The daughter of a massage therapist mother and physician father, I learned early how pain and poor health affect our lives, as well as how capable the body is of recovering and thriving again.

I did a lot of dancing (mostly ballet and modern) from childhood through college; dance's rules about form still influence the way I think about how we move. I graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut with awards in writing and I went to graduate school for writing, but I always felt more attracted to service work. After my masters I worked in disability and health care advocacy for 7 years. During that time, I watched my mom help many people in ways doctors had not been able to, at a time when massage therapy was a very small field in San Antonio. My father, too, was ahead of his time: Dad was the first doctor in San Antonio to bring midwives into a private practice, and he brought massage and yoga into his practice in Fredericksburg.   

Since college, I also had a couple of life-changing health conditions that doctors could not make heads or tails of. These were all ultimately resolved in remarkably simple ways---these experiences made very clear to me how mysterious symptoms can sometimes seem, and how much of it is simply the body doing the best it can with the information it has until it gets information it likes better. 

In 2005, I travelled in India for a year. There I helped provide art therapy to children affected by the 2004 tsunami, and I did research and writing for a nonprofit that assisted local tribes. While I was there, I often thought about how I could be most helpful to people. Again and again, my thoughts would return to the changes my parents made in their work.  

Originally from New York, my family moved here when I was a few months old. Since then I have travelled in India, Sri Lanka, Central and Eastern Europe, Mexico, Costa Rica, and much of the greater United States. I like to write, travel, and make up funny-looking exercises in the gym.