Natalia Quintana-Feliciano is a Puerto-Rican & Colombian storyteller, poet, artist, and student reporter based in Washington, DC. She is passionate about nonprofit work and currently works as a communications and event coordinator at a health policy think tank in DC. Prior to her current role, Natalia was at PBS KIDS, where she organized conferences for show creators, played an internal consulting role in show development, and built compilations for the PBS KIDS YouTube channel. She has written for several award-winning publications including Strange Horizons, PBS KIDS for Parents, The Wash, and a weekly newsletter that you can follow via Substack called The Iridescence. She publishes her poetry under the pen name Natalia del Pilar. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from The College of William & Mary. In May 2025, she will graduate with a Master’s degree in Journalism & Digital Storytelling from American University. Her hyperfixations include folktales about angry women, local breweries, Dungeons & Dragons, and coconut flan.

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Podcast

Transcript

Introduction

Hello, everyone. I’m excited to welcome today Ms. Natalia Quintana-Feliciano. She’s a journalist, writer, poet, feminist, and all-around cool person who’s worked with various media. We met through a writers group in the DC area. I’m excited to ask about her upbringing with roots in Puerto Rico and Colombia, how TV shows might affect immigrants or multiracial children as they’re growing up, as well as her thoughts on hyper-local journalism.

Thank you so much, Natalia, for joining me today.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited.

Childhood and Upbringing

I’d like to begin by asking: could you tell me where you were born and raised?

I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I lived there just for a year and moved over to the [Continental] States. I was in New York very briefly as a baby, but I grew up in Germantown, Maryland, which is a suburb that’s like 45 minutes away from DC. So I have a lot of Maryland pride. Then, after graduating college, I lived in Virginia for a bit. So I grew up all around DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

Could you tell me a bit about your family history? You mentioned that you were born in Puerto Rico, but you also have roots in Colombia, right?

Yeah, my mom’s side of the family is Puerto Rican. My dad’s side of the family is Colombian. You would think with that combination, I would know just from birth how to dance, but I don’t!

Haha!

It’s really upsetting. It’s just a big downer. I am good at pretending to know how to dance, but if an actual salsa dancer who knows how to dance looks at me, they’d be like, “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

I’m a lot closer to my Puerto Rican side. And that’s just because I grew up with my mom. She’s a single mom. And I know a lot more about that culture and that side of the family.

But I’m still trying to get to know more about Colombia. My sister went recently, and it was a really big deal. I’d like to go someday. But yeah, so those are the two cultural spheres that I’m from.

Thank you for explaining that. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for your mother to not only raise you alone but also move to the [Continental] U.S. What was the impetus behind that? I’m sure she had family in Puerto Rico, but did she leave them behind or move with them?

I was born with a rare condition called Russell-Silver Syndrome, and that really shaped a lot of my upbringing and identity as well. We were really blessed to find a world-renowned specialist. She was in New York at Mount Sinai. I had to go visit her pretty much every month, especially when I was a baby.

So my mom and I ended up moving to New York. We were right next to Mount Sinai. For a lot of my babyhood, I was in and out of hospitals. That was something I was very used to. I had to take artificial growth hormones until I was ok to stop growing at 13, because my body didn’t produce growth hormones naturally. So I have a really interesting medical past, and that’s why we ended up moving to New York.

I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m glad it sounds like it’s under control now and you’re in good health.

Yeah. It’s just a part of who I am. And it’s interesting because I’m at the stage now in my adulthood where I’m a lot more open about it and embracing it as a part of my past. Before, I would just not think about it or not bring it up. I’m in a lovely relationship now, where [my boyfriend] wants to know about me and my past—which you’d think is the bare minimum, but like, men!—so I’ve been very open about my syndrome and just learning how to embrace it more, even writing about it. I’m hoping to write a post about what it is and how it works because it’s really rare.

That was the impetus for my mom to move to New York from Puerto Rico. My Puerto Rican family, especially my grandma, was very sad, but ultimately, everyone knew it had to be done.

It sounds like you had the opportunity to go back a lot and to see your extended family.

Yeah, thankfully, I did. I spent a lot of my summers there growing up. I had the pleasure of spending several months of the year in Puerto Rico, which was incredible and amazing. I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to do that.

I’m still totally in love with the island. I love the people. I feel like that’s where my roots are and where my ancestors are from. Whenever I have to leave, I cry on the plane because it’s just so emotional. My grandma says I have a plantain stamp on the bottom of my foot because I was made in Puerto Rico.

That’s so cute!

I really love being Puerto Rican, and I love going to Puerto Rico.

