I think so much of my memories of being a little kid come more as experiences that I remember as opposed to this linear story. I come from an interracial couple, parents, and I remember there was always a lot of tension when we were out places but I didn't understand what that was.

I always thought and imagined that I would be an airplane pilot. I think it was something about soaring and being up above the trees and my love of birds and being able to soar that gave me that wish. I have not yet done anything but it's on my list.

I went back to school as an adult — Trinity College. I was a single mom, I was struggling a bit, but there were professors and another person that helped me find my voice in a place where I felt I didn't speak the language.

I knew that everybody learns differently and so I had taken a course called Education Through Movement and went into a predominantly Spanish-speaking classroom to help boost their reading scores. We brought a book to life through movement and dance. I designed my own major at Trinity. I studied the language of dance and movement.

I started working with folks with different abilities and created a shared abilities dance class. I created a space for folks that were feeling invisible like me. Invisible populations aren't just people with disabilities. They're Black and Brown people for sure, elderly folks with dementia, folks with Parkinson's disease, and folks that don't have access to all the great things having gone to Trinity has provided me access to.

Right before COVID, I had been working for 20 years going into psychiatric hospitals, leading movement workshops with young adulthood schizophrenia. I had been working with folks with Parkinson's disease, with young people in detention centers, and my mom became very ill, and I took her home to hospice her It was a beautiful experience helping her transition from this world as we know it and then three days later, my partner at the time, I came home and he had hung himself. It was a lot in a little bit of time.

A friend of mine had space in this industrial building and I said, "Can I take a little bit of your space and perhaps provide an opportunity to bring community to me?” That was in February and then in March, the world shut down. I needed to keep making, moving my brain and my body in ways to not become frozen in what I had just experienced.

A gentleman saw what I was doing on Facebook. He came to what is now Free Center and said, "You're in alignment at what we do. I can help you become your own nonprofit or you can become a Free Center." I remember saying, "Oh, I don't know about Free, I have to pay for this."

We developed a partnership and here we are. We both really believe there was something in the stars that was happening around that time, but here we are four years later and growing Free Centers and being able to offer access to space for healing, for arts, for learning free to the communities that we live in.

It's been a wonderful ride so far. I believe that it's come because I woke up September 15th saying, "I'm going to live in gratitude and I'm going to try to pay it forward," and I meant it and I live that way. When you're doing good things, good things do come. Living in gratitude, being grateful, it's been the best gift for me, at least so far and I think it's brought healing, I think it's brought Free Center, I think it's brought Richard and so I am beyond grateful.

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