ALANNA catanella

Born and raised on a dirt road in Fallon, NV with a courageous and fun-loving family, I dreamed of far away places, hummed aloud through my days and developed a fondness for beautiful things. I also sprouted a deep and dangerous love affair with ballet. Ballet was my lover – it took me to the cities I wanted to live in; it showered me with gifts like discipline, grace and merit; and it was my one- way ticket out of Fallon. I tied my identity and all of my aspirations to dance. And like most dangerous lovers, it broke my heart into two terrible pieces. My back became a damaged thing and I made the impossible choice to stop dancing. To stop the pain. I was 19 years old.

Like an addict coming clean I left dance entirely behind and moved from New York City to the woods of North Tahoe to get a degree in world politics. Withdrawals subsided with ease as I met a new lover and we designed our own deep and forever love affair when we took vows unto each other atop a sun soaked mountain in 2008. After school, we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with which I have had my third official and yes, deep love affair of my life. I will root to rise in the hills of Marin County for all that I have!

Very little gets me as excited as a conversation about food but in a close running is also my adoration and friendship with my husband and our family, my wolfish desire to roam the hills, woods, oceans and creeks of Marin with my dog and dancing. Music. And dancing. And in all of my searching to reunite with the girl I was as a dancer, and to dull the incessant pressure to have the job, and guided by my own desires to succeed and be bigger than myself – I keep finding that there is a kindness and a sensitivity in me that should be harvested. And I hope to do that here with you.