An Immigrant Adjacent Experience

That’s wonderful. I understand that the relationship between Puerto Rico and the Continental U.S. is really complex because of the history, culture, and language, and the fact that it’s not a state but a territory. Do you have a strong identity as an American, or do you have a complicated relationship with it?

It’s a complicated relationship. In Puerto Rico, there are different political parties. They’re mainly based on the territorial status of the island. They have the pro-statehood party, which wants Puerto Rico to be a state. And then there’s the pro-commonwealth political party. And there’s the pro-independence party. The push to make Puerto Rico independent has grown over the years.

My mom was political and a really big member of the pro-statehood party. She played a really big role in activism and worked on policy on [Capitol] Hill. I grew up going to protests called caravanas, which is like a parade of people in their cars honking, flying both the American flag and the Puerto Rican flag.

But I have a lot of American veterans in my family. All the men on my grandma’s side—my great-grandfather, my great-uncles—were veterans in World War II. I think some even enlisted for World War I.

So it’s complicated, especially now. I don’t know what I align with. I think I’m still exploring that. I have this American pride that was instilled in me as a child, but I have a hard time reconciling it with the way I feel about Puerto Rico and the United States now.

For me, everything changed after [Hurricane] Maria. I was like, “Why?” The infrastructure and everything got even more broken down, and all the problems just became a lot more obvious.

I still have a hard time coming back from Puerto Rico to the [Continental] United States, because the lights always go out in Puerto Rico. The power infrastructure is really bad. I have a hard time getting on the plane during a power outage, knowing my grandma doesn’t have A/C and knowing that the neighborhood has no power, and then landing in Washington, DC where everything is lit up and you see things like the MGM. There’s just something about that that feels so wrong.

Now I’m at a crossroads where I don’t really know how to reconcile it, but I’m trying to enjoy that journey and be curious. I’m trying to learn as much as I can.

I feel like I’ve had a lot of the immigrant experience from my dad’s side, who is an immigrant from Colombia. But on my mom’s side, it’s interesting because my mom went to college in New York, and Puerto Rico is very Americanized in a way.

So I don’t consider myself an immigrant per se, because I feel like I have a privilege that I don’t want to overlook. I don’t need a green card and visas. But again, it’s weird because I’ve had an experience that’s very similar to an immigrant.

And now with this new administration, I don’t know if they’ll look at the nuances of that. My mom is carrying her passport in her wallet because she’s worried, even though it wouldn’t make sense for us to be deported because we have birthright citizenship. If you’re born in Puerto Rico, you’re an American citizen. But we’re definitely all in a place of uncertainty right now because, will that even matter when they’re looking at you and see that you’re different, that you’re Hispanic or speaking Spanish somewhere public, where it’s unwelcome?

So I do think I’ve had an immigrant adjacent experience. And I identify a lot more with that experience than any other here in America. It’s weird, because I don’t want to take that on and act like my mom crossed some kind of border, because she really didn’t. But at the same time, culturally, I do feel like I’ve had an immigrant experience.

There are Puerto Ricans who do consider themselves immigrants. If they’re pro-independence, they want Puerto Rico to be seen as a country of its own.

I was born into a statehood party and raised like Puerto Rico is a part of the U.S. We’re proud of that and feel like we need to have the same rights as [other] Americans now. For me, it just depends on how you define “immigrant,” if that makes sense.

Absolutely. I actually think we have a lot in common because I grew up in Hawaii, which is another complicated region because it used to be its own kingdom and then was annexed to the Continental United States. But it’s different in that the primary language is English now. And of course, the native population [and how they are treated] is a whole other different issue. The fact that Hawaii’s a state is also quite different from Puerto Rico.

Yeah, Hawaii is very much in the consciousness of Puerto Ricans a lot, especially when talking about politics. It’s kind of like, “Don’t forget what happened in Hawaii.” Whatever way you frame that, whether that’s negative or positive for someone, it’s very much in the Puerto Rican consciousness. It’s interesting.

That is really fascinating. I was born in the Continental United States, but spent a lot of time in Japan as well. My parents are Japanese. So in that sense, I also feel like a quasi-immigrant. I think it’s fascinating how you and I have different experiences, but also have a lot of similarities in that we think about our American identity in unique ways.

Yeah. It can be so nuanced and layered. It’s not black and white.

Creative Writing

I want to shift gears a little bit. How did you first become interested in creative writing?

I don’t remember ever not being interested in creative writing. I feel like I was always writing since I was really little. Ever since I figured out I could make things up and write it down, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I want to do this forever.” So throughout my life, I’ve just pursued it.

I wrote poems about Puerto Rico when I was little. Puerto Rico was my muse when I was a child. I have so many poems of the blue ocean, the sky, the sand, and silly rhyming words.

