Spread Joy

One night I was at a friend’s place south of San Francisco, just hanging out and procrastinating on a paper I didn’t want to write because, in my mind, music majors shouldn’t have to write.

Ridiculous. But I had to.

So I left to drive back to the city.

Dark freeway.
Mountains.
Barely any cars.

As I merged onto the highway, I started praying.

God, I don’t know what you want me to do.
I feel lost. Confused. Angry. Scared.

Just tell me.

Musician?
Doctor?
Lawyer?
Janitor?

I don’t care. Just tell me.

And then I added one more thing.

God, give me a sign—just once.

I got behind the first car I could see because it was literally that dark. I wiped my eyes and read the license plate.

SPRDJOY

Spread JOY.

Now you can call that coincidence.

Or you can call it grace.

I chose the second.

What I loved about that answer was that it wasn’t a job title. It was a way of being.

You can spread joy as a musician.
You can spread joy as a janitor.
You can spread joy as a teacher.

That realization took the pressure off. And it changed my trajectory.

I graduated and stayed in San Francisco a couple more years, still playing music. But I also started working with youth in lower-income neighborhoods. I worked as a paraprofessional at a school my sister—who has an intellectual disability—had attended years earlier.

Then one night, leaving a gig in North Beach around three in the morning, I was driving through the empty financial district.

And I saw a family.

Mom.
Dad.
Stroller.
Two kids holding hands.

Walking fast.

At three in the morning.

My heart sank.

The thought hit me like a brick: I’m not going to help families like that if my whole life is playing bars.

So I made a decision.

I applied to a master’s program through Columbia in New York that would be tuition-free if I committed to teaching in low-income schools. And somehow I got accepted.

Which felt wild.

Because I wasn’t “that student.”
Or at least I didn’t think I was.

But then a housemate of mine—also a musician and part of a grassroots nonprofit—challenged me.

He said, “Hundreds of people are going to New York to do that. No one is signing up to do it here.”

Here meant East Palo Alto.

Back then it had high violence, deep need, and a strong community.

They had already secured $50,000 in seed funding for my salary.

And I thought: maybe spreading joy looks like staying.

What I thought would be a few years became thirteen.

And no master’s program could have taught me what that community taught me.

Relationships deeper than I expected.
Families who became family.
Young people who trusted me with their stories.

In a strange way, I felt more at home there than anywhere else.

During the recession, funding dried up. I left for a year and went to Hawaii—because of course I did.

I chased a girl.
Played music.
Learned to surf with a group of young Hawaiian guys I lived with.

But eventually the money dried up there too. And the itch to help people didn’t go away.

So I made a plan to combine music and ministry, bouncing between the Bay Area, Hawaii, and New York.

Then life intervened.

I was helping my parents cut branches to make some extra cash before the trip.

Chainsaw.
Green twig.
Bounce.

And suddenly the chainsaw landed on my left hand.

I counted.

One.
Two.
Three.
Four.

Four!?

Where’s the fifth?

My pinky was dangling from a white string.

Blood everywhere.

I wrapped my hand in a towel and drove myself to the ER, running every red light I could find.

And somehow—by grace again—I kept all my fingers.

Stitched.
Bandaged.
Humbled.

I don’t believe God made me cut my hand.

But I do believe my stubbornness had kept me clinging to a version of my calling that was too small.

So I finally enrolled in a teaching credential program.

And for the first time in my academic life, school felt…easy. Even fun.

I wrote papers with one hand while my hand healed. I showed up. I did the work.

And by the end of the program I received an award for most innovative student teacher out of 120 classmates.

Which still feels absurd.

But it made something clear to me:

When you feel seen, you can learn.

I wanted to keep teaching in East Palo Alto. But one experience pushed me out.

I was supporting a third-grade student with nonverbal autism in a fully inclusive district.

He wore diapers.
He communicated through behavior.
Sometimes that behavior was violent.

But I knew his cues.

One day I could see the tension building. So we stepped outside.

Sandbox.
His hands slowly building a mound of sand.

Sun warming the ground.
Fall wind moving through the leaves.

He smiled.

His eyes closed.

For the first time all day, his body softened.

Then the Director of HR walked by and asked why we weren’t in class.

I explained.

He walked away.

The next day I was written up.

And in that moment I realized something:

Doing what a child needs can get you punished if it doesn’t match what the system expects.

So I left.

I took a job at a nonpublic school serving students with Emotional Disturbance.

That label used to scare me.

Which is exactly why I took the job.

In my previous district we had a student nicknamed “Spiderman” because he would climb onto roofs and refrigerators like gravity didn’t apply to him.

I had no idea what to do with that.

So I decided to learn.

What I discovered over the next several years was simple:

The most powerful strategy is love, relationship, and community.

At their home schools these students were often treated like outcasts.

At our school they were seen and celebrated.

Therapeutic work was patient. Families were involved. Weekly therapy was required. Everyone was in it together.

Later I stepped away briefly to help lead a major arts initiative in East Palo Alto—helping design programming for a youth arts center before the building even existed.

We were building the plane while flying it.

Working with architects, landscape designers, community leaders, and hundreds of youth.

That experience taught me something essential:

Listening within community matters.

Trust grows from listening.

And trust builds environments where people can thrive.

Eventually I returned to education.

Another nonpublic school.
More therapeutic programs.
Middle school.
High school.

And now I lead a Therapeutic Special Day Class again.

Twenty-five years in education and nonprofit work has taught me something simple:

Relationship and community matter more than anything.

Unfortunately, they are often the first things sacrificed when systems get stressed—especially for the students who need them most.

I think back sometimes to high school.

For me, the band room was one of the few places where students who didn’t always fit elsewhere could belong.

Music gave us structure.
Community gave us identity.
And creativity gave us a reason to show up.

Over the years I’ve watched students do the same thing in classrooms.

Some disappear to survive.

Others slowly re-emerge when someone builds an environment where they are safe enough to be seen.

And when that happens, something remarkable follows:

Behavior softens.
Learning returns.
Hope grows.