A Woman's Place is in the Wild

I learned a lot from my mom and my grandma. My mom ran a successful business, raised three kids, had a 51 year old marriage before she passed away. And every night without fail, she made a home cooked meal for her family. She’s also the one who helped me find frogs, taught me how to gently hold a baby turtle, and calmly helped me look for a snake that had escaped from the jar and was slithering

around our house.

When I’d walk down the street and visit my grandma, she’d stop ironing my grandpa's shirts, or cleaning floors or baking homemade brownies. And she’d take me in the woods and exclaim how each wild flower was more beautiful than the next.

I’m hoping I’ve passed down some good ingredients on how to be a balanced woman in today’s world to my three daughters. Maybe I wasn’t the one who taught our three how to cook or how to iron. But as they are finding their places in the world, I know one place they’ll always feel at home…thanks to the moms of our life, my mother, grandmother, and mother earth, “A woman’s place is in the wild.”

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Sunrises

In early June I had my younger brother John up to a cabin. He had come a long way to be there with me. Where he traveled from, the sun rose over the ocean every day and set near the mountains. He could see them both from his porch. Here, in northern Wisconsin, was a small lake, not an ocean. There were no mountains-just a tree line that was sprouting furled leaves not long after the snow melted. And there wasn’t a porch with a view. You had to walk, with warm slippers and hot tea, out to the end of a weather-worn pier to catch the sunrise. Which I did, while he was there. I think it was the most beautiful sunrise I experienced in 2023. I’ve learned that life is funny that way; the seemingly unremarkable moments-can become exquisite when you know…they are fleeting. Or when you face the harsh reality, that they are gone. I never made it to his porch across the world, when he was alive, to share the views he wanted to share with me. But I’m realizi...

Grateful

I’m grateful for those… Who share sunrises with me, or send them-you renew in me a sense of hope Who hike the trail with me-you help connect me to what is true Who travel with me-to the store, on a trip, in a relationship, or on the journey of this lifetime-you help me experience the comfort of companionship Who have been hurt by me-and hopefully forgiven me, you’ve humbled and softened me to be better Who have been my teacher-you’ve expanded my perspective Who have left me-in a business, a relationship, from this life-you remind me what matters to me, and what I need to care for tenderly Who work with me-on houses, buildings, cabins, businesses and financial plans-you teach me teamwork and how to think wider Who have interacted from a distance-on social media with a comment, as a stranger handing me your child to hold for a photo in India, as a reader of my book somewhere I”ve never been-you’ve shown me how connections matter Who have left this life too early-you’ve shown me what...

Third Born

This girl was the third born. The one who stayed behind when her sisters were dropped off at school and she was yet too young. Who hung out with me in the woods having warm peanut butter sandwiches and apple slices on a log when her sisters were learning to read. She was the one who spent rainy weekends with me when her siblings went off to college. Who went away with me on spring breaks to warm beaches, and stayed home with me on snow days reading in front of the fireplace. She is the one who held my dad’s hand as he was dying. Who held me close and held me up when another recently left this world. Who went with me to pick up each of our pups. The one who was by my side as our house was built, the cabin picked out, the mill fixed up. She is steadfast. Gentle. Kind to her core. She’s lifetimes wiser than me. And she is the best friend anyone could ask for. Our life was blessed 22 years ago when she brightened the world with her birth. It has been glittering becau...

Sheri Mabry Inc

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