I do a lot of things, and I don’t always document them. I volunteer, make art, play and teach sports, and spend a lot of time exploring the city. Some parts of life are better lived than captured. Still, there are moments I want to hold onto: a street corner that feels like a movie, a conversation that shifts something in me, a sudden clap-of-thunder kind of awe that makes me stop and pay attention.

For a long time, I thought of myself as split between two identities: athlete and artist. In some spaces, I was known for tennis. In others, I was known for art, writing, and design. I used to joke that I was “double A” like a double-A battery, charging through life on both sides of myself. At times, it made me question where I fit. But over time, I realized those parts were not competing. They were both ways of noticing: movement, rhythm, emotion, pressure, and how people respond to the world around them.

That became especially clear when I started teaching tennis. I was not just teaching forehands. I was learning how to read people: their confidence, frustration, motivation, and the way they handled pressure. A generic lesson plan rarely worked for everyone, so I learned to adapt. Some students needed structure. Some needed encouragement. Some needed play. Some needed the same idea explained three different ways before it clicked. Coaching taught me that growth is personal, and that the best instruction starts by paying attention.

That same curiosity showed up in my creative work. One summer, I wrote a science fiction novel, and while I loved imagining the world, I was most interested in the characters: what they wanted, what they feared, how they made decisions, and how their inner lives shaped the story. An editor once told me that character development was one of my strengths, and that stayed with me because it reflected something I had always cared about: how different people can move through the same world and experience it completely differently.

Looking back, the thread is pretty clear. I grew up in the quiet of Minnesota winters and now live in the thrum of Brooklyn, studying UX at Pratt and working across research and design. I am still somewhere between athlete and artist, still that double-A battery, still charging between structure and imagination. What I care about has stayed the same: how people make sense of what is in front of them, what gives them confidence, what creates hesitation, and how to design experiences that meet them where they actually are.

When I’m not researching or designing, I’m usually out living the questions in other ways: volunteering, playing, making things, wandering into new neighborhoods, trying foods I can’t pronounce yet, and following the spark of whatever comes next.