I want to tell you about poet and writer Carol Lynn Pearson. She married a man in 1966. They had four children together. Later, he came out as gay. They divorced in 1978. He contracted AIDS at some point after their divorce, and she took care of him until he died in 1984. She became an advocate for the LGBTQ community after this experience.

She was a Mormon. Like a real, devout, believing Mormon. When I learned those facts I laid out for you when I was still a devout and believing Mormon, I was shocked. It was one of the most beautiful examples of Christ-like I remember hearing of any Latter-day Saint when I learned about her history as a young wife and mother.

Because associating with the LGBTQ community during this time was a radical act. Do you know how many talks I heard from the LDS podium, both on the local and worldwide level, about the tragedy and dangers of “same-sex attraction?”

But here was this woman, who was a popular poet, songwriter, author, and still attended church and proudly shared her testimony of the gospel. Shared her testimony of Jesus, and then lived her testimony of Jesus as she took care of her ailing, gay, ex-husband.

Most remember what a crisis AIDS was in the 80s. It was an intense time of fear and uncertainty. We didn’t fully understand the disease. Medications did not exist like they do today. The education around safe sex practices was not as prevalent as it is today.

Then you add on top of that the Christian lens in which many people viewed AIDS, a curse from God on people who “chose to live the homosexual lifestyle…” and Sister Pearson’s simple act of care seemed radical, and she did it without apology or giving up her church.

It was a real-life example of loving like Jesus actually wants us to love.

She wrote a book about her experience called Goodbye, I Love You. At the end of this book, she writes that she and her ex-husband Gerald were “sealed as friends forever through the years of tears and hopes and joys and devastation.”

She also wrote a book called Beginnings, a brief but beautiful book of poems about birth, life, Jesus, death, mortality, and the human experience. My mother gave me her copy of this book. It is a special volume I cherish. Her words in this book would be a small light in my dark days of deconstruction.

Later, I would read another book by Sister Pearson (it feels so nice to address her like I would my favorite Sunday School teacher or neighbor I grew up with), called The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy: Haunting the Hearts of Mormon Men and Women.

I read this two years into my shelf cracking, the heavy weight of history, questions, and inconsistencies making it sag as my beliefs were sliding off, one by one.

Polygamy was a huge piece of losing my faith. It was so hard to reconcile the doctrine that although I didn’t have to share my husband in this life, I probably would have to in the next.

This is such a complicated doctrine with a complicated history that I won’t try to sum it up in a few paragraphs. Currently, modern members of the LDS faith are not practicing polygamy. But if you’re not familiar with the mainstream view of polygamy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, please trust me when I say it is not done away with. It is still alive and well.

Church leaders are not asking modern men and women to actively practice polygamy like so many did in the early days of the church, but it is expected that in the afterlife, a man will most likely have more than one wife.

This reality is brushed over in talks, sometimes discussed in more detail when it’s time to study D&C Section 132, Joseph Smith’s revelation on eternal marriage he wrote in 1843.

Men make jokes about not being able to handle one wife, let alone several, and everyone laughs along, because God will help us figure it out. Right?

But for most women, it’s a deep and unnerving ache. It was for me, and after researching the early women of the church, I realized it was for them too.

Sister Pearson’s book tackles this disconnect head-on. In a way that only she can, with love, tenderness, and a penchant for the truth and living in her authentic self, she writes about the quiet pain most Mormon women endure around this doctrine of polygamy.

The uncertainty of how a marriage would look as a Sister Wife. The casual jokes about sharing a husband, but he won’t be asked to share his wife. We might laugh along, but in our quiet closets, we cry alone, unsure how we would handle another woman in our sacred family space. She collected stories from many faithful LDS women who love the gospel, love the Lord, but do not love polygamy.

This book shredded my soul.

I read it in a week, but could have read it in a few hours. Except I kept needing to take breaks, cry my eyes out for the things I never said out loud, but was reading the stories of dozens of women who had the exact same concern, questions, and pain around these issues that I was experiencing.

I cried for the women in my family who loved and believed in this gospel. I saw them in the pages of this book. Silent and faithful. Maybe they were hurting on the inside, but the hurt would be pushed down and decisively silenced until we were all dead; only then would we ask God how it would all work…this sharing of our husbands business.

Not only did her book give me a sacred space to mourn the questions and life of polygamy I didn’t fully understand, but it was a familiar space. Because she wasn’t railing against the prophet Joseph and accusing him of being false and deceptive and evil.

She was asking with love and with a believing heart. In those early days of deconstructing, so many things felt so abrupt, abrasive, sudden; her words were a soft place to put my own pain.

I didn’t fully understand and recognize it at the time, but she was the exact archetype of writer, poet, and woman of God I needed to help me make my final exit.

She had the same questions I did, and she stayed. But through the stories and words she shared, I knew she did not judge, scorn, or belittle the women who didn’t stay.

Sister Pearson helped me leave with the kind of gentle grace I needed. The heavy questions and unreconciled doubt, in the end, became too much to balance. My own moral compass, identity, and beliefs just didn’t fit the kind of woman the church was asking me to be.

So for her life, writings, and stories she shared, I am so grateful. She was a gift to so many women in the Mormon community.

Carol Lynn Pearson passed away earlier this year, on July 26th, 2026, at the age of 86 years old.

In her memory, I want to share a poem she wrote that appears in a book of poems called Finding Mother God: Poems to Heal the World.

Power

When she learned that

she didn’t have to plug into

someone or something

like a toaster into a wall

when she learned that she

was a windmill and had only to

raise her arms

to catch the universal whisper

and turn

turn

turn

she moved

oh, she moved

and her dance was a marvel.

The short answer? About 30 hours over several years, by a very talented artist in Salem, Massachusetts. The long answer contains my story of reclaiming my body, the beauty of nuance and living in two worlds, the truths that live in me about two things, in opposition to each other, existing at the same time, sometimes in the same hand.

But before I go further with the mermaid, I want to write about my very first tattoo.

I was 19 years old and was about to return to college for the start of my sophomore year. That first year of college was a big milestone for me. I actually did it. I lived away from my family, I navigated that first year of classes and homework, and I wish I could say I saw more of the world that first year, but the truth is I went to college in Rexburg, Idaho, to a small institution called Ricks College. This school is bigger now and is renamed: BYU Idaho. So I essentially went from a small Mormon town to a little bit bigger Mormon town with college credits. There wasn’t a whole lot of diversity or experience in the real world.

But I loved the independence of living on my own and making my own choices. Like what classes I was going to take, and whether or not I would go to the Monday Night Young Adult church activity, or stay home and do homework.

So before I went back to my Mormon college for my 2nd year, I decided I wanted a tattoo. I thought long and hard about where I wanted it, and what I wanted. I didn’t want it to bother me as I got old and wrinkly, so I thought I would put it somewhere I could forget about it as I aged gracefully into my grandma body.

And of course, I didn’t want anyone else to see it, because I didn’t want the judgement and side-eyes from other church members that would see my tattoo as a permanent display of my disobedience to the prophets.

I picked out a symbol that was meaningful to me and made me think of my grandmother, who had passed away three years prior.

This was 1999. The age of low-rise jeans and Drew Barrymore pixie cuts.

I picked out a tattoo shop in Salt Lake, went to the ATM to withdraw my cash, felt very grown up signing the form that I did NOT need my parents’ permission to get this very permanent mark on my body, and told the artist what I wanted.

I thought so long and hard about it; I thought for sure no one in the history of tattoos would have this exact same idea. So when I told him what I wanted, and then the tattoo artist GUESSED where I wanted it, with a slight eye roll, I was stunned. Was he psychic? Like, how did he know exactly where I wanted the placement?

Dear Reader, I requested a butterfly tattoo on my lower back. Which, if you are plugged into pop culture at all, you might know this tattoo by its forever moniker: The Tramp Stamp.

Now, I was neither a tramp nor did I have any thoughts that my very unique, very beautiful tattoo was a stamp, but that’s what I got.

I would have this butterfly tattoo for another 17 years. Then I deconstructed and made all sorts of plans and personal decisions about my body, including covering up my butterfly tattoo with a beautiful mermaid.

When I think about this story, almost 30 years later, I have so much compassion for that 19-year-old. She was a devout member. She believed in her church and in her God. But I think she was also silently screaming for autonomy.

She was at her Mormon school, getting a Mormon education that she knew she wouldn’t need, because she would find a good Mormon man, and have a beautiful Mormon wedding, and give birth to Mormon kids, and follow all the Mormon rules. She knew in her heart she would do all those things.

So when I think about her now, I see a young woman grasping for something outside of the plan she was handed. I see her choosing body autonomy in secret. (Spoiler: the era of low-rise jeans made it impossible to keep as secret as she planned. People found out.) I see her putting a wistful hand in the reflecting pool of sovereignty to see what kind of reflection would return.

