So here’s the deal. When I was six, my parents—Michele and Brian—moved us from a little cabin in the woods of Virginia to an old creamery in upstate New York. Built in the 1900s, it had a history: once a thriving dairy, it fell into disrepair during the Great Depression, eventually becoming a garage and hangout for wanderers.

Then, in 1984, my parents saw something no one else could. They fell in love with this hulking, forgotten building and decided to make it our home. They brought me along—a little girl with wide eyes and wild hair—and dreamed of turning it into a commune, an art center, a place for magic to live.

When we first moved in, we lived in what we called “The White Room.” It was raw in every sense of the word. No central heat, no bathroom, just a kerosene heater trying its best against the upstate winters. For a while, we all crammed into this one space, which was once filled to the ceiling with rows of old newspapers. Fun fact: hidden in those stacks, they found machine guns. Yeah, it was a wild kinda place.

We roughed it hard in those early years. Picture this: me, a kid in a snowsuit, sitting at a table to trying to eat breakfast because it was too cold to go without layers. At night, there was a geriatric toilet in the corner for emergencies—a bucket, really.  

Then came The Great Room. It’s the heart of this place, the first part of the creamery we made livable. It had a tiny wood stove, a hammock, some gymnastics rings hanging from the ceiling, and a rickety old TV in the corner that only played Channel 62. This was where we lived, played, dreamed. People would walk in and say, “Wow, this is a great room!” And the name stuck.

Fast forward a few years, and we finally moved into “the real house”—you know, with central heating and a bathroom. The Great Room turned into my mom’s and dad’s playground. She held performances there, homeschooled my brother and his friends there. They also created  “Friday Night Live”—a wild, beautiful mix of theater games, poetry, music, and community. It was art and play and everything good about being alive.

Now I’m back. I’ve left my life in Hollywood behind to be here. To heal the old wounds, to unearth the dreams my parents planted, and to build something new: Welcome Om.

It’s a wild thing, not for the weak-coming home. They say, “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your parents.” And yeah, it can be challenging, but also truly precious. Every day is an opportunity to let go of an old story, to face the parts of myself I’d rather ignore, and to find my way back to something deeper. It’s messy. It’s beautiful. It’s humbling.

The first step is bringing The Great Room back to life. This room has held so much already—our family’s beginnings, years of art, dance and laughter. Now, it’s becoming the first cornerstone of Welcome Om, a space where devotion, play, and prayer can live side by side.

And..This is just the beginning. 

What Welcome Om will become is still unfolding, but the vision is clear: a place where people come together to remember who they are. A place for art, connection, and the sacred. As Ram Dass said, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

So come. Let’s walk together.