Then in middle school and high school, it was a form of escapism for me. I was able to go into my own world. And my friends—who are still my friends today—and I all connected over creativity and stories. We’d write to each other and trade notes in the hallway. And they would get really excited about it.

I would pick out the funniest thing that happened to me that day and make it into a comic. It was almost a handwritten vlog where we would give each other these notes. I have a shoebox full of them at my place. I’ve been meaning to go through it just to laugh.

It’s just always been something I’ve felt has come very naturally to me. And I don’t remember a time I wasn’t doing it.

Do you write in Spanish as well? And if so, do you see any difference between what and how you express yourself?

I tried writing in Spanish when I was younger. I was really into pirates, and I tried to write a bilingual short story about a girl being taken away in a flying pirate ship in New York.

That’s so cool. I would totally read that.

I was wondering if I should go back to it, because that was kind of fun. I was a kid, but it was a very interesting experience that I never forgot. I haven’t really written in Spanish since then.

Poetry wise, I love Spanish words. I love how the words have a different spirit to them. I want to play with that more. I have put Spanish words into my English poetry. I have some drafts here and there that have some Spanish words.

I’m really inspired by Sandra Cisneros, who’s a Mexican American poet. She wrote The House on Mango Street. She is probably my role model when it comes to writing in general. She likes to dabble with a little bit of Spanish in her English poetry.

That is really cool. The readers do have to know each language, but there are certain things and words that are untranslatable.

Choosing the Best Format for Self-Expression

Because you mentioned poetry, I also want to ask: you have different ways of expressing yourself, like comics—it sounds like you also illustrate—prose, poetry, and nonfiction. How do you choose which medium to express certain thoughts with?

That’s a really good question. I think a big part of it is who I’m writing about. If I am writing a story that I want to bring awareness to, that I think needs to be shared in a real sense, [I choose nonfiction].

For example, I did a story on the parapsychology department at the University of Virginia. I wanted that to be nonfiction because it sounds so fictional and magical. I love playing with weirdness and magic in the real world. If I made this story into fiction, I felt like it would lose the wow factor, which is that it exists in the real world. There’s a team of people studying telepathy at University of Virginia.

I had no idea!

It’s very cool. It’s called the Division of Perceptual Studies. I would recommend you check it out if you’re interested in that kind of thing. It’s one of the favorite things I’ve written. And that was something that needed to be written for the real world. So that was nonfiction.

If I have a feeling that I don’t know how to communicate logically, but I can put it down and be pretty confident that somebody will read it and feel what I’m feeling, I choose poetry for that.

For example, I’ve been obsessed with Bad Bunny’s new album. He’s a Puerto Rican artist. His new album is made for Puerto Ricans. And there is a song called “What Happened to Hawaii,” which we were talking about earlier. The song is not really a dissertation or an analysis. It’s just this deep fear about what happened to Hawaii. And any Puerto Rican seeing that song title and hearing that song will understand the feeling. It’s not making any kind of direct statement, but it’s a feeling translated into words.

When I have something like that that I want to share, I will go to poetry. I wrote a piece that was published in Strange Horizons. It was my first published piece, and I’m still very proud of it. I was on a walk and was harassed in the streets. And I came back and heard this awful news story about a woman who was murdered while walking home. I was just so angry and sad and wanting the world not to be this way.

So I wrote about a magic, mystical land where women took care of each other and helped each other heal when they died from situations like that. And I tied it to my Puerto Rican ancestry, Taino women, who are the indigenous people of Puerto Rico. That came out of a feeling of desperation that I wanted to express and connect with people. And that was a poem.

In terms of other forms of writing, when it’s about the story, I love to focus on a three-act structure. I love to have my traditional cast of characters, exposition, and rising and falling action. That is when the story is just so good and delicious that I want to use whatever structure it necessitates.

But I will draw comics if I want to express something to friends. That’s also when I’ll turn to video or audio storytelling. If I really want to piece together components of a story, I’ll usually do more prose. I don’t really have a hard and fast rule, but it’s more about an intuition and how I’m feeling about my idea.

That makes sense. I really admire you for having such a wide toolbox to pick from.

Anger as a Reminder

Because you talked about your feelings about women and feminism, I was wondering if you could elaborate on your fascination with the “vengeful woman”: women who are wronged, then become or are portrayed as witches or ghosts. I think that’s a really interesting idea that you mentioned in your newsletter.

Yeah, I love the idea of the vengeful woman.

I’m really passionate about mythology and folklore. I love seeing the patterns and what they say about culture and society. When you’re having a problem in real life, you might have a dream about it and try to interpret the dream. I think folklore is the equivalent of that for a whole society. I think we dream in folktales, and through them, we can find a lot of the problems that we want to deal with now or the patterns that we’re missing.