I know there might be believing members of my church who will read this story and think, “I knew it. She never had a testimony all along if she was getting a tattoo at 19 years old.”

Because sometimes that truth is easier to project instead of my own truth of craving autonomy at 19.

I didn’t have words or a lens for it when I was in the middle of it. But now? I just see a girl who was on a conveyor belt of life plans that the church laid out for me. Surrounded by other young women who were dressing the same, talking the same, thinking and praying the same, choosing majors that would help them be better mothers, some even calling college their method of finding a husband instead of getting an education.

And just like that mermaid I have, permanently emblazoned on my entire back, I can see the surface and see the depths. I can hold the truth of a young woman wanting so badly to do the right thing, to fit in, to follow the plan–while also being a young woman who just wanted to taste what true sovereignty might feel like.

I can see a beautiful community of Saints that helped raise her, teach her, shape her morals and values, while also seeing a small but beautiful cage that only had one way to live.

Both things were true.

So how long did my tattoo take?

Can you measure someone’s personal emancipation?

Can you define what emancipation is for every individual?

My freedom, my sovereignty, my sense of self is someone else’s hell, damnation, and eternal sorrow.

Someone else’s freedom could also be my own personal hell.

Both can be true.

A butterfly changes.

A mermaid surfaces.

My life is my own.

It’s been years since I knew my marriage was over. The exact day and timeline really doesn’t matter at this point. But I can tell you that since that day, I’ve done every method of therapeutic healing you can imagine to get over the shock and grief of losing something I thought I would have forever.

Which is why I was so shocked that my nervous system revealed more grief to work through on this last Full Moon.

I’ve used the cycles of the moon in my spiritual practice for years. New Moons for manifesting, Full Moons for releasing. I am drawn to the cyclical nature of the moon, and what each stage can represent in the physical and emotional body.

I had this Full Moon on my radar, especially after sharing my companion guide to writing exercises and prompts for all the summer moons. But this one also felt a little strange because my emotions were in my throat a full day before this Full Moon hit. I didn’t connect this until later.

I didn’t know exactly what yet, but I had some shedding to do.

This also happened to be the day I went to the movies and saw the much-anticipated movie, The Odyssey.

There were so many moments in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation that punched me right in the feels. This story isn’t new. But the writing, the cinematography, the music–so many moments where my heart was wrenched in recognition, sadness, and that universal feeling of being so very, very human. It felt like I was crying every twenty minutes.

I want to write more on these moments later, but for now, just know I was already primed when I started my own personal Full Moon ritual.

It started with a quiet meditation and a curiosity about why my emotions were still so close to the surface after seeing that movie. I mean, it was good, but still crying hours after you saw it good? And all the big feels before I even walked into the theatre?

What was happening in my body that I needed to investigate?

I went walking on a favorite loop in my town. I walked in silence, letting the gravel crunch under my shoes. It was raining and nearly dusk. I didn’t mean for these conditions to mirror how I was feeling inside, but somehow the entire sky reflected my brooding heart.

Then it hit me. Quiet at first. Until the realization reached my heart. I stopped and howled.

I wasn’t loved like I deserve. I didn’t have the fairy tale romance I thought I always had. In that moment, I had a painful view from all these years outside of my marriage of what I actually had.

I had an idea of love. I had the veneer of a true and unconditional love.

I wasn’t mourning my ex-husband anymore. I didn’t miss him or our life together. But this moon in Aquarius, brought me to the bottom of my grief. The basement of some heartbreak I had not yet uncovered.

I had a flashback to crying on my bathroom floor when I had been married about a year. I don’t remember what exactly happened between us or how the conflict started. I just remember he did something that made me sad. So I told him, and while I was telling him, I started to cry.

He didn’t wrap his arms around me and apologize and tell me to stop crying and that he’s sorry. He said, “Well, I wish I could cry on demand too. Then maybe you would feel sorry for me too.”

I was stunned. My tears weren’t fake. I was genuinely upset. I tried to tell him how much I was NOT faking. He rolled his eyes at my pleas and went into our extra bedroom and went to bed.

So I went into the bathroom, unsure of what to do, and collapsed on the floor and sobbed.

I loved this man. I was convinced he loved me. He told me so many times before this moment. So I shed a bunch of ugly tears and decided I needed to approach him differently next time. Maybe I did a poor job communicating exactly how I was feeling. Maybe I left out an important detail about why I was sad.

Everyone said the first year of marriage was the hardest. This must have been what they were talking about. I vowed to show less emotion next time. I learned how to tiptoe around our disagreements so he never thought I was faking tears. He wasn’t good with conflict, so I would be careful not to create conflict.

That was year one.

We were married for almost 18 years.

We had four kids together.

We did have some really good times.

And I believe that he did love me. But I shaped and shifted in so many different ways to feel that love. I adjusted my reactions to his behavior. I forgave like Jesus told me to. I got smaller with my needs and what I asked for.

Because I loved him. Fiercely. I changed myself to fit what he needed in a wife.

So this grief that bubbled up, it was not because I missed him or wanted our life back. It was grief for losing so much of myself in the name of “love.”

It was grief for that 26-year-old woman on the bathroom floor who was told to find a good man, settle down, have babies, and you will be so happy. And that’s what I did. So when I was on the floor, heaving sobs because I was “pretending to cry” to get sympathy, I was so lost and confused, I decided it was my fault he didn’t want to talk about my hurt.

This is the grief that surfaced during this last Full Moon. The grief of changing to be loved. Shrinking for love.

This was my walk and ritual. I almost choked letting an ironic laugh burst from me during my tears when I asked the still reservoir in front of me how many times I had to have a funeral for this woman. How many deaths does one person need to be reborn?

Healing is never linear. I think this is the cruelest punch line of life. You uncover one thing, you cry, you release, you let the scar heal. Then you realize this scar brought something else to the surface, and you start again.

One thing I am getting good at, however, is allowing all that hurt and grief and fresh tears to show up. I don’t stop it or bury it anymore. I just let it flow, feel it, give whatever part of my life the pain is coming from some grace and compassion, and then I take some deep breaths, or write it down, or let the weather baptize me anew.

That 26-year-old woman did get off that bathroom floor and continued to build a life. She changed and adapted. She let parts of herself never show again.

But this 46-year-old woman is reaching back in time to retrieve the broken parts of her soul she left there. I’m sewing them back into my heart, piece by piece. Blessing the stitches with the kind of compassion and courage I wish I had for myself 20 years ago.

But I have it now.

And that’s all that really matters.

I know what kind of love I deserve. And I’m giving it to myself.

Everyday.

I was 16 years old and finally able to date. It’s not like I was being asked out on a bunch of dates before I turned 16, but it was an exciting milestone for this good Mormon girl.

So when I was asked out on a date to a Smashing Pumpkins concert, I was a little more than excited. I was ecstatic. Not only was this a real date, but SMASHING PUMPKINS. This was the summer of 1996…an epic peak of alternative rock music.

And I loved alternative rock music.

And! This was with a group of other kids from my school that I knew. The guy that asked me made sure I knew it was with more people than just him. Because not only was there the 16-year-old rule, but we were also encouraged by our church leaders to go on group dates and avoid one-on-one dates.

And! The Smashing Pumpkins. The Smashing Pumpkins. To this day, I can still remember the light and dizzy feeling of giddiness in my heart when I hung up the phone.

I did the quick checklist in my head of all the reasons this would fit within the rules of dating.

I was old enough.

This was a group date. Check and check.

All I needed was to tell my parents.

I talked to my mom first. She deferred me to my dad. She said I needed to ask him. The two days before I was able to talk to him were filled with excitement and a slight bit of fear. What if he said no? What if I missed out on a date to the Smashing Pumpkins?

Finally, he was home from his shift at the fire station, and I sat down with him and explained the details of my date. The boy who asked me was also a member of my church; the other four people that were going were also good Mormon kids like me. It was a quick drive to Salt Lake, about an hour away. My date had been driving an entire year longer than me. I made sure to hit all the details that I thought a dad would want to hear about his daughter going on a date.

Then he asked me about the band we were seeing. I told him it was a rock band that I really liked, and the local radio station, X96, played them all the time.

He paused.

A few moments of silence passed between us.

My heart started to beat quicker. Why wasn’t he saying anything?

“Kara,” he began, “you didn’t need to ask me permission to go. You have free will here and can choose whether or not you want to go to this concert.”

I didn’t say anything. I could tell there was more to this. He didn’t say it with an air of finality. He went on.

“You can make up your own mind. You don’t need me to tell you what to do. But I do want you to ask yourself one question: Is a rock concert a place where you think you’ll be able to feel the spirit?”

I looked at my hands. I couldn’t meet his gaze.

So he went on.

“If you think you’ll still be able to feel the holy ghost at this concert, then you should go. But if you don’t think you can feel the spirit…maybe you should think about that.”

