Photo courtesy of Sanjay Suchak

I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina in an interesting, musical family. When I was tiny my daddy would sing lullabies to my sister and I every night and taught us how to harmonize with him. We’d all harmonize with the hum of the opening garage door in the chilly mornings on the way to school.

My dad was a lot older than my mom (when I was born he was 61 and she was 28) and had previous marriages and children. As a result, I have half-siblings who are around my mom’s age, and many of them are incredible musicians.

I remember my dad carrying me on his shoulders into the old Ziggy’s bar in Winston-Salem, N.C. to see my brother’s bluegrass band. My sister and I were so young, I’m not sure how he got us in. When the lights came up on the musicians and they started to play, I felt a rush of excitement. I thought to myself, ‘that’s what I want to do.’

Before we had a piano in the house I would play my grandmother’s piano every chance I got. I’d sit and make things up or play things I’d heard my parents listening to. I remember picking out the beginning of “The Rose” when I was about 5 years old. My mom asked, “How did you learn that?”

“I eared it out,” I said.

My parents listened to a lot of old country music - Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson - as well as some big band jazz and 60s rock and soft rock such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and James Taylor. But before I could drive we’d listen to current pop/rock in the car in the late 90s and early 00s, and a lot of that rock really turned me on. I continued “earing out” songs on the piano; Billy Joel, Ben Folds, early Coldplay songs, Radiohead. In high school my friends would shout out requests when we found ourselves around a piano, and we’d have sleepover singalongs.

When I was 18, my daddy died. (He was pretty old, after all.) Three weeks later, I went to college and found myself in a real mental health pickle. I realized fairly quickly that when you’re meeting all new people, the fastest way to make it super awkward is to tell them that you’ve just suffered a personal tragedy. Bonus awkward points for breaking into tears. I became very closed off, isolated and depressed. Luckily I went to school as an acting/musical theater major. I’d auditioned and been accepted to the program at the last minute after falling in love with acting my senior year of high school. I think my freshman year Meisner acting class saved my life by providing an emotional outlet. Still, I struggled.

I started to treasure the practice rooms in the performing arts building. A tiny cubicle-sized soundproof room with a piano in it was heavenly for my current mental state, and I’d go there when I couldn’t sleep and tinker around on the piano. More than a year after my dad’s death I guess I’d processed some of my grief, and one late night in one of those rooms, I scribbled down what I consider to be my first real song on a cocktail napkin.

It wasn’t long before I’d take all my problems to the piano, as I do to this day. These days I’m challenging myself to write the songs that don’t come easily, the songs that don’t come out in one burst. I’m learning to tinker with them until they capture what I want to express.

I always knew I wanted to play and perform onstage, but I didn’t have much to write about until I experienced some real life and real loss. Music was always a part of my childhood home, and I carry that with me. Music itself has become a home to me wherever I am.