I love Amy Wheeler. She is the coolest thing since sliced bread, the cat’s meow, the bee’s knees and the list goes on and on and on.
She is truly one of my favorite people. There are people who come into our lives whose mere presence makes us aspire to be our best selves. She is courageous, hilarious, intelligent and fiercely articulate.
An award-winning playwright and Hedgebrook’s Executive Director, she is a woman of many talents. I saw her as I was getting ready to board the Sounder train this morning. It was like a celebrity sighting, the night before Christmas and a sugar rush, all at the same time.
Earlier this week, Amy posted the following as her Facebook status:
“Here’s a thought about gun control: make it legal for only women to own guns. All of the mass shootings in this country since the 60’s have been by male gunmen. When, actually, women are more likely to need to carry a firearm for protection, and statistically, less likely to use it to harm another being.”
It stirred something within my core. I reposted it to my Facebook account this morning, and as of the publication of this blog post, there are 10 “likes” and 38 comments and counting.
Before writing this post, I was searching the internet for inspirational quotations, images and websites from which to cull social media fodder. And then it hit me. I had been around an actual, real-life inspirational person all day. This is what it’s like to work for Hedgebrook, every day. It’s a lesson in persistance, joy, and finding and amplifying your voice, as well as the voices of other women.
We’re lucky Amy’s at the helm of our ship.