A BIT ABOUT ME

I am an actor, singer, writer, early childhood music teacher, and mother. But if you were to ask what moves me? What takes up space in my heart and head and gut? I’d answer this way.

Storytelling is a big part of my heart. I think a lot about how narratives influence our lives, our relationships, how we decide to spend our time, how we parent our children, how we celebrate, how we mourn. I am often thinking about the ways my culture, upbringing, and lived experience affects how I make meaning in my life!

I am mesmerized by the idea of paradox: how good and bad exist in a single person at the same time, how something can be both right and wrong, how a person I love can disappoint me, how someone considered “evil” can show kindness. And perhaps because I spend so much time thinking about paradox, I am hopeful for a world in which we move away from the dichotomous, black and white way we’ve been thinking in American culture today, and toward a pluralistic society where we truly respect and care for each other.

Since becoming a mother, I’ve suspected that the way we raise our children has a huge potential to impact our world. I think that traditionally, we greatly undervalue the wisdom of children, seeing them as incomplete people who need to be “taught,” rather than as whole humans who have a fresh, wide lens from which to view the world. My kids, and the kids who I work with in music classes, challenge my assumptions, and force me to reconsider and discover  the world in a new light.

I am drawn to the writing and research of Brené Brown, the wisdom of Magda Gerber’s educaring®️ approach to being with young children, the research of the Music Together®️ Program, the values and techniques of Social Work, and the principles of Unitarian Universalism. I value vulnerability and curiosity, and try to approach everything I do with those values at heart.

I currently live in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. I grew up in Metro Detroit, and after college in Western Michigan, spending a year in China, and several years in Boston and Los Angeles, I’m back in the midwest with my family. I’m married to one of my best friends from high school, and together we parent our two thoughtful, beautiful, curious children.