Writer. Storyteller. Momma. Adventurer. Girly girl. Cuban at heart. And possibly a mermaid in my former years.
I’ve made eight big moves in my life—enough to cover a good portion of the country from top to bottom and corner to corner. Along the way, I discovered something about myself. When I land somewhere new, I want to enter it.
I want to know what people eat there. I want to hear their stories. I want to wander through old buildings and wonder who lived there before me. I want to eat at the restaurant the locals have been going to for forty years, not the chain restaurant beside the interstate. And sooner or later, I will find the water.
New town? Enter it.
Different culture? Learn it.
New people? Find yours.
Old building? Wonder what happened there.
Water nearby? Find the edge.
Strange local restaurant in a laundromat? Obviously, order the sandwich.
My roots are in South Florida. My mom grew up in Key West—a true Conch—and my granddad taught me how to make picadillo and bollos. To this day, going home means Cuban food. Picadillo. Black beans and rice. Key lime pie.
I have been known to say that I am Cuban at heart. Brad and I even had a Cuban fiesta at our wedding, complete with salsa dancing and pulled pork.
And then there’s Sandy’s. My family has been eating at Sandy’s Cafe in Key West for as long as I can remember. My favorite is the medianoche. Did I mention Sandy’s is tucked into a laundromat? Of course it is.
Apparently, even then, I was looking for places with a story.
This is the house my granddad bought for a dollar in Key West and moved it to Sugarloaf Key. It became our family home and, later, our family retreat. Apparently, my love of old places with stories comes honestly.
Then came New Hampshire.
Beginning in third grade, I spent summers there visiting my grandparents and my dad. In eleventh grade, I moved to New Hampshire and became something I had never had the chance to be before: the new kid on the block. I was intrigued by it. Starting over doesn’t only mean leaving something behind. Sometimes it gives you another way to meet yourself.
And in New Hampshire, I found my people. Some of my sorority sisters and I have friendships that reach back more than forty years. A good number of them stayed close to one another—getting married, raising their kids and sharing the ordinary years of life together. I didn’t. I moved away. And then I moved again. And again. But whenever I came back to New Hampshire, my spot in the fold was still there.
We are like sisters. We bicker. We speak our piece. We don’t hold grudges. We know each other, quirks and all. And we always laugh until we cry. Inevitably, someone starts retelling a story from our college days. The rest of us jump in with details and corrections, telling the story as if we weren’t all there the first time—and as if we’re recounting war stories. Some of these stories have been told for forty years. We still tell them. We still laugh. It doesn’t seem to matter how long I’ve been away. We just pick up.
I’ve spent much of my life learning how to make a home wherever I land. These women taught me something else. Sometimes you can leave home—and home keeps your spot.
Weirs Beach, Arcades, Girlfriends, Memories made.
San Francisco taught me to listen for the story. Oh, I could tell you a hundred stories about the streets of San Francisco. I loved the diversity of my beloved city. Walk a few blocks and the language, food, people and rhythm could change completely. It made me curious about people.
The person sleeping on the sidewalk has a story to tell. The person who appears to have everything together may be carrying something you cannot see. At Oak Street House, a transitional home for women where I served as director, those ideas became personal.
I went there believing I had something to give. I learned that I also needed to receive. The women there taught me that we are all treasures. We all have something to give and something to receive. We can make mistakes and still make our lives matter. We can fall down, get back up and keep going.
Most of us have had our own traumas in life. But the truth is, they don’t have to define us. We all have stories to tell. And if we’re listening and paying attention, we’ll hear stories of redemption, too.
Oak Street House at Lyon and Oak, San Francisco. Right across the street from Golden Gate Park’s Panhandle.
And then there was Brad.
Brad and I had a meet-cute before I even knew there was such a thing as a meet-cute. Brighter Than the Sun by Colbie Caillat has always reminded me of our beginning. Sudden. Bright. Unexpected.
Brad changed the direction of my life. He became my husband, and together we became a family. Team Steele. Our family motto is: Adventure awaits. And we lived and breathed it.
There is so much more to that story. I’m saving it for another book.
Family trip to the Big Island, Hawaii June 2025
Central California taught me to pay attention differently. It was a very different California from the one I had known. Rural communities. Agriculture. Migrant workers and their families. People working hard to put food on tables across the country while sometimes struggling to access the care they needed themselves.
This is where I became a nurse. And, as I seem to do wherever I land, I found my people. Michelle and I started together in nursing prerequisites and stayed together through nursing school. We talked each other off the ledge more times than I could possibly count. And then we became new nurses together. Beginners.
Nursing buddies (Cynthia and Michelle) at Adventist Medical Center, Hanford, California. Circa 2011.
