About Marcia Smalley

The road I live on isn’t paved. It stretches for a mile – a dusty avenue wide enough for two vehicles, and treacherous after a heavy rain.

I knew this a dozen years ago when we found our property, which ultimately became our home, at the end of this road. But I never loved the drive in. My aging compact car rumbled fiercely every foot of the way; forget ever staying clean. Read More

Back in February, I didn’t realize the timeliness of the article I wrote about resilience and the lessons we learn that help us bounce back from difficult days. Here we are now, in a crisis bigger than any of us imagined a month ago…
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Do you ever wonder how you’ve made it this far with everything life’s thrown at you. You might credit your staying power to luck or to chance. You might thank divine intervention. Maybe all of the above…

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Retirement takes a lot of us by surprise. After traveling a couple of years down the path of my own retirement – and having many conversations with other women – I’m more convinced than ever that retirement holds a lot of unknowns…
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As the calendar page turns, many of us are once again making resolutions. We’re clarifying our intentions for the year ahead. We’re contemplating our dreams. Read More

Life can feel like a litany of lessons learned. I bet I could fill a library with my lessons. A lot of what I’ve had to learn came wrapped in suffering, fear, uncertainty…
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In a recent article I addressed three things about retirement that can take us by surprise. The next topic worth examining, as you consider your life during retirement, is a simple question that’s loaded with possibility: What are you yearning for? Read More

Like other women my age, I’ve skimmed the surface of a lot of relationships. I’ve spent hours in small talk and nodded politely during countless introductions to people I’ve long since forgotten…
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Most of us feel grateful. We’ve come far and lived long. Yet all of us are human. So even amidst all that gratitude we can occasionally feel antsy. Restless. I daresay, bored…
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“Whenever we do something creative, […] we draw on images from our inner well. If we learn to restock our store of images, we will find ourselves able to work more easily…”

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