When I was 14 years old…
I visited New York City for the very first time.
It was late October 2011 (the best season/time of year in NYC in my opinion) and I still remember it, just like it was just the other day. Walking through the streets wide-eyed, I should have been overstimulated considering the fact that I am originally from a small agriculture town in Southwest Colorado that has more cows than it does people, but instead I was completely enchanted. The yellow cabs, the smell of pizza, the palpable buzzing current of energy that made me feel like the world was alive, that made me feel like anything was possible. I was home. My soul knew that one day, I would make New York City a reality.
I went back to Colorado after that trip and promised myself that one day I would be back and that I was going to open a bakery in downtown Manhattan called Kat’s Corner. In my 14-year-old mind, that bakery was going to be warm and bright and full of love. A place where people could come in off the busy street, roll their shoulders back and breathe, a place where people could feel truly seen. I didn’t know it then, but what I was really dreaming of wasn’t a bakery… it was a sense of belonging in a world where I hadn’t really felt like I belonged prior to that trip to New York. I longed for genuine connection. A space where I could come home to myself.
Fast forward to the present day… in this very moment I am sat in the nook of my oversized, white, cozy couch, writing these words while looking out over the corner of two intersecting streets in Chelsea, Manhattan. My apartment of the last 3 years sits right here on this very corner. I have never felt like I have belonged more in the world than I do today. The connection I have to myself, to my community and to the heartbeat of New York City itself is abundant and overflowing. And I realized the prophecy had already been fulfilled, just not in the way I expected.
I never opened a bakery. But I did open my heart and in that, I found “Kat’s Corner” was never a storefront, but instead a space within me.
A corner of my soul that has always existed; the one that welcomes people in to be seen for more than who they are on the surface, the one that offers truth instead of sugary treats, and serves up the kind of nourishment that doesn’t and could never come from food.
No matter how many times I’ve started writing projects and walked away from them, no matter how many times I’ve tried to set it aside, no matter how many times I’ve tried to deny the fact that when I am writing I feel like the most authentic version of myself, it always finds its way back to me. Through whispers in meditation, signs as I walk the streets of NYC, and the nudges of strangers who somehow know too much (multiple psychics have told me it’s my “soul’s gift,” as if I didn’t already know that deep down… lol.)
And at the risk of sounding like a complete weirdo or self righteous, when I finally get myself to sit down and write, it feels like something so much bigger than myself takes hold and moves through me—God, intuition, the Universe, the Divine—it doesn’t really matter what name you give it, I feel it’s presence.
There’s this really cute and also cliché quote that says:
“If it’s your calling, it will keep calling”
And to be completely honest this time, I’m ready to answer that call.
This space, xo, kat’s corner, is my love letter. To the 14-year-old girl who dreamed of leaving her hometown forever and finding out what home really means in New York City. To the city that’s shaped me in more ways than I could have ever imagined. To the woman I’m becoming, who is finally ready to live from her “soul’s gift” instead of running from it. And to the art of life itself… the beauty, the mess, the magic of it all.
If you choose to stick around and hang out, this is what you can expect from me: genuine storytelling, reflection, and words that maybe just maybe will also meet you exactly where you are. A space for no bullshit honesty, for healing, for connection, for dreaming big, for trying new things, for being silly, for being a human-fucking-being. A space where the art of living is actually genuinely appreciated. Not just the “pretty” moments, but the real ones kinda make you question everything.
Welcome to my corner of the internet… Kat’s Corner, that is.
The door is always open.
xo,
Kat