I quietly nodded and left.

I wasn’t going to go. I knew it before I even got to my room a few yards away, closing the door–letting the silent tears fall.

Later, when I was done letting out all my teenage tears, I called my date and told him I couldn’t go. He was shocked.

“Your parents aren’t letting you?” He asked.

“No, it’s not that,” I said, fighting back tears again. I was a good Mormon girl, and good Mormon girls don’t lie. Because they hadn’t said no. My dad told me it was up to me.

But I knew if I went, he would always be disappointed in my decision. I knew the answer to his question. I was taught that the Holy Ghost only speaks to you in a still small voice, and there is no way I could hear that still small voice while also belting out: DESPITE ALL MY RAGE, I AM STILL JUST A RAT IN A CAAAAAGE…

Disappointing my parents felt way worse than not being able to feel the Holy Ghost.

This sentiment would stay with me for many, many more years.

I don’t think I ever gave my would-be date a straight answer. I just left him confused and guessing why I couldn’t go.

I think about this moment often.

I think about my dad and how he was doing his best with the tools he had. I’m not angry. He probably doesn’t even remember having this conversation with me.

But I think about this moment sometimes when I’m out with my friends on a kid-free weekend. It pops in my head sometimes when I’m walking out of a concert venue with someone at 11 pm, happy, buzzy with beats and that collective feeling of singing along to your favorite songs with a bunch of strangers.

I think about this moment when I hear from a believing Mormon that “we all have free agency, some just choose to walk away and sin…”

I think about this moment as I’m raising my own teenagers, sometimes unsure how to handle a situation. Something brand new pops up, and I don’t know the right thing to say or do.

I think about sixteen-year-old Kara often.

I think about the tears she shed about wanting to be good, and never quite feeling good enough.

I think about her sometimes when I’m out late, with a drink in my hand. I’m still kind, funny, and generous when I’m holding a cocktail. I’m not evil. I’m still me.

I remind her that my mom and dad love me. I sometimes remind sixteen-year Kara that my parents love to hear from me, and my own teenagers. I tell her that they send me birthday gifts and visit me often.

I tell her that even though some of my choices were probably disappointing to them, they do love me.

I tell her we let go of that fear of being unloved.

In this new phase of being divorced and single, I actually talk to sixteen-year-old Kara a lot. I tell her that we’re having somewhat of a do-over right now.

We’re dressing up and going out on dates. Even with men we don’t even want to marry! (She’s shocked to hear this…teenage Kara only dated other church members.)

We buy concert tickets all the time and even take my own kids to concerts and rock shows.

I tell her we aren’t really letting the societal standards of what a 46-year-old woman should be doing actually dictate what we do.

We dress how we want. We stay up. We stay in.

We stay loyal to our own heart.

I tell her we’ve gone through too much pain, suffering, and living a life for someone else to do anything but what we want to do.

We’re following our own dreams, and re-learning how to trust ourselves.

We’re writing our own book of rules. In pencil. Because one of the lessons that has steered me through a faith crisis, a divorce, and a life being upended with no sign of going back the way it was is that writing rules in pencil is helpful for building an authentic life.

You don’t operate in absolutes anymore.

You learn. You grow. You change. You surround yourself with people who let you learn and grow and change. Nobody is supposed to be the same person they were 20 years ago, 10 years ago, a year ago.

So you write in pencil. And you call them rules, because that’s the language you’re used to. But it’s more like ideas, experiments, guideposts, trial-and-error attempts.

You make the kind of mistakes you might have made when you were younger. This time, you don’t have all that fear attached to new experiences.

The fear has been replaced by curiosity and genuine wondering about the world and the people in it. You aren’t afraid of disappointing your parents because love won. And you suspect that they have also changed and have had their own moments of growth and learning since you were a teenager.

So when you get asked out on a date, just go. You’re going to think of a hundred reasons not to go and why it’s a bad idea before he even shows up at your house.

But just go and have fun. Be yourself. Dance with him. Let him call you pretty. Flirt back. You’re making up for lost time.

Ink from the Embers is a reader-supported publication and I’m so thankful you’re here. There is plenty of free content, but thank you for considering becoming a paid subscriber, which includes quarterly PDF writing guides, (super) personal essays available only to paying subscribers, the occasional peek at my novel in progress, and my undying gratitude for helping support my blossoming writing career in this new stage of my life.

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Do you ever talk to your younger self? Do you ever do things for that little kid now? A do-over? I would love to hear about it!

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It was late summer, ten years ago. The August day was hot, and I knew the moon would be full later that night.

I called a friend and told her I have an idea. We were both going through a similar struggle in close relationships. We spent countless hours in conversation, grieving with each other, and sharing our mirroring heartbreak. Different scenarios, but we were both experiencing intense and difficult feelings around our situations.

I was new to exploring different aspects of spirituality. My belief system no longer included praying and going to church to ease my broken heart.

I have always tracked the moon, even before the days of making it part of my regular practice. So I decided to use this particular August moon to help alleviate some of the grief I was feeling.

I sent her some prompts to scribble in a journal and told her to bring the pages with her.

“And bring a towel,” I added quickly. A last-minute inspiration struck me right before we hung up.

We walked to the beach a few minutes from where I live. We sat under the full moon and shared what we wrote. We spoke aloud what we wanted to let go. The memories, moments, and relationships that were keeping us in this season of hurt.

Then we burned the pages and buried the ashes in the sand. Then, under the glow of the full moon, we walked into the water and dove under the dark waves in the shallows, baptizing our hearts that night, releasing into the water the thoughts that were holding us down.

The moon rose above us, her bright orb a sentry for what we were giving away.

It was my very first moon ritual.

I’ve since done a variation of that August Full Moon ritual every year since with that same friend. Sometimes others have joined us. We haven’t always dunked ourselves into the water. But the spirit of that night every year is the same. What do we need to give away that is holding us back?

Since that August night, I’ve done several moon rituals.

Manifesting rituals during a Dark Moon. As the moon waxes and grows, so does my wish.

Releasing rituals for the Full Moons. The moon wanes, and whatever I am letting go of disappears with each passing day.

Whether you believe that the moon actually has power in these spells and rituals, the very act of writing, speaking, and declaring your intentions is powerful. The real power is inside you, but I love using nature and her cycles and seasons to help organize my rituals and intentions.

This guide is designed for the Summer Moons of 2026. Each month has a Full Moon and a New Moon, and according to ancient practices, each moon has its own meaning, and your intentions can match the phase and meaning.

This guide is designed for you to create your own rituals. Whether it’s simply writing down your intentions and thoughts, or maybe you are inspired to incorporate candles, water, or other elements that are meaningful to you.

There is also a brief explanation of different astrology signs each moon will be in to enhance your intentions, and go deeper if you would like.

I hope you will use this guide to sharpen your own intuition and inner knowing. After all, you are your own greatest teacher and guide.

Enjoy!

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Creativity is not a reward for having your life together.

Write that feral first draft. Scribble those doodles with joy. There will never be a perfect time, perfect weather, perfect song in your headphones to inspire you to start. Perfectionism and creativity will never be friends. Create something messy and broken and terrible because it’s simply inside you dying to get out.

For years, I subscribed to systems that required me to lean into the side of perfection versus messy middles. Perfection was rewarded with eternal salvation and worthiness.

Being engaged in a worthy task was a top priority. Productivity was the buzzword in my home for years.

“How was your day?” I would ask my husband, hungry for conversation after a day of chasing toddlers and changing diapers.

“Productive,” was the usual answer. He said it so often, and so many times that it eventually turned into a joke we could share together. But it never really changed the dynamic of my world.

Productivity was the goal, the prize, and the measure of worthiness in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

But being an artist, a writer, or living a life of creativity where you create something from nothing takes daydreaming and yearning, and an agenda that requires zero productivity.

It takes letting your brain wander and your heart to be led to places you didn’t plan or expect.

It takes terrible first drafts and a lot of mistakes. Creating takes having the courage to put something to paper or on a canvas, or piece of fabric, hell, even sidewalk chalk art, that you don’t need to show anyone, but you want to create anyway.

When you breathe life into an idea, you also keep your soul alive.

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If you wait for the perfect conditions (according to whatever made-up book you’re getting your rules from) to be creative, it will never happen.

If you say, first I will fold this pile of laundry, then pick up the dry cleaning, then catch up on emails, then schedule the dog groomer, then this task, then that one, then…I will get to that creative whim that’s been quietly begging me to pay attention to–it will never happen.

Creativity shouldn’t happen because you had a week of “being productive.” Whatever that means. Creativity should happen because you are human. Creativity should happen because it means you are connected. Creativity should happen because you are a co-creator with God, The Universe, Source, The Matrix, whatever your belief system–creating is part of who you are.

You do not need permission to be an artist or creative. You don’t need a plan or a checklist or a plan to monetize something you love to do. You can be creative simply because your heart has been begging you to create something from nothing.

