My story

My love of creating brought me here.

My first love as a child was singing and creating my own lyrics and melodies. I am a classically trained singer and was a voice major at Boston Univeristy until 2010 when I started to explore my love of Latin dance. I trained in salsa and other genres for 6 years. My love of dance brought me to train, teach and perform in Cuba, El Salvador, and Colombia where I trained in Cali style salsa. I also performed at national salsa congresses representing both Rumba y Timbal and Mambo Revelation dance companies.

After teaching salsa one of my then students (now best friend) shared with me that she had a health coaching business. I remember her bag of kale and other healthy groceries as we rode the T together. This peaked my curiosity and lead me to study to become a Health Coach with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in 2014.

After a breakup in 2015 I decided that I wanted to see another part of the world, learn a new language and be of service. I was accepted into the United States Peace Corps and was sent to serve as a health teacher in the Republic of Moldova. Here my life changed where I was placed with incredible host parents, Victor and Zinaida, and met the love of my life, my husband, Darryl Sanchez.

After returning to the United States Darryl and I both worked at local non-profits in Boston. I also started to share wellness content via social media primarly via a podcast titled, The Salsa Sol Food podcast. Once the pandemic hit I decided to study Ayurveda (Indian Medical Science) in hopes of finding some resolutions to health problems that started while I was aborad.

In October 2021, my world was changed forever when Darryl was diagnosed with brain cancer (glioblastoma). I became his primary caregiver along with his mother and both of our families. On July 31st, 2022 Darryl passed away. My identity continues to shift and evolve each moment of each day. In the Fall after Darryl passed my best friend Mark and I started to write songs to honor his legacy, our love and my evolving grief journey. This project resulted in an EP of 3 songs titled Malina and has been a dream come true and a labor of love.

If it is grief/loss that brought you here then I am sorry, but happy that we connected. I hope that my creativity can be a source of hope and encourage you to share and be witnessed in your darkest moments.

Learn more here, Finding My Voice, a beautiful article written by my dear friend Olorunbunmi

Learn more about my husband, Darryl Sanchez, an incredible tribute written by Olorunbunmi