our story
“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” -Nelson Mandela
When I was a kid, I didn’t play with dolls. I couldn’t be bothered with Barbie. I didn’t do dress-up or make-up or play house.
As a kid, I played with toy farms. Breyer horses. Toy barns. Tiny cows. Tiny pigs. Tiny sheep. And even tiny manure.
When I was a teenager, I started working on my best friend's veggie farm in Vermont. It was early foggy mornings of picking beans, harvesting the tender shoots of asparagus, fighting over who got to run the vegetable stand, and kneeling in the straw staring at the endless rows of strawberries.
I cherished that time in my life. Being that close to the earth, hands in the dirt, covered in dust and mud... as a teenager, that time was healing and grounding for me, which I needed.
Then life took me to college, to traveling the world, to medical school, to starting a clinical practice, and to a place that was very far away from who I was… from who I am at my core.
