From an early age I was a wanderer. My feet mapped every street of Sea Cliff, New York, the one square mile village where I grew up, always ending at the beach, looking out over the harbor. I meandered on my bike along the north shore of Long Island, no destination, no purpose, just taking the next hill, hearing the sound of my breath, turning a corner towards something new.

I’d ride the bus to Queens, then the 7 train into Manhattan, emerging from the subway into the din and wonder of New York City, the tangle of people and things from every corner of the world augmenting who I was becoming. 

NextTribe takes small groups of women ages 45+ on fun, transformational trips. We just opened a trip to Japan in June 2027, where you too can practice Kintsugi. Learn more here.

As a child, I spent two summers in Spain where my dad was attending medical school. Later, I traveled solo to the U.K. after high school, lived there for eight months during college, and returned countless times, influenced by my mom’s love of all things British. I explored the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, Africa, on my own, with my husband Stacy, with family and friends, for fun and work.

Travel fed my soul, shaped my being, humbled and energized me, built my resilience.

When Everything Changed

In October 2024, my husband Stacy was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, and died four weeks later on November 19. My dad died three months after that, at 93. Even my 17-year-old cat gave in shortly thereafter. The tethers holding me to the earth were loosening, I was floating away. In the stillness that followed, with my heart cracked open, I began to listen. Frequencies opened, signals came in.

The tethers holding me to the earth were loosening, I was floating away. In the stillness that followed, with my heart cracked open, I began to listen.

Two weeks after Stacy’s diagnosis, swirling in an unforgiving sinkhole of shock, heartbreak and exhaustion, something was unleashed in me. In the middle of a sleepless night, words and sentences formed in my head and screamed to be released.

I had spent a lifetime putting pen to paper, fingertips to keys, composing letters, papers, presentations. Those all had a purpose, an intent. This was different, a visceral compulsion. Like feeling sick to your stomach, when everything just has to come out.

Bleary-eyed and stumbling in the dark, I opened my notes app and let it spill. Nearly two years later, it keeps coming. The writing ebbs and flows, from random streams of consciousness and unfiltered emotion, to poetry and wisdom. Mostly for myself, but I’ve shared bits of it along the way.

The Metaphor

I survived a year.

I picture myself walking through the house, picking up the broken pieces of me that were crushed under the weight of everything that happened a year ago. When I was shattered, hollowed, drowning, couldn’t breathe. Bit by bit, piece by piece, picking them up and piecing them back together. Binding them with gold is like the Japanese art of kintsugi, making the new whole stronger and more beautiful than the original. 

That is my hope for what is to come. 

My words haunted me. I couldn’t shake the imagery.

I had to look up “kintsugi” as I wrote, because I remembered the art form of mending broken pottery by joining the pieces with gold, but couldn’t recall the name for it. My words haunted me. I couldn’t shake the imagery. I shared this with a few people.

The next day, on the anniversary of Stacy’s death, I paused at a stack of grief books on a shelf–gifted with love over the past year, still unread, I had been too raw. On impulse I picked up Keep Moving by Maggie Smith. It was short, I read it in one sitting. What stopped me in my tracks was a chapter entitled The Golden Repair. It was about kintsugi as a metaphor for healing.

Travel as Medicine

With all the losses, I continued to travel to refill my tank, carrying my grief along like an extra piece of luggage. I went with my daughters to Morocco, losing ourselves for a week in the winding streets of the Marrakech medina, befriending the street cats, hearing the call to prayer echo across the hills in the Atlas mountains.

I went to New Orleans Jazz Fest, once a favorite ritual with Stacy, now experienced through a new lens. New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut were on repeat as I unwound my dad’s estate, connected with family, celebrated my daughter’s wedding, walked the streets of Sea Cliff again to feel rooted to the earth, to my childhood home. Galveston, Denver, Chautauqua, Seattle, Cuba, Kenya. A retreat in the Hill Country. The wheels on my suitcase were disintegrating.

Creating a New Whole

I was introduced to NextTribe and signed up for a trip to Japan in April 2026. I didn’t pay much attention to the itinerary, just went with the flow. Their trips offer hands-on experiences with women-owned enterprises, and this trip was no exception.

On the third day, we did a kintsugi (!) workshop. There were long tables with small pieces of pottery at each seat – the instructor suggested that we sit wherever we were called. I saw a cracked blue and white saucer with an image of three old men. Oddly they reminded me of the Three Stooges, beloved by Stacy (that tells you something about him). I took my seat there and began the process of repair. The crack in my heart reopened a bit, I dabbed it with gold.

The crack in my heart reopened a bit. I dabbed it with gold.

The next morning, I shared my passage from November 18 in the trip’s group chat. I barely knew these women, we were just getting to feel each other’s rhythms through a fog of jet lag, and I gave them this tiny deep piece of myself. Their reactions were warm, appreciative, and supportive.

Travel does that. It opens the frequencies, we breathe in and let go. We take a pebble from the shore, we leave behind our fleeting mark in the sand. 

And as we travel, it’s the quiet beauty of imperfection, simplicity and impermanence—the Japanese call it wabi sabi—that reminds us we are all imperfect beings. Repairing and reconnecting the broken bits of our lives is all part of the journey.