team members, to meeting like-minded conservationists and foodies, to creating a bond with our permaculture farmer-realtor, who helped us find the perfect property, my intuition kept saying, “this is right” every step of the way. I am sure we’ll make plenty of mistakes, but the immediacy of the climate crisis and a diseased population make action so important. Can Flynn Creek Farm be a model for the future? Putting soil health first, giving farm managers a well-paid and balanced life, while growing affordable, delicious, nutrient dense food.

That’s the dream.

Stay tuned.

I’m the first to recognize Mother’s Day as complicated.

Invented in 1908 by Ann Jarvis to celebrate her own mother, a Sunday School teacher and caregiver of soldiers during the Civil War, Mother’s Day was co-opted by greeting card companies by 1920 and today represents a multibillion-dollar enterprise. Despite her own campaigning for the holiday, Jarvis became disgusted with its commercialization and by 1924 was having petitions signed to rescind it. She accused florists and greeting card manufacturers of being “charlatans, bandits, pirates, racketeers, kidnappers and termites that would undermine with their greed one of the finest, noblest and truest movements and celebrations.”

Still, who doesn’t enjoy being recognized with a thoughtful card or a beautiful bouquet?

For all the happy families gathering around their mothers for brunch next Sunday or celebrating her with flowers and cards, there are an equal number of people for whom the holiday brings dread and pain. I’m not talking about the eleventh-hour panic striking the hearts of fathers and kids searching for gifts that will live up to Mom’s expectations, although there is probably an essay to be written about the command-performance aspect of Mother’s Day. 

I’m talking about the year you lose a mother, or the year in which, having lost both your mother and your mother-in-law and your grandmothers, you find yourself not needing to buy any cards at all. Suddenly, the issue of commercialization doesn’t seem so important, and every card you receive (or don’t) takes on a new meaning. 

I’m talking about those Mother’s Days when maybe you’ve chosen to cease communication with your mother for months or maybe years, and despite knowing this is the best and healthiest choice for everyone, you are overcome with guilt because it seems everyone else in the world is able to have normal family relationships, that everyone else ended up with a mother who was easier to love. 

I’m talking about the pain of Mother’s Day for women who have lost children, or the pain felt by women who gave birth and surrendered their children for adoption. There are complications for stepmothers and biological mothers, surrogate mothers and motherly figures. The scenarios are endless.

Why am I talking about these hard and complicated Mother’s Days? It’s not because I’m trying  to be a downer. But I personally have experienced both the highs and lows of the holiday. I had a therapist with whom I spent a session expressing my anxiety over Mother’s Day and she told me that it was the most problematic holiday for so many of her patients. In a perverse way that made me feel better. I wasn’t alone in these hard and complicated feelings. For a while I imagined forming a group for all of us for whom this holiday isn’t just brunch and bouquets, the Mother’s Day Haters Club. Wanna join?

I’ll admit, it’s sort of ironic for an author obsessed with writing about motherhood to be the founder and president of the MDHC. (Not to mention an author who does a Mother’s Day giveaway of her books most every year—haha.) But then, that’s also the point. Motherhood, in all its forms, is hard and complicated. The stories I’m drawn to don’t shy away from those complications, and neither should the holiday.

Mother’s Day, I’m sure, is neither all good nor all bad for most women. A thoughtful card might land in the mailbox, or the phone might ring with a loved one calling, but it is also a day when both men and women feel loss, for people we no longer have in our lives, or people we never had in the first place. Recognizing these complications, rather than falling prey to the pressure of commercialization or perfectionistic ideals, helps us not only to be sensitive to the potential difficulties of Mother’s Day, but also to stay grounded in our approach to the true meaning of a holiday that can be quite joyous.

I am so glad I made the choice to become a mother. My relationships with my children are my greatest blessings. However, Mother’s Day isn’t the one day I look to them to manifest appreciation. We have loving relationships in which nobody has to give thanks or keep score.  Their existence is enough. I hope for them, as flawed as I may be, my existence is enough. 

For me, the second Sunday in May is the perfect temperature in Rhode Island to plant my vegetable garden—or, as I wrote in a recent essay, to reconnect with Mother Earth. It is a day to be grateful, with others or alone, hands in the dirt or reading or writing. My friends and I might exchange a few texts, my husband might bring me a cup of coffee. In my life, as in my writing, I’d rather recognize the complexity of human emotion surrounding motherhood instead of letting capitalism dictate some rosy ideal of what it looks and feels like.