About Me

“Welcome. I’m Mandy and I’m so glad our paths have crossed.”

These are words I say to my students at the beginning of each semester when they arrive in my Communication Studies classes at a local community college, where I have taught for a few years.  (Well, where I actually taught for a few semesters and then took a quick ten-year break to be home with my boys, and later returned when I thought I would explode if I didn’t go back to teaching.)

Teaching is both a lifeline and a privilege.  Every 16 weeks, I have the opportunity to take my students on a journey into understanding themselves, paying attention to others in new ways, removing blinders, and developing complex thinking all while uncovering a lot of things that are often lodged in the unconscious mind, like implicit bias.

It is really awesome.

And so is writing.  This has been a lifeline for a long time but it is only in the past few years that I ventured to put some of it out into the world.  It has only been since the global pandemic shut down that I began in earnest to share more and more of what I’ve been writing and thinking.

And it has been an incredible release.

You see, there is so much going on in my head all the time.  I remember thinking sometime around age 9 or 10, “Does the brain ever shut off?  Will my mind ever just stop thinking?  Even if for a little while?”  

Nope.  Mine does not. 

But writing helps get some of the swirling out of my head and onto the page.

Here are the pages.

And I hope these pages offer you, visitor, some encouragement. 

Perhaps you’ll chuckle or reflect or wonder as you read but mostly, I hope this is a space that connects us in our humanity, in our collective experience of trying to navigate what it means to do life with intention and empathy, and grace.

I hope you’ll find you’re not alone on the journey.  Because we are all in this together.

…

Writing and teaching are central to how I express myself as a woman.  But I wouldn’t be here without my people; three people in particular who, with me, comprise the Ream Team.

My husband Jud and I have been married for over 20 years.  He is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome, and so quick-witted it often takes a minute to catch up.  He is also an incredible dad, who parents in the macro and the micro.  We are definitely on the journey together, in all the ups and downs, ins and outs. Laughing is healing.

And there are our boys.  Who are remarkable.

Marriage, parenting, teaching, writing, and reading constitute a large part of my days.  But I also try to include walking or swimming as often as I can when I’m not watching TV, which I really love.

And my friendships keep me afloat.  People who share life, impart wisdom, send encouragement, invoke laughter, exude empathy, remind me I’m not alone.  I am wildly grateful.

A final detail about me.  One of my most favorite things is to talk on stage into a microphone.  

The stage is optional.  

So, perhaps our paths will cross someday when I have a microphone in my hand. 

But until then, welcome.  I’m glad you’re here.