Being creative is not a reward.

Being creative is the entire point.

What have you been creating lately? Tell me in the comments!

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When I made an option to have a paid tier on my Substack, I knew it would be a great place to tell these kinds of stories. This one is super personal and super fun to write. It’s about a handful of memorable men I have gone out with, and the reasons I did not go out with them again.

Thanks for supporting my writing!

All names have been changed to protect the real identities of these real people I went on real-life dates with.

I never really dated in my teens and 20s. I went to a few high school dances. In college, I had a handful of dates. I had one serious boyfriend, whom I met at my job when I was 20. We dated for about a year. Then I met my now ex-husband a year after I broke up with my first serious boyfriend ever.

That is the actual extent of my dating life before I got married.

I think my lack of dating was a combination of my own self-confidence, being somewhat of a late bloomer, and wanting to be the perpetual good Mormon girl. So my dates were mostly rare and chaste.

So dating after my divorce has been both exciting, horrifying, enlightening, and hilarious. As a woman in her mid-forties, I gave myself permission to have new experiences, follow my heart, be brave, spontaneous, and try to give myself the kind of dating life I never really had before I was married.

So here are a handful of men I went out with, and the reasons I never did again. Enjoy!

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Be available.

Be accessible.

Confess.

Give.

Bury.

Suffer in silence.

This was a way of life when I was a practicing Mormon and a loyal wife trying to cling to her marriage. I had zero boundaries in both of these systems.

A dutiful Mormon sits in front of her bishop and reveals all her shortcomings, errors, and sins she has committed according to the Church. And sometimes, on the first Sunday of the month, she even stands in front of her congregation, testifying of her faith and belief, just so everyone knows she is good, she is worthy, she is one of them. She belongs.

Her congregation must know how she is living at all times,

so she knows,

that they know,

that God knows,

she is good.

A dutiful wife looks the other way if she is hurting and should have the capacity to forgive and pretend everything is ok.

She says yes to requests from her church and her husband. Even if it means putting her own heartfelt desires on hold or on a shelf in a back room somewhere.

In the meantime, stay engaged and busy in supporting your church and your husband.

For years, I agreed to this setup.

After all, I was told this was the easiest way to God. This was the recipe for a happy and prosperous home life. The fastest path to righteousness. Good girls forgive, they serve, they sacrifice. It’s the way.

But deconstruction and my divorce helped me understand the difference between love and self-abandonment. I learned the difference between service and servitude. The difference between a freely chosen sacrifice and a sacrifice demanded to prove that I was good.

At the beginning of my deconstruction, when it was obvious to others that I wasn’t attending church, and not wearing the right clothes, or a coffee maker was spotted on my counter, there was plenty of concern. And this concern came from a place of love. After all, if I did drink that coffee or wear those shorts, or miss church, I wouldn’t be with these people who loved me in the next life.

The stakes were very high.

So, of course, I’m going to get questions and concerns.

And because of how I operated in all these years of confession, and proving my worth, I tried to explain, or avoid, or sometimes I simply cut off the line of communication because I didn’t want them to be hurt by my disbelief. My own pain and struggle were buried.

At the beginning of my divorce, as we negotiated time with the kids, and did all of the necessary legalities of separating a life that was entangled for two decades, boundaries became more important than ever.

My role was changing from wife to co-parent. In the beginning, I still felt that familiar obligation of a dutiful wife because it was all I ever knew. Even after all that deconstruction, it still took time and practice to be in my new role as co-parent.

It wasn’t easy for either of us. He still wanted me to be available and accessible and around just like I was when I was his wife. But that’s not how a divorce works. It was time for me to be on my own, build my own life where I was not someone’s wife.

There was an uncomfortable season of adjustment where angry texts were sent when I put up a boundary. But time has a way of doing its thing, and now, our co-parenting role is the norm.

We both just want our kids to feel safe, taken care of, and have a sense of normalcy. And this has been the biggest driver for both of us to work together, despite the awkward adjustment to our new relationship.

Setting boundaries is one of the biggest factors in my peace. It is a sacred tool that will always be the first thing I talk about when a friend quietly pulls me aside and asks how I navigated my divorce. Or when a message arrives in my inbox from someone who is also deconstructing.

I consider setting boundaries as part of my spiritual practice. Boundaries keep me free. Boundaries keep me sovereign. Boundaries help me take the time I need to identify if a request of my time is service or servitude. If I am giving my time in the name of love or in the name of self-abandonment.

Having boundaries with this principle in mind doesn’t just help if you’re leaving a high-demand religion or a marriage. This is a life skill that can help anyone be their most authentic self.

I’m going to take a page from my life as a Mormon. Pretend I’m standing at a podium in front of you all on the first Sunday of the month. Here is what I want to say with my whole chest:

We all have our own gifts to offer the world, and when we are well-rested, clear-headed, and our hearts are full of that self-love that can only come from knowing who we are and what we can offer, I testify to you that we can give back that love with greater ease and abundance when we have boundaries than if we say yes to any request that comes our way.

Boundaries make me a better mom, daughter, sister, friend, and co-parent. I know who I am because of boundaries. My heart is more open because of boundaries.

In that spirit, here are a few phrases you can practice saying out loud if this is an area of your life that needs a little boost.

Helpful Phrases to Use When Practicing Boundaries

I’m not available for that right now.

I don’t feel comfortable talking about that with you.

I understand why you’re asking me, and I appreciate your concern, but I don’t want to talk about this with you.

That’s very personal. I don’t want to discuss that with you.

I’m unavailable.

I can’t.

No.

Please note the lack of “sorry” or overexplaining yourself. That’s just an added piece of advice as a recovering people pleaser who was sorry for EVERTHING and felt the need to explain why I wasn’t available and tried really hard to make the other person comfortable with my boundary.

If someone is upset with your boundary, they are the exact target audience for whom that boundary is for. The people in my life who have responded to my boundaries with love, understanding, and respect are the real ones. These are the people who stick around. These are the people who can match your own authentic love.

It’s a pretty magical system.

Wishing you healthy relationships with healthy boundaries so we can all love a little more and get a little more free.

Do you have a favorite phrase you use when setting boundaries? Would love to hear it!

Both of these systems were suffocating me, but I didn’t know it at the time. When I was in, I was simply running the program I was told would make me happy.

Obey the commandments of the church. Obey the handbooks. Obey the guidelines. Perfect obedience meant perfect happiness. That was the promise.

Every believing Mormon knows the scripture that Joseph Smith read that led him to found the church. As a teenager, you memorize it in seminary.

James 1:5

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

We memorized this scripture with pride and reverence. We have the restored gospel because our prophet dared to ask God the truth. This is a core tenet in our faith.

But what if we prayed and received a different message from God? What if that same spirit we were taught to listen for and feel and know told me I was in the wrong place, the wrong church, teaching my kids the wrong doctrine?

Then what?

The rest of that scripture passage continues by saying:

“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”

In other words, if you ask and your faith is wavering, you might get a different answer, and that’s on you. You’re driven like the wind, tossed from the fold. You should have had more faith when you asked; otherwise, you’d still be with the church.

Sigh.

But what a lot of people don’t realize is that I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want my marriage to end. I didn’t want everything to crumble and not be true. I didn’t want to rebuild my entire belief structure, my entire life, from the ground up.

My faith never wavered. I believed in my church, I believed in my marriage. I was all in.

I wrote about the afternoon when the wave of realization hit me about my church.

My marriage was a more subtle breakdown that took me longer to realize it was not a place my heart could stay.

Both systems required obedience to the structure. The church asked me to ignore the tug of my own conscience and heart and just stay in line, ignore the inconsistencies I found in the history, the doctrine, and the teachings. My marriage asked me to forgive and forget and push down my own needs and bury any notion of sovereignty and self.

And I did. For years.

The disintegration of my belief in Mormonism was so painful and required a reckoning of my very identity and who I was at my core. It involved my family relationships and fear about what those would look like if I didn’t comply and continue obeying the commandments and rules.

I think that’s why it took years to finally be able to write about it, speak about it, tell my stories. My soul needed the time.

When my marriage began to crumble, crack, and show me that it wasn’t a place where I could stay and be happy, it was a familiar pain. I didn’t need 10 years of research and silence.

I knew that leaving my marriage would be painful, and hard, and full of the unknown. But I was following my heart—that was also familiar. So whatever was on the other side, despite how nauseatingly scary, I knew deep down it would be something better.

So here I am. The rebuild.

Obedience is not the top priority like it was when I was a practicing member and dutiful wife.

I do not have a rulebook for my life. My heart is my compass. My personal autonomy is my guide.

There have been days when I feel lost and sad. I honor these moments. Grief reminds me that I loved and I was loved.

