About

My history

This is just for perspective. I grew up in the flat farmlands of Northern Indiana in the tiny dot-on-the-map town of Middlebury, about two hours east of Chicago (depending on who’s driving) and 90-minutes from the Lake Michigan Dunes. Back then, Middlebury had one single stoplight where Main St. meets Warren. Amish buggies hitched up in front of Harding’s grocery store while their owners shopped for goods, and “road apples” were a hazard for the marching band during parades.

From our house on East Lawrence St. I could walk to the library, bank, Smucker’s drug store or the post office. I roamed free on bike and foot, exploring country roads and the banks of the Little Elkhart River. When my family moved out of town to the rural outskirts of Goshen, I wandered the cut cornfields at night with my buddy David Francis.

In 1992, I moved to Central Indiana to study journalism and English at Franklin College—another quintessential Indiana small town—30-minutes south of Indianapolis. My 18-year-old ambition was to move back north to pursue professional fame in Chicago. Instead, after I graduated, I got married, essentially re-setting my compass in the heart of Indiana. Indianapolis, and later the tony suburb of Carmel—an explosion of wealthy subdivisions and growth masquerading as “quaint” —became home.

A job opportunity for my then-husband and the need for a change of scenery re-rooted me in a place I never thought I wanted to live: Missouri. The jury is still out on my long-term feelings about Missouri (I’ve scooted across the state line to Kansas), but Kansas City has grown on me.

I write all of this for the purpose of perspective, because while I’ve always had a wanderlust call to go and explore, it seems I’ve mostly set my roots in more familiar places where the pace of life moves a little slower and people know their neighbors.

I write this also to remind myself how lucky I’ve been. I have parents who valued travel—a car ride away or time-zones away. I’ve had jobs that have allowed me personal travel and professional opportunities to set my feet in so many different places. And I was born with an agitated need to see and learn about the people and places of Plant Earth.

I’m lucky to have this perspective to share, because when a young woman from the flat farmlands of Northern Indiana descends into the altitudes of Quito, Ecuador, and beholds the Andes Mountains, her eyes grow bigger, her understanding of the beautiful similarities and differences of people and cultures expands, her mind opens and the human connection between continents tightens, like the welcoming arms of a new friend.

(See my professional page here: https://writewords.blog