I was born mid-1993 to a gloriously messy human family, connected across vast distances; paternally french, maternally north american, my grandmother; a unique alien of a person, my guiding touchstone. Much of my childhood was spent journeying from one continent to another, a feat made possible by these people who shaped me; by their sweat, their anger, their love. 

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   At my nine years of age, we relocated to what was to me an alien planet, a hot wet jungle of unknowns and unwanted; Brazil. A place I have come to love despite, or perhaps because of, its wild and pulsing flaws.  

   I have spent most of my life feeling other. Too many cultures to have one of my own; to many languages to have one in which to clearly speak, too many crossed wires in my brain to find a singular thread with which to connect. But through the many crackings, crushings and rebirthings that have been my life, my one steadfast foundation for survival has been and is: art. 

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   Art that has allowed me to know in myself a deep and beating aliveness that shocks me, awes me, terrifies and inspires me. That demands of me, unrelentingly: express!

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   I once thought that my humanness was a curse. My storming emotions a flaw to be hated. But in responding to the never-ending demand of sincere expression I found; the cracks in my skin, the breaks in my brain, myself, reflected back to me in others. In all the aliveness. And it is beautiful.

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  So if by expressing, and sharing, my mess and my chaos, I can reflect one person back to themselves, and they can find their own beauty through mine, their own pain and joy and hurt and love seen and valued, I will consider my life well-lived. This connection has saved me. I hope to pass it forward.