But the days where I feel happy and free and full of love (the kind of love I learned about in Sunday School–the kind Jesus talks about) have been overflowing and happen more and more the further I am from those rules and laws of the systems that were holding me back.

My ability to hold nuance and possibility and the unknown in the same hand is a gift.

I know some will claim my faith wavered, and that is how I got here.

But what I know for sure is that my faith is stronger than ever.

My faith in the divine. My faith in myself. My faith in love.

And that is how I am rebuilding my life now.

With Love.

Thank you for being here to witness and read. This isn’t a place where I share all the answers. I don’t have them. It’s a place where I share my stories and hope they resonate. I hope my stories inspire you to follow your own heart and be your own sovereign self. Even if your stories are different than mine. Especially if they are different than mine. Freedom from conformity is a beautiful thing.

During my deconstruction phase, when I was figuring out who I was without the title of Mormon Wife, I had a few phases of trying on my new sovereignty.

I got a (giant) tattoo. This was an exercise in painful meditation. It was such a commitment to permanently mark my body, and I had to be so present, and so aware of my choice to get this piece of art all over the real estate of my body that it ended being way more cathartic that I anticipated.

Good Mormon women don’t get permanent tattoos. But, sovereign, independent thinking, Kara wanted one. So that was that.

Then I had my hair phase.

When you are a good girl, you follow the rules. There is a handbook in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that tells you how to style your hair.

It says:

Choose a neat, conservative hairstyle that is easy to maintain and does not draw attention. Hair color should look natural. If you decide to color your hair, consider the time, cost, and impact on your missionary activities.

So for years and years, of course, I adhered to this code. But my personal expression was silently screaming for a change. I never listened to that creative voice of self-expression, because I wanted to show everyone God, I was Team Obedience.

But in 2016, when my shelf cracked and dipped a little more, I finally went through with a hairstyle I had my eye on for months.

I shaved the side of my head.

I picked one side and asked the stylist to do it a certain way so when I was around my still-believing, conservative, Mormon friends and family, I could just flip it over, and no one would ever know.

Because in 2016, I was still bringing my kids to church. My husband at the time still believed. I wasn’t completely out of my broken-faith closet. So I felt more comfortable with this incognito version of self-expression.

But as the months went by, I loved the freedom to do what I wanted with my hair so much, I decided to do the other side. Now there was no hiding or flipping.

Two sides shaved. This is me.

More time passes. I keep hitting up the barber to keep that look.

One day I realize how challenging and awkward its going to be to regrow this shaved look. Because although I loved it, I knew it wasn’t going to be my forever look. So I made another self-expression decision.

I cut my super long locks. Short. Super short.

I’m talking my hair was in the middle of my back, and now it grazed my cheek.

Anyone with long hair who completely chopped it off can relate to one of two feelings.

You either want to shed tears or sorrow or joy.

Dear reader, I was estatic.

The freedom, the feeling, the weight. I went from having to majorly plan ahead a logistics shedule when it came to caring for my long, curly, shaved on both sides hair, to bopping out of the shower, scrunch in a little product, and I was on my way!

And that was just the maintenance relief!

I didn’t exactly recognize it at the time, but I was also doing some intense inner work with every new hair shave, chop, cut, and length change.

My hair held so much meaning within my religion and my marriage.

The religion piece was obvious. I no longer had a “neat, conservative hairstyle” that “did not draw attention.”

But I didn’t realize how much meaning my hair was carrying in my marriage until I went with the ultimate shortest hair style you can imagine. In my mind this style was going to be the best way to grow it out. (Because I really did want to grow it out again.)

But in order to get to that easiest way, I needed to really lean in to the short short shortiness of it all.

I essentially had all my hair short, save for one kind of longish strip in the middle.

Wild? Yes. Eccentric looking? Sure. Was it going to be my forever hair? No. Did I love it? Yes.

Did it unlock decades of conditioning my personal style choices to fit someone elses’s idea of who I should be and what I should look like?

ALSO YES.

I can’t stress how much this unclipped some really damaging ideas of conformity and compliance. I didn’t see the bigger picture at the time, but cutting my hair off helped me step into my authentic self faster than if I had never cut it or shaved it at all.

And in my bones, I felt this. I had this shift in my very essence. I came home from the stylist that day glowing from this feeling I had yet to articulate like I can today.

When I was getting ready for bed that night I tried to relay this emotion to my husband. My eyes were sparkling, I was flitting around words like attachment and freedom, and other obscure notions I was trying to attribute to chopping all my hair off.

When I was done with my less-than-elegant attempt at telling him how free I felt from this final boss haircut, he just stared at me silently.

I blinked. “I know it doesn’t really make sense what I’m trying to say, but do you kind of understand how this haircut is making me feel right now?”

He didn’t. In fact, he said something to me that I will never forget.

After a few more beats of him saying nothing, I said, “It feels like you probably don’t like my new hairstyle, but I am growing it back.”

Then he got up, angrily began to leave the room, and said, “It’s like you don’t even need me anymore.”

I was stunned.

What? How did he come to that conclusion?

This was years before I would serve him with divorce papers.

The Kara that heard “It’s like you don’t even need me anymore” after my hair confessional of freedom and joy backtracked faster than you can say patriarchy.

“No no, of course I still need you! You’re my partner! I’m sorry my haircut made you feel like I don’t need you.”

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I was hurt, but did not let him know. I fawned and assured him this was a necessary step to getting my hair back to the length I (he) wanted.

I quickly buried my thoughts and feelings at how this moment helped me get a little more free as I deconstructed a lifetime of fitting into a box someone else told me to get in. I followed him out of the room reassuring he was still my number one.

I want to hug that Kara. I want to tell her how badass her hair is. I want to tell her that she doesn’t need to follow anyone out of a room about a haircut.

I want to tell her that her sovereignty is as sacred as her self-expression. I want to tell that her hair is her own and belongs to no man. I want to tell her that her hair will never be a symbol of her loyalty.

Her heart and actions do that for her.

Because the Kara that is penning these words now is comfortable being herself. She is wise to projections and styles of attachment and she knows who the fuck she is.

She belongs to herself first. And because of that belonging, she is a better mother, friend, daughter, and human.

She cuts her hair. She gets bangs. She straightens it. She puts it in hats, braids, and bandanas, and maybe she will shave it again. Who knows?

Even though it took more than one structure in her life crumbling to the ground to truly realize it, she loves herself, and she is enough exactly the way she is.

Time is wild.

For my birthday this year, I found myself at the mall. I wasn’t expecting to spend my birthday at the mall, but my sixteen-year-old (I know what you’re thinking– how can I have a 16-year-old, when I was barely 16 myself?) has an invitation to prom, and she needed some inspiration for a dress.

So I was more than happy to spend the day holding hangers and dresses, sitting on benches outside of dressing rooms, waiting for the reveal, and spending way too much money on skin care and makeup.

It was a fun day.

One thing on the agenda? Pierced ears. Not for me initially. She really wanted to get her ears pierced and had been asking since she was ten. Keep in mind, I never said no; she just never actually went through with it. But today? Today was the day.

It’s 2026. So, of course, there are piercing establishments advertising a qualified nurse on staff to take care of your piercing needs.

I’m sure Susan (made-up name and person), the registered nurse, would have done an incredible job with the piercings. But we did not go to the nurse.

We walked into Claire’s, where two girls, who looked like their mom dropped them off at their weekend job, stood behind the counter and did the eye contact version with each other of rock, paper, scissors to see who had to complete the dullard task of piercing. Sadie (made-up name, real person) lost, and showed us her excitement by mumbling to us to follow her and limply handed us the plaque of studs to choose from while she sighed, quite loudly, and began to pull out her supplies.

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Not only did my daughter get her ears pierced, but in that moment, I decided to pierce mine as well. I used to have a piercing above my single piercings decades ago. I remember getting those extra piercings at some point after I turned 18 and didn’t need my mom to sign the permission slip.

I loved those double piercings. I loved picking out a combination of earrings to wear. I loved the sovereignty of not needing a parent to add trinkets to my ears so much that I even went back and pierced my upper cartilage!

Trust me when I say this was very cool for the late 90s. It was as close as I would get to the grunge aesthetic. I loved it.

But I let those double piercings grow in. Not because I grew out of the aesthetic. (I am still very much a 90s grunge girl in my heart, somewhere.) But because I was a good girl who wanted to follow the rules.

I was in Ecuador on a volunteer trip when I was 20 years old. It was an organization that wasn’t sponsored by the LDS Church, but the founders were LDS, so all of us volunteers were too.

It was October. And that meant General Conference. This is the conference held twice a year where the prophets and leaders of the church give sermons and instructions from God. Every member tunes in.

I was here, sitting with other girls my age, when the LDS prophet at the time stood at the pulpit and told the members that getting a tattoo was foolish, and he was sad so many people were doing it, and he prophesied many would regret it. Then, he dropped a bomb—girls and women should only have one pair of earrings.

