From the time I was two years old until I was about seventeen, I spent nearly half of every summer in a tiny town called Hillsdale, New York, tucked in the rolling hills between the Catskills and the Berkshires. To most people, it might have seemed like the middle of nowhere, but to me, it was everything! It was where my senses came alive, where my feet were almost always bare, and where I unknowingly began a lifelong love affair with nature.
My dad had a small farm... nothing fancy, but it was so amazing. All organic, though no one called it that back then. It was just how things were done. He planted vegetables, fruit trees, flowers, trees and even raised chickens. We had a cellar where he fermented vegetables, pickles, canned tomatoes and relish. I would pick fruit right off the trees, help with the garden, collect eggs from the “egg lady” down the road, and even shovel manure to nourish the soil. It was a fully immersive experience in the cycles of the earth and the beauty of living simply.
Nights were just as magical as the days. I remember lying in the grass under skies that stretched forever, free of city lights, trying to name the constellations with my cousins. I could see more stars than I could count, and even though I didn’t know it then, those moments were shaping me. There was something sacred about those nights, about feeling so small and so connected at the same time.
We hiked as a family to Bash Bish Falls and I played for hours with cousins when they came to visit. I rarely spent a moment indoors unless it was raining. Nature wasn't a hobby... it was our way of life.
Looking back, it makes perfect sense that I would eventually gravitate toward natural living and create a skincare line grounded in the wisdom of nature. I saw from an early age how the earth provides what we need. I watched my dad’s hands plant, tend, and harvest, and I learned to respect the process. That rhythm -- the natural order of things -- has always felt like home to me.
It’s more than just nostalgia. It’s a remembering. A returning. And it’s why everything I create today carries a piece of that farm, those starlit skies, and the grounded, honest beauty of nature.
