I write about the little moments that make up our days and how we make sense of it all to find meaning and joy in life.
My essays focus on our personal journeys; I explore the fears that hold us back, the pain we inflict on ourselves by avoidance, and the opportunities found by embracing change. Through my writing, I seek to be a companion as we all muddle through the messiness of life.
I have changed careers, felt grief so deeply I wrapped myself in the armor of busyness as protection and avoidance, and strived to move beyond my insular childhood to find a bigger and better world. In my essays, found here on my website and on my Substack Page, I reflect on loss, struggling as a single parent, making a successful career after a few fits and starts, and beginning new chapters. Every post is meant to inspire my readers to believe in the agency they have in their lives and to find joy in the everyday.
My online essays started with a solo road trip. The day after the youngest of my three children left the nest, I got behind the wheel of my 1970 911T Porsche, known affectionately as the “Blue Car,” and spent 3-1/2 months and 14,000 miles crossing the US and back, in search of my country and myself.
The Blue Car is a symbol of the life journeys we take and the many choices and pauses that confront us along the way. I was a mom and business owner who never stopped moving and doing; the thought of months of unscheduled time alone was both exciting and scary. Where do our thoughts take us, and how do we process our emotions, when we stop running and doing? When we sit with ourselves for 20 minutes in the living room, go on a quiet walk, take a car ride without music or the phone? I write to answer these questions and engage my readers in possibilities.
45 days and 6,193 miles into my 3-1/2 month, 14,000 cross- country road trip.
Susan age 5
I am a late bloomer, and delighted by it. I took my first writing class in 2023 and published my first story a year later. That essay was about my relationship with the Blue Car and it was short, but it was big to me; it was thrilling and terrifying to see my words in print. Real print, inside Hagerty Car Club Magazine, with 2.2 million subscribers. Most of all, I was delighted to hear from readers who connected to my experience of deep loss and unexpected joy and who wanted to share their own lives with me.
I have had a lifetime of experiences that feed this “writing” chapter of my life. My work for three decades as a city planner deeply connected me to people’s stories and our common yearnings and fears: our search for community, our resistance to change, and our constant striving to make better lives. I write about the changes that we plan, and the ones thrust upon us: new jobs, health crises, travel, finding and losing love and friendships, and finding ourselves. Engaging with my readers confirms a comforting truth: our shared stories make our journeys less lonely and more meaningful. They can lighten our burdens, buoy our successes with supportive joy, and smooth the jagged edges of grief and disappointments.
As a Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at MIT, I taught graduate student workshops on community revitalization and led research funded by the Ford and MetLife Foundations in how arts and cultural organizations engage with communities in deeply transformative ways. My whitepaper “Places in the Making,” funded by Southwest Airlines, and my TED talk and keynote speeches in the US and abroad examine the myriad ways regular people like you and me work together to make better lives and communities.
I grew up participating in community theater as an actor, singer, and dancer. I loved the team work of cast and crew and the energy that came from telling a story with words, movement, and music. I was six when I made my first appearance on stage – shy and nervous. Ten years and many performances later, I was joyously performing solos and dancing in musicals. We all share moments of timidity and doubt. How do we conquer our fears to reach our goals? What energy can we pull from starting from scratch and being open to learning?
During my undergraduate architecture studies, I renovated houses and small commercial buildings with my brother to pay for college. I can sheetrock a wall, tile a floor, and install molding around a window. My work to transform spaces is not very different from the ways we strive to transform our lives. How do we begin to use the fragments around us and the multitude of choices available to construct the life we want and deserve?
Susan on a NYC AIA Panel on Public Space and Design
Shaping towns and cities, acting in theater productions, renovating buildings: each of these is rooted in creating--and the start is messy. And if there is one thing you should know about me, I love starting messy: a vacant lot or storefront; a script and an empty stage; a pile of wood, nails and tools. My writing is a continuation of my lifelong search to bring order to chaos, and craft meaning from thoughtful and consistent effort, fitting pieces together to make something more beautiful than the parts.
Urban planning wasn’t my first career choice. In 7th grade, I took a drafting class and my teacher suggested I could design buildings. After five years of college and a four-day licensing exam I got to call myself an architect. Then one day, after many unhappy years at the drawing board, and with a one-year old son, I created a summer study program in Norway and spent all my time on the urban planning issues in the town, ignoring the architecture. It was an “aha” moment for me, and with age came a tidbit of wisdom: I realized I the power to shift course. What opportunities open when we listen to our hearts and are willing to make changes?
I am a sunrise junkie; when traveling, I never miss an opportunity to watch the glow of early morning light wash across the landscape, changing and shifting as each minute progresses. At home, I write in the quiet time of early morning, when the world around me is still dreaming. Mary Oliver’s poem, “Why I Wake Early” resonates deep in my morning heart.
You can often find me behind the wheel of the Blue Car. The winding roads through the Green Mountain Forest of Vermont make me deliriously happy and a stint behind the wheel of this car with no power steering, cruise control, or air conditioning is my mediation time. Really. I am passionate about photography and the many worlds and stories a photograph can contain. When I look through the lens of my camera, I strive to see more than meets the eye. My essays are my photographs in words, poking and prodding to find beauty and meaning in the every day.
I revel in the beauty of the world. Not razzle dazzle beauty but simple and everyday “make you smile gently” beauty. And I use my good china every day. It’s a theme you will see in my writing: I am constantly asking, “What are we waiting for?”
Subscribe below for my Weekly Essays
(notifications will come from Substack)