(Side note: I ALSO got a little tattoo when I turned 18…that I covered up with a giant, beautiful mermaid that I do not regret, and do not think is foolish. I love my tattoo.)

Anyway, here are the words I heard, sitting with about a dozen other girls my age:

I submit that it is an uncomely thing, and yet a common thing, to see young men with ears pierced for earrings, not for one pair only, but for several.

They have no respect for their appearance. Do they think it clever or attractive to so adorn themselves?

I submit it is not adornment. It is making ugly that which was attractive. Not only are ears pierced, but other parts of the body as well, even the tongue. It is absurd.

We—the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve—have taken the position, and I quote, that “the Church discourages tattoos. It also discourages the piercing of the body for other than medical purposes, although it takes no position on the minimal piercing of the ears by women for one pair of earrings.”

One pair. There it was.

When those words were said, I had several pairs of eyes look my way. It wasn’t even subtle.

One girl even chose to stare at me a few extra seconds, just to drive home the point that they knew, that I knew, that the prophet knew, that God knew, I had more than one pair. And now, it was decision time.

Would I take them out? Would I choose God over my personal style choice? Would I show those watching me God that I was obedient?

Or would I be rebellious and sin in my earrings?

Did I mention I was 20?

I’m sure you can guess at this point what I did. I wanted to be a good girl. I didn’t want the stares. I didn’t want the assumptions.

So on this volunteer trip to Ecuador, to work in an orphanage, I took out my earrings.

You can’t hear an admonition from the prophet and just ignore it.

Skip to twenty-six years after those stares, that admonishment. I was sovereign again.

I sat in the chair after my daughter got her ears pierced and had the tiniest tear come to my eye. Not because it hurt, but because I was thinking about that October in 2000.

Twenty-year-old Kara just wanted to be good. She wanted to do good, she wanted to be good.

But she also wanted to express her opinions and style and make her own choices.

But doing good wasn’t enough. She needed to look the part so everyone knew she was actually good.

Of course, since then, I’ve come across plenty of “good” Mormons who are not good at all. I know now that looking the part does not always equal playing the part.

But 46-year-old Kara doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about those people either. She worries about her own life, her own lane, and she does still want to do good.

She just believes now she doesn’t have to look a certain way to do it.

In case anyone is curious about the original talk I heard, here is the full transcript. Thank you for reading and supporting my work here!

I am no longer married. I feel more settled in my life now than I was when I wrote this. But the ocean, and its pull, and the invisible forces that drew me to this part of the world, despite losing my faith and family structure as I once knew it—is something I will always be grateful for.

So please enjoy this blast from the past, my love letter to Cape Ann, which I wrote in 2014.

In Love

The heart is a funny thing. It yearns, and swells and breaks and opens. At least mine has.

I fell in love a few months ago. I fell hard. It wasn’t like the last time. Last time it was that slow, approachable, don’t know what you got until it’s gone type of love. But this last time. BAM. Right in my gut, and it hasn’t let up since.

We moved into this house that is near a river. The Annisquam River. One Saturday morning, I happened to hear a radio story that mentioned a millionaire, who, before he became one, had a sister that drown in this very river near the turn of the century and once he made his millions, he dedicated most of his time and resources to creating an anti-gravity device, because he was convinced that was why she drowned. Because of gravity.

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I remember looking out my window that Saturday morning, watching the ice caps flow with the current tide. I watched the river for a few moments and thought about that man over a hundred years ago. I smirked. Not at his heartache or loss. I can’t imagine. But because my bones tingled a little.

I felt like gravity--a force of nature--is the exact thing that brought me to this town.

My new love.

I married an adventurer. I’ve already acquiesced to the fact that we will always be that family making plans, trying new things and “settling down” may be a relative term I will have to make up my own definition for. It’s taken me a while to say this comfortably and without exasperation, and hands tossed in the air like a frustrated shopkeeper looking for a lost key. This is my lot. This is our lot. And it’s a good one.

We have somehow ended up in this old fishing town north of Boston.

Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Cheap winter rent and the lure of the ocean are how we found it. It wasn’t on our radar when making plans for our trek east. I trusted my adventuring partner when he picked a spot to bring the rest of our brood on one of his solo trips. We arrive, unpack a few suitcases, and try to get as settled as you can when you’ve just sold 75% of your belongings and are sleeping in something of a summer vacation rental.

Our first Sunday here, we took a drive. “You have to see the coastline,” he tells me. With everyone piled in the van, he wanders past shops and old homes. We talk about the fishing history, the Perfect Storm history, the oldest seaport in North America history. It’s a cool place to be if you like history.

Then we come around a bend. And my heart stopped. BadaBeat, badaBeat, badaBeat, badaBOOM. And without warning, tears flowed quietly and quickly down my cheeks. Everything clicked. Everything was clear. If anyone tells you they don’t believe in love striking unexpectedly, you can tell them this story. Because I fell in love with this old, cranky town On.The.Spot.

I don’t know what biological thing occurred, or neurons fired, or strange pheromones of the ocean air got a hold of me. But I’m telling you, I love this place.

Love. It’s old. Real old. Like 1623 and 1973 mixed up old.

The roads are terrible. Nearly every grocery store employee I’ve met here either hates me, or their job, I can’t decide which. The local movie theatre is, umm, dilapidated, run down, quaint? It’s been winter ever since we got here. Not just winter. But the town has run out of funds to plow the roads and keep them salted kind of winter. Like, it feels 10 degrees below zero because the wind won’t stop blowing winter. But I don’t care. Because I am in love.

I still laugh a little when I think that perfect San Diego was also in the running for this new job. Did I mention that? San Diego! Summer year-round in San Diego! Poppin sunsets like candy, San Diego! Temps below 60 degrees require sweaters and hot chocolate San Diego! We could have picked “ Let’s go the beach in swimsuits and swim in the water while the turkey cooks during Thanksgiving” San Diego! But the Western current wasn’t meant for us. We were lured, pulled, beckoned to this cold, easterly, storm-ridden peak of this state.

And after two days of living in it, I found love. So this is where we stay.

Until the next continental shift.

“The neighbor is coming over tomorrow to help fix our grass.”

This was an announcement from my husband years ago when we lived in a tidy neighborhood in the west hills of Salt Lake County, Utah.

He went on to explain that the neighbor had stopped him on his way to work a few mornings and asked about the dead patch of grass in our front yard.

We were barely 2 years married, mid-twenties, first place for either of us since we left home, which wasn’t an apartment, so he shrugged, told him he wasn’t sure why it was dying. Maybe the automatic sprinklers weren’t reaching that spot.

Every house on our block had automatic sprinklers in Utah, the high desert climate, where more often than not, there is a drought and news stories about how low the reservoirs are.

But green grass and manicured lawns with one species of grass throughout your entire yard–this was important. High desert climates and water shortages be damned.

It was kind of our neighbor to come over and offer his help. He convinced us we were victims of some kind of invasive grub, and the only solution was to cut the patch out and replace it with sod.

But at some point during this process, he also let us know, in a kind yet reproachful way, that it was against the rules of the HOA to let your grass die, or have dead patches, or let invasive grubs stick around.

It was kind of him to help. But it also came with an admonishment that our lawn needed to conform to the rest of the block. We needed green, thriving, grub-free grass.

I heard: the optics matter. Our dead grass is a reflection of the entire street. And we weren’t that kind of street.

Seven years and four kids later, we found ourselves 2000 miles away from that manicured, uniform neighborhood in a small New England town. We closed on our home in July, and it was a hot summer. The house had been unoccupied for the year. There weren’t patches of dead grass–the entire thing was crispy. No automatic sprinkler system to kick on.

We were the new family on the block, and I worried what the neighbors thought of the dying grass. I took quick inventory of my next-door neighbors.

The neighbors on one side had zero grass. Their yard was a delightful hodgepodge of wild flowers, pots of geraniums, mulch, and a stone path. It was obvious there was no grass to mow on that side.

The neighbors on the other side had beautiful flowers growing in beds they frequently weeded, and a stunning line-up of irises lining their drive. The grass looked very similar to mine, and that made me relax just a bit.

I eventually asked my neighbor with the beds and irises if there was an expectation to keep my yard looking as beautiful as the ones around me. If the neighbors would be upset with me if I didn’t plant more flowers, or put the sprinkler on the lawn now and then.

She laughed and said, “You have four kids to chase after! I don’t know how you do it. I wouldn’t have yard work on the top of my list if I had 5-year-old triplets! Nobody here cares about your flower beds.”

I smiled and nodded my head. We moved on to another topic and how these 5-year-olds were about to start kindergarten.

She didn’t know it, but I felt a kind of relief and healing in that moment. The complete normalcy that registered in my bones at this answer to a question about my yard.

The outside optics of what kind of life I was actually living didn’t matter.

