08/18/2025
Pietra
The middle name I was ashamed of.
The name of my grandmother, who I never really knew because my father didn’t teach me Italian. Her native tongue, his native tongue.
It’s a weird thing to be named after someone, you would ultimately be so disconnected with.
Pietra; Strength. Resilience. Stability.
These words feel so true and tender.
I know these characteristics belong to me
I know they belonged to her too.
Her strength, moving countries and crossing oceans. Her resilience, living in a foreign place, raising children and grandchildren, stepping into journeys she may not have always wanted to choose. Her stability is what I know she provided for all who loved her. She was always there. I wish I could have felt that magic from her too.
Stepping into my name, as foreign as it feels. I’m not the first one to enter a foreign place and set up home.
I spend a LOT of time talking one on one with people. People who are in transition, feeling stuck, feeling uncertain. I have the honor of a front row seat into so many journeys of Strength, Reslience, and Stability.
I know what it’s like to long for these things. I know what’s like to feel so far from them, so disconnected from my body, my heritage, myself.
I know what it’s like to find resilience I didn’t know I had. To walk through things I’d rather not, to make it through, and to find some joy in the process.
I know what it’s like taking for stability. To long for it so much you can’t think of anything else until you satisfy that craving.
I know what it’s like to feel strong and invincible, to feel weak and powerless, and to look back and see that weakness and strength always existed at the same time within me.
I’m not fully sure what this is yet.
But I know I’ve longed to share more of what happens in my life, in sessions, the Pilates stuff, but all the really powerful stuff that has nothing to do with Pilates.
I am sure of this.
Strength. Resilience. Stability.
These are mine to hold.
They are yours to hold.
They are ours.
Thanks for being here 💕