Dear reader, meet Christy.

“Christy, who are you?” I ask her during our Zoom call.

“A wife and a mother,” she says straight from the heart, the sparkle in her eyes an undeniable sign that she values and cherishes these two roles above all others.

But she’s also so much more than that. To find the answers, she has to look up, as if searching somewhere secret and deep inside of her. 

“When I filled out the application to take part in the Norwegian expedition to study marine mammals in 2022, I had to write my bio,” she recalls. “For me, it was the hardest thing to do because it was the first time I had to think of myself as not an officer in uniform. Who am I?”

Unknowingly, Christy had already introduced herself to me much earlier than when I asked her the question that gave her pause.   

“Is it OK if I keep knitting while we talk?” she asked me as soon as we got on the call. I offered her a smile and nodded. Christy is an artist, I thought.  

Question after question, I couldn’t help but sense that she was being very careful in choosing her words, weighing each one of them before vocalizing them to make sure they conveyed the exact meaning she needed them to. In between military-focused stories, she paused and looked outside the window. “Sorry, a really big Blue Jay just flew by, and it’s really pretty.” Her tone, once professional and to the point, quickly turned soulful and peaceful, as if that Blue Jay had given her permission to exhale. Christy is a writer.

As a fellow writer, it’s easy for me to recognize a kindred spirit. Writers are cautious with their words, because we respect them so much. Writers appreciate details that most people don’t even notice. That’s when I decided we needed to change topic.

“So, tell me why you joined the Seabirds.”

Christy relaxes her shoulders and curls her lips up. “Because a friend asked me to.” The friend she is referring to is Ashley Bugge, co-founder of the Seabirds—alongside Tiffany Duong. The three of them met on that Norwegian expedition and formed a bond that could best be described as an instant sisterhood. “We kept in close touch, and when the two of them decided to found the Seabirds, it just seemed like an obvious continuation of our friendship and of the type of service that I want to do when I retire.” Christy is an adventurer and polar explorer.  ‍

I sit back in my chair and let her continue answering the question she didn’t know how to answer.

“I’ve always been passionate about the environment and wanted to work in combating climate change. During that expedition, I put myself in a completely new environment—physically, mentally, academically, and professionally. But I just thought”—she shrugs—“let’s see how much I grow.”

She clearly grew more confident in her voice, which, as she explains on her website, she now uses to “fight for a more equitable world. Climate change is the single greatest threat to humanity’s survival, and it disproportionately affects women and girls, and societies in the Global South. My goal is to travel the globe telling those stories through words and photographs. I also intend to work on long-range local anticipatory action projects, building climate-resilient communities prepared to face the future.” Christy is a climate justice advocate.

“I believe that what is essential to the climate movement is for people to talk to each other,” she explains, now fully owning her role and this conversation. “I joined the Seabirds because a friend asked me to. Volunteers are not just going to emerge, you have to bring them in, ask them for their help and support.”