Her comment hit deeper than it would have if I weren’t still working through my faith crisis during this season of life.

Because of this, (and I know this sounds odd), but my yard makes me think of losing my faith, and the rebuild often.

When the random daffodils pop up in the spring in a spot that doesn’t make sense. They are nowhere near a bed or border; they just pop up in the middle of my lawn, and then are mowed down after they bloom.

I think about what I kept and what I let go of.

When the patches of clover grow in between the grass make up most of my backyard, I remember the summer afternoons I spent in my backyard with my kids, sometimes looking for that elusive one with four leaves.

I think about how I navigated figuring out how to parent them when the guidelines and rules from the church were no longer my own.

I think about how I have a mix of old faith traditions and new spiritual practices in my life. Eclectic and unique.

And then there are the dandelions.

Did you know that dandelions are the first source of food for bees? Did you know that every part of a dandelion is edible for tea or salads? Did you know that dandelions have several medicinal purposes?

But someone, somewhere, decided they are unwanted. That they’re bright yellow blossoms, popping up at random places, detracts from a perfectly green and manicured lawn. We call them weeds and have sprays to get rid of them.

I want to be a dandelion.

I want to be wild and brilliant and multifaceted.

I want to bring pops of color into the lives of the people I know and love.

I don’t want to live in a world of conformity where someone else decides my value.

I want to be wild.

I want to be free.

Dear Esther,

I remember sitting in your high-rise condo in Salt Lake City sometime in the late 80s. Your living room smelled like black licorice. Your kitchen usually had a patch of sprouts growing from a container. Years later, when I would walk through a natural grocery store, scents from your kitchen would come flooding back to me.

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I didn’t want to leave.

That’s the part people don’t always understand when I tell them I left.

I wanted it to still be true. I wanted the life I had built. The beliefs, the structure, the certainty. I wanted my world to stay intact in the way I had always known it.

But there came a point where the weight of my own knowing became heavier than the weight of pretending.

And once that line was crossed, there was no way to unknow it.

That’s when the moments of grief snuck up on me during nap time. That’s when I began to avoid phone calls from my family.

It was hard for a while. It was dark. Lonely.

Lonely in a way that felt hard to explain to anyone still inside it.

Because what I believed then was this:

If it wasn’t true, I had to lose everything.

Not just my faith, but the people I loved, the way I saw the world, the parts of myself that had been shaped inside it.

Part of the healing came when I realized I did not have to give up every single thing about this church that was my whole life.

The church taught me to view the world in absolutes. I believed there was right, and there was wrong, there was black, and there was white, and the shades of gray are dangerous.

You leave, and everything will burn to the ground. A total loss. At least that’s what I believed.

But then I let go, something surprising happened.

Not everything burned.

I kept love. I kept forgiveness. Not because they belonged to the church, but because they belonged to me.

I kept community as a way of life. But I had to rebuild it. I lost friends who could no longer see me the same way once I stepped outside of what we had shared. I understood why. I had once believed the same things about people who left.

And then there was the music.

The Tabernacle Choir is world-famous. They have performed all over the world, including seven presidential inaugurations. My mother used to play them in our home on Sunday mornings as we would iron clothes, curl our hair, search for missing dress shoes, and pack snacks for the littlest siblings to keep them busy during the service.

Our congregation had its own choir. My mother was often the director. I remember being so excited as a teenager when I was asked to join. I’m sure I rolled my eyes and made sure everyone knew what an inconvenience it was to stay after church to practice whatever number we would be performing in the coming weeks.

But over the years, I grew to love singing in the choir. Learning how to read the alto section, listening to the piano notes, and the pitch of the older women behind me to find the right key. My bones humming along when the men sang their bass and tenor parts.

Then, of course, the growing crescendos that lit my heart on fire when all of us sang our different parts all together, creating a magical moment where harmony becomes a something more powerful than a sound.

I kept the music.

Which is why my (still) Mormon heart beat with joy when the chorus teacher from my kids’ high school put out a call to form a Community Choir for an upcoming performance.

I said yes. I went to rehearsal.

While we were performing, I turned a page too early and dropped out on a few measures I couldn’t remember.

But it didn’t matter.

The sopranos hit their highest note. The altos carried the line. The bass and tenors held everything steady beneath us.

And there it was again—that feeling I hadn’t touched in years.

The music. The harmony. The way something bigger forms when everyone brings their part.

It only lasted six minutes.

But standing there, I remembered something I didn’t understand back then, when everything first broke:

I didn’t lose everything.

Some things were always mine to keep.

The church I was raised in told me that being a wife and mother was the highest calling I could ever receive, and if I poured myself into those two roles, I would be happy and exalted with God.

Well, I did that. And there were many years of being a wife and mother when I was lonely, unhappy, and had a giant hole in my heart.

I supported my ex-husband’s career—even before we had children—and moved every 18 months for the first 10 years of our marriage so he could continue to climb the ladder of success and level up his professional skills, while I was at home, tending the hearth and stoking the fires.

The church told me I needed to be the one to stay home and take care of the kids, so a career wouldn’t even be that useful! My husband and provider would take care of all of that nonsense. I shouldn’t worry about the mundane tasks of working for a living. Just get better at making dinner and folding clothes! A woman who works is also a worldly woman. This was the message, and I wanted to be good for God. Good for the church. I was trying to be a good girl.

Then, of course, the babies came along, and having three kids at once forced me to make some life choices that made even less room for career aspirations. On top of the frequent moving, there just wasn’t any space for me to chase a career I wanted.

But I did try. Truly. It was never far from my mind.

I wrote a blog for years about my life and times as a mother and wife. It was a welcome outlet for my itchy writing fingers.

I also remember when the triplets were 2, and my youngest was a baby, I entered an essay and art contest put on by the University of Utah. The theme was about the beauty of the state. In between nap times and sometimes after bedtime, I scribbled out a few sentences, then that became a few paragraphs, and finally, the deadline arrived, and I submitted what I wrote.

Imagine my surprise and utter delight when I received an email that I had won. I got to go to the University as my prize and attend a lecture by the famous Dr. Scott Sampson.

THE Scott Sampson of Dinosaur Train on PBS! Everyone’s favorite paleontologist. My kids watched Dinosaur Train, and now, because someone liked what I wrote about the beautiful state of Utah, I got to meet him!

Not only that, but I had a reason to put on nice clothes and leave the house after bedtime. At this stage of my life, that was almost better than getting the accolades for my writing.

My writer heart and my nerd heart were full up that night.

I have always had a pulse on the writer's life, a quiet yearning to write for a living.

For too many years, I let other people’s ideas of what I should do be my compass and dictate where I should spend my time.

So today, exactly one year after I published my first piece here on Substack, I think it’s worth celebrating and noting that this writing space is only going to get bigger. I’m well into my Creative Writing MFA, and I have readers and patrons here who like my work.

But more importantly, I like my work. I love what I’m building and growing.

So this is a special Thank You to everyone who is coming along. I’m so grateful.

There will always be plenty of free content here for anyone to read and subscribe. In fact, it would mean the world to me if you sent a favorite essay to someone you think will also like the stories I’m telling and the community I’m building here.

And for my paid subscribers, I do have an exciting offering that you will be getting directly in your inbox later today.

It’s a special thank you for supporting my budding writing career with your dollar bills and believing in me. I waited too long to use my voice and tell my story. So the gift is something special I put together with that in mind.

Don’t worry, I will give everyone else a preview of this special gift, and it will be available right away to anyone else who becomes a paid subscriber. (I am also building something super exciting, I can’t wait to share later this month…eek! I can’t wait to tell you all.)

So cheers to never missing your calling. Cheers to starting over at any point. Cheers to burning down places you don’t belong and rebuilding something of your own.

Thank You.

Love, Kara

Dear Amanda Susannah,

It was the last paragraph of your life sketch that haunted me. It read,

Pioneering was very difficult for some of the intellectual, sensitive, musically talented sisters, but Amanda tried hard to be a good pioneer in these remote areas that her husband felt they should pioneer.

There are no journals in your hand. There is nothing written in your own words. So this vague sentiment about your intellect, your musical talent, and of course, “her husband felt they should,” had me asking questions I couldn’t ignore.

This sentence is what sent me on a historical journey to research everything about your life and the world you lived in.

You started your life in England in 1847. You are buried in an unmarked grave in Utah. You gave birth 7 times. Only one child lived to adulthood. You died when you were 36. Two of your children remained and went to live with your mother. Your husband remarried a 17-year-old child 3 years after you died. Your life sketch is just a string of dates and facts, and then that last paragraph.

When I read this last paragraph, I knew there was more to your story. You and I are from a culture where we love to document our lineage and keep journals. But we Mormons are selective in our records and what we write down. We write what makes us look faithful. We leave out what doesn’t.

We want our progenitors to know how faithful, righteous, and stalwart we were as individuals and, more importantly, as a married couple.

