About Me

I sent off my DNA test with great expectations of what would be revealed. I wanted a colorful pie chart put together with slices from every part of the world. Vonnegut’s words echoed in my head, “I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep." I studied history in college and graduate school. My little family (Ryan, Chloe, and I) finds its greatest joy in traveling and exploring the globe. I wanted some claim on everything I’d ever read, seen, or dreamed of.

When the results came back, they were dramatically boring. The entirety of my genetic data was born out of British Isles, a landmass just a bit larger than the State of Arizona where I’ve spent the last 15 years. The AI program responsible for charting my heredity showed some uncharacteristic grace in breaking up the percentages, giving me credit for my distinctive Scottish, English, and Irish elements. But I knew it was only placating my emotions. I am what I am: a one-trick pony.

Scarface was wrong, turns out the world isn’t mine. I’m just a stranger to most of it. And there’s a sense of humility that comes with that. As anyone who has ever met me would tell you, I could use some humility. If nothing is mine, everything I receive must be a gift. I am beyond lucky to have experienced the relationships, places, food, drink, art, music, books, movies, and every other piece of life I’ve come across.

Someone once told me that if I could figure out the one thing that ties together each and every action of our human existence, I’d know the secret to a happy and successful life. It sounded like pseudo-intellectual spiritualism, unworthy of the electricity powering my brain. But the question became a persistent annoyance that eventually developed into a full-on must solve mystery. Six years later, the answer arrived in the form of an epiphany. Creation.

Everything we do from the moment our eye lids stretch open in the morning to when they collapse at night, as well as the time we spend in dream, it’s all creation. The love, the anger, the voice in our heads, the laundry, the drive to work and back home: creation. I returned to the unaccredited guru whose question tortured me into creating my own ethos. He listened to my explanation and abruptly told me I was wrong. But what does he know anyway.

I like writing songs, I like telling stories. I want the thing that connects everything I do to be creation. The world isn’t mine, but I can create one that is. And so can you, and so can the person standing behind you. If you just looked over your shoulder, Venmo me 65¢, you owe me a soda.