On a fateful Friday in March of 2020, I met with a mid-morning client in my cozy intimacy coaching office in the beautiful Mt. Baker Block Building in downtown Port Townsend. Neither my client nor I knew how significant that session would be. Looking back, I can still see the vintage mustard couch she sat on and the lush blue accent wall nearby that held our session in quiet beauty.
And then just like that, as if over one weekend, the pandemic erupted. The world shifted on a dime and everyone in my practice who wanted to keep working with me had to log into zoom for their coaching sessions. That session proved my last there. I never used my office again.
Some clients couldn’t make the transition on-line and stopped. Many new clients reached out for help. We all needed someone to talk to more than ever in those days. Video was for a while the best we had. I was busy.
I eventually transferred my lease, stored my stylish office furniture in a wooded shed, converted my small cabin kitchen to a coaching office and spent more hours online in the next two years than any person should. My eyesight has still not recovered. It was a time.
That was over five years ago. With the exception of my four-month maternity leave in 2023, I have been seeing clients by video ever since.
Until now.
Last week, I had the enormous privilege of meeting with friend and colleague Oceanna Van Lelyveld, visiting her lovely office for rent and sealing the deal on a sub-lease. Starting in mid-January, I will be back on Water street in downtown Port Townsend, meeting with clients in person in an intimate suite above Imprint Bookstore one day a week.
I brought Joya, my precocious two-year old, with me to check out the space. Within minutes of landing on the soft couch during my initial meeting with Oceanna, my energetic toddler effortlessly dozed. I took that to be a strong sign of the soothing force of that office! Good things await those who enter, I sense.
This return to in-person sessions, while seemingly small, is enormous. Now in 2025, it’s rare that I hear talk of the lasting ramifications of the pandemic on our lives. But my career is still recovering. My work prior to 2020 involved gathering people together for connections of all forms. Remember SpeakUP, my weekly authentic relating class? My classes, groups, trainings and programs all came to a halt when we were mandated to quarantine. I am still rebuilding.
This office – sweet little Suite #2 – is a big step forward in my coaching and teaching career. There is no “going back”.
There are some clients in my practice who I have yet to meet in person. Several of them have already switched their sessions to my upcoming, live availability. It is a strange, special threshold ahead for this Intimacy Coach Mama. The heart of my teachings lies in connection and embodiment. At last, after a longer pause than I could have ever predicted, I will once again be connecting in physical space to the couples and singles whose intimate lives I have the privilege of supporting.
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