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I don’t spend time in these spaces anymore. I use my voice more often when needed.

But the last few months I have been thinking about when silence is valuable. When silence brings a boost of inspiration, or a needed reset when your nervous system gets fried from the onslaught of headlines you can’t avoid.

When the world is constantly at our fingertips, it’s easy to forget how chosen silence, can be a gift.

There are two places in my life where silence has become sacred.

The Creative

A few months ago, I received an email from my son’s English teacher. The teacher awarded my son the “Precocious Writer’s Award” for demonstrating nuance and “creating a space for readers to self-actualize.”

As a mother and a writer, I was over the moon, nay–Saturn and Pluto with this news. After I read the essay, I told my son how proud I was of his work and how special it was to not only read such a thoughtful essay with his ideas, but to have his teacher also recognize his work.

He’s 16. So he did a shy grin, mumbled a kind of “yeah,” and left my room. I beamed at the back of his head as he left and returned to my own work. Ten minutes later, he came back into my room and said, “Mom, do you know how I think of my ideas?”

I looked up, “Tell me.”

“So what I do is I just sit at my desk, and think and think and think. I’m just quiet and let ideas come to me.”

My heart then skipped over Saturn and Pluto and went right into the next universe.

“Amazing, dude. I love that,” I said as casually as possible. Being chill is necessary when your 16-year-old son starts waxing poetic about his creative process. It’s like seeing a rare bird in the wild. You don’t want to get too excited about it being there, or it will fly off.

“It was a really great essay,” I said, smiling at him.

He smiled back and left.

When we allow the quiet to breathe around us, it’s like opening a window and inviting in the breeze.

Since I have started taking my writing more seriously, I have been more mindful of my spaces of silence.

When I walk my dog. When I take a shower. When I’m alone in my car. I don’t look for anything during these chosen moments of silence. I just let the quiet be. Sometimes I’m flooded with ideas, and sometimes it just feels like I hit the reset button on my nervous system.

I see silence as a sacred practice in my writing.

The Witch

Being silent has been a very important part of my spiritual practice and has helped me heal and trust my own intuition. Most call this practice of silence within spirituality meditation.

But for some, meditation can be a loaded word.

What are you supposed to do while you meditate? What are you supposed to think about? I can’t sit still for two minutes, let alone 20, there is no way I can meditate. These are all things I have thought before, when I started a spiritual practice that involved meditation.

There are so many guides available on how to meditate. Literally thousands.

But here’s the thing.

I came from a high-demand religion that had handbooks and instructions on how to do nearly everything in your life. You have questions on how to pray, what to eat, what kind of sex to have, who to marry, what to wear; you could find answers in one of the church’s many handbooks or instructions from past prophets.

My current spirituality has been born from the fire of burning handbooks and instruction manuals.

I read, I learn, I trust my own process of trial and error of what works for me, and what doesn’t. I keep my spirituality open and evolving.

These are two practices that I use to strengthen my intuition and stay connected to my internal compass.

1 - Breathing

When I was first developing a meditation practice, I found that simply counting my breaths was an effective way to quiet my mind and just be. A simple technique called “box breathing,” where you breathe in for a count of four, hold for a count of four, breathe out for a count of four, then hold for a count of four, is all I needed to do to find that glorious state of sitting, breathing, and just being.

2- Walking With All Your Senses Turned On

This method of meditating is one of my favorites. You need to do this alone, and preferably surrounded by nature, rather than a busy metropolitan environment. Your only job is to walk with all your senses. Hear the sound the ground beneath you makes as you walk, listen for the birds or bugs around you, smell the air, and take in every color and glint of sunlight. This is one of my favorite ways to be present.

And if any of these suggestions don’t feel authentic to you, throw them all away, and just find a moment to let silence engulf you. If you fall asleep, who cares? Your body probably needed a mini nap anyway.

Don’t let an intentional practice of meditation and being quiet be turned into something you’re doing “right or wrong.” Find what works for you, and lean into that. You don’t need anything but your own internal compass to figure it out.

I want to leave you with the final paragraph in my son’s essay, shared with his permission. The text his class was reading was This is What It Means to Say Phoenix Arizona by Sherman Alexie. My son wrote about the discomfort of being honest with yourself—and why it matters. He sat in silence, thought about the story he read, and then he wrote:

Presenting the truth oftentimes comes with backlash from others because it’s challenging to accept your flaws. As a result, you are vulnerable to the opinions of others and their perspectives. People shield themselves from honesty because they hide behind the comfortability of their own lies and false beliefs. Although the truth can be a wake up call, we sometimes tend to forget the idea of what it means to stay true to ourselves. The ability to stay authentic to the voice instead of your head instead of letting the environment dictate the decisions you make ultimately defines who you are as a person. The truth contains the good or the bad in it depending on how you internalize it. The deciding factor of whether or not you’re willing to take that next step into discomfort is your willingness to handle the truth in a receptive way. How you choose to respond is up to you.

I wish you the kind of silence that is yours. Chosen, not required.

Rooted in your own truth.

Maiden. Mother. Crone.

I was introduced to these archetypes as I was deconstructing my Mormon faith.

Maidens are youth and beauty. It’s innocence and fun. It’s leaving childhood and coming into that bridge between being a child and an adult. It’s flirting and courtship and first kisses. Maidenhood should represent a time of exploring life without the burden of responsibility.

The mother phase is responsibility. Of course, it can mean being responsible for your own children, but in the archetype sense its the phase where you are no longer the innocent and free maiden, left to explore and discover. Life’s demands of chopping wood and carrying water are her tasks. It’s a phase of deep responsibility and work.

The Crone phase is the elder. She is the wise old woman who has lived a life of experiences and has the wisdom to show for it. She dispenses that wisdom with grace and always at the right time. She is protected and revered by her community.

Of course, my simplified explanation is both the ideal and also a pie in the sky. Because I don’t believe that as a society we exemplify these ideals.

I think we don’t let maidens be maidens as often as we should. I came from a culture where 12-year-old girls were learning how to meal plan, sew, make a household budget, and other skills that would better fit the category of a mother. Purity culture and the patriarchy have erased many maiden phases.

Don’t date for fun.

Only date to get married.

Only date as a hetero.

Cover your shoulders.

It’s your fault if you are attacked.

But what were you wearing?

No maidens allowed.

Because I was raised a Mormon, and was surrounded by purity culture and the admonishment to date with the intention to marry, many of my youth activities involved some kind of scripture lessons, or skills I would need when I started my own family. I don’t think I actually got to be a true maiden.

I can never actually go back in time and have a redo. But I can reclaim the parts of me I never really got a chance to explore.

Because I do have freewill.

I do have autonomy.

So what’s stopping me from dipping into my maiden phase now and then? My paid subscribers know I’m trying with the dating part—it’s been fun and awkward, and I am still figuring it out.

But what I really want to reclaim, not just for my missing maiden phase, but for the sake of living, is joy.

I am on an important, but super playful mission to find all the joy this year.

I’m trying to go back in time and remember the things I truly loved when I was younger, and then go about my life doing them! I’m only a few months into this commitment, and so far, it’s involved reading a lot of books and one super fun rope swing next to a waterfall in Puerto Rico.

But I have plans to do more. More hobbies for the sake of fun, with no intent or pressure to monetize or put any kind of productivity or worth on my side quests. More time to lay in the grass and watch the clouds change into animals and shapes. More bad poetry scribbled in my notebooks and journals that is just for me. More fun. More life.

Because when first introduced to the Maiden, Mother, Crone concept, I assumed it was a linear path. But I don’t believe that anymore.

I have a poem tattooed on my body. It’s from an ancient text discovered in 1945. It was translated with the title, The Thunder, Perfect Mind. The lines I chose are:

I am the first and the last.

I am the honored and the scorned.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin.

I believe we can be many things, all at once. Ancient Goddesses also hold this truth. Hecate, from Greek Mythology, and the Morrigan from Celtic Mythology, all hold the essence of being more than one being, more than one energy.

Even the moon is Triple Goddess coded with how often it goes from full to new, waxing and waning in between each cycle. Each month, we get a bright, beautiful version of her, proudly on display in a perfect circle of light. Then two weeks later, we have a dark moon, black and invisible to the world.

Women aren’t meant to be one thing. We carry multiple versions of ourselves at once.

Some days I am deep in my mother phase, picking kids up from school, doing laundry, cooking dinner.

And some days I’m dipping into my maiden phase of awkward first dates, swinging off a rope, and scribbling bad prose in a fancy notebook.

And with 45 years under my belt, I know there’s a crone inside me now, too. The part that recognizes patterns. The part that sees people and situations for what they are the first time.

The mistake was thinking these archetypes were a timeline.

They were never stages at all.

They were simply different rooms in the same house.

Please enjoy the time I paid a stranger to pretend to be my ex-husband.

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