When I was in the third grade I became obsessed with arrows. I drew them by the thousands, compiled to create depictions of trees, people, animals, planets.
The things a third-grader would draw.
The things a third-grader would dream of.
 
Now as much as then, I find myself captivated by movement and connection. Like toddlers learning through parallel play, the shared human experience reminds me of those thousands of arrows, chaotic, autonomous, collaborative.
A collective of individuals. 

A village.
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Craving a deeper understanding of the world, I went to college and studied Cultural Anthropology. I traveled and explored the shared human experience at the intersections of the built, natural, and social environments. Especially interested in the significant role our childhood experience has in molding the people we become.

intrigued by the relationships people share with the spaces they occupy, I found play in unusual places.

I'd found an excuse and a purpose to travel, explore, and delve into the “other.” 

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We are each exposed to a uniquely curated array of opportunities and circumstances, we are but a culmination of an infinite number of scales, of spectrums, of methods and metrics of categorization. 
We are more alike than we are different.
 

But collectively, we are alone. Our intersecting stories remind me of the arrows.

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Togetherness, I found, is rooted in Parallel Play.

Parallel lives.

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Childhood, above all else, guides my every curiosity about human behavior. We were all young once. Before the complex concepts of worth and "value" invaded our perception of the world, our samenesses shone through,
The foundation for who we become is constructed during our childhood years. 
it is only the luckiest among us who are able to sustain the optimism, humility, and freedom of childhood.

Luck is the fate of optimists.
But Optimism is more than luck. It is a privilege. 

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Maintaining healthy relationships with risk and interactions with unexpected circumstances enable us to play freely. It is here that we face our fears, disprove our doubt and build our confidence. And it is through this play that we learn to appreciate the shared human experience.

 

the world, if nothing else, is difference - beautifully and unapologetically.
Other.
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We are not so different from the children we once were, longing to learn, live, and love.
And so, rather than the curated development of children into adults, I focus on promoting childhood flexibility as a lifelong imperative and play as a requisite for all phases of learning.
Childhood as a frame of mind rather than a phase or time; an allegiance to joy and a commitment to play.

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I strive to act with open mind and unrelenting optimism; believing in the human spirit, and the power of playing in parallel.