Coming Soon: Midwestern Daughter

I’m a child of the Midwest. A midwestern daughter, if you will. Raised by place as much as by

my parents. I am of this place in a way that doesn’t apply when I find myself in other locations.

As such, I’m pretty tough. We all are. We grew up slogging through long freezing winters without fancy escapes in a big city or wild mountain fun.

We survive summer corn sweats and have lakes that will pull you under and disappear you without warning.

Our capacity for finding beauty in these flat lands, though, is unmatched. Have you seen a prairie full of native wildflowers swaying in the sun? Have you seen a full moon rise over Lake Michigan or a sunset over Lake Superior? These things will take your breath away.

Being a daughter of the Midwest, though, isn’t just tough cookie seasonal survival and great lake majesty. We get shaped into girls and then grownups who put everyone’s needs in front of their own. We live on the back burner and make it our home.

We learn to be “good” and that means being quiet and small and self-sufficient and strong. All the time. And decades of that is ✨exhausting✨.

We learn in our goodness to adopt other people’s stories and expectations as our own. And we’re so efficient at it we start believing we wrote them.

When we reach an age or a stage where we feel the misalignment in our bodies, it’s hard to know what to keep and what to shed. How to rewrite our stories without shame or guilt.

I know this challenge, and its loneliness, all the way to the stardust of my cells. So I created a place where people could gather and do this work together.

I can’t wait to invite you to join me in Midwestern Daughter, a 6 month container inclusive of anyone who has existed at any point as a girl or femme affected by the ethos of the Midwest, and the resulting obligation to smallness and serving others before ourselves that blooms within us. If any single slide resonated with you, you belong there with us. It’ll be like chatting with friends at the corner tavern or church basement of your heart.

We’ll start in November. I can't wait to see you there!