And I think one of them is this rage that is so often all over the world, so present in folk tales about women. As a creative, I want to play with that idea, write poetry about it, tell stories about it, and really explore it from all angles.

In the world we live in, women have historically been so subdued and silenced. In so many ways, we didn’t have the ability to live the life that we can live now. And many women around the world right now, as we speak, don’t have the right to education or the ability to make the decisions that they want with their body and their life.

But I love that throughout history, there’s always been this seed of wisdom, knowing that we deserve better. And also knowing that, even from a patriarchal perspective, men who have taken advantage of women have something to be scared of.

Kuroneko [Black Cat] is a really cool Japanese movie. I really love its story. It’s supposed to be a scary horror movie. It’s about women who are assaulted by a group of samurai, and they come back from the dead to completely destroy them. It’s violent. The visceral revenge thing has been so feared, but it also gives me a sense that there has been some resilience. The struggle wasn’t totally buried and forgotten.

I think anger can be a reminder that you deserve better a lot of the time. Women are told to not be angry and not be a bitch. Especially women of color and Black women, who face the idea of, “Why are you so angry all the time?” I think a big reason for that is because anger can be powerful. It can be a useful tool for us to draw our boundaries.

That’s something I’ve been learning, too, as an adult. The angriest I’ve been are situations where I wanted to speak up for myself and knew I had to speak up, but didn’t know how. Anger, I think, is what’s subconsciously inside you saying, “Hey, something’s wrong. You deserve better than this.”

So I think anger can be a powerful tool if you use it the right way. I think it can be really destructive and I don’t condone violence, but I just love that idea of listening to rage and connecting over the anger that you feel. Because it can be beautiful. And I think especially as women, we should find ways to listen to it and not reject it or shut it down. That’s why I’m so obsessed with the vengeful woman trope,  because a lot of it is just feminine anger that I think needs to be felt and noticed.

That’s a really fascinating explanation. I always thought anger is something that’s negative, and you need to either get over it or find a different way to express it that doesn’t hurt people. But I never realized that it’s basically the feeling that you deserve better. That’s such a wonderful and eye-opening way to perceive anger. 

Yeah, it just needs to be processed.

I don’t want to be too political, but I feel the most urge to express myself or write when things are difficult socially or politically. I think a lot of artists are motivated right now, and that’s certainly the case for me as well. If you are happy in your everyday life, I think it’s harder to find the motivation to express yourself in a different way.

Yeah, it can definitely fuel you. Righteous anger has driven a lot of positive change in the world.

Exploring Nuance with Local Journalism

I also wanted to ask about your journalism career. You’ve worked with radio stations and TV stations, but you’re also a creative writer. Why did you decide to pursue a [graduate] degree in journalism rather than an MFA in creative writing, for example?

The reason I decided to do a journalism program is because I had the pleasure of exploring American University’s Journalism & Digital Storytelling program.

My program is not just journalism. There’s an emphasis on journalism, but the real program is centered around digital storytelling. I think that really sold me on it because ultimately, I love stories. And journalism is storytelling. It’s often storytelling for a cause, for something that needs to be told and shared with the world.

I wouldn’t have pursued a degree in just journalism. I was actually torn between the MFA Creative Writing Program [also at American University] and this program. But ultimately, I was able to find a program that’s not only practical in terms of learning journalistic skills that I could transfer to a news organization, but also really gets into the mechanics of storytelling and how we can use platforms like what you’re doing now—podcasting—to build engaging stories and get them across. I got to learn coding. I got to learn how to use cameras, microphones, and different editing software. I think I was more interested in studying tools to tell the story.

That completely makes sense. I understand that you recently won a scholarship (congratulations!) for writing an essay about using hyper-local journalism to combat disinformation. Would you mind explaining your idea behind that?

I think local journalists are very underrecognized for what they do. On a community level and almost personal level, they are exercising the right to free speech, and they’re using stories on a very immediate level to help us protect ourselves. When there are emergencies, are you going to go to national news? No, when you want to make sure your family’s safe, you go to local news. I just think local journalism holds so much untapped power.

I think especially now, national news stations and news organizations have become so polarized. They’re serving an incredibly wide range of audiences and just painting with broad strokes. On a national level, that is necessary sometimes. But I think especially now, and in light of everything we’ve talked about, about how nuanced it is to even take on an American identity, I just don’t think broad strokes are doing it anymore. I don’t think that’s the way we’re going to get ahead in understanding each other. And I think that our journalism needs to reflect that. I think a lot of nuance is missing, which is only adding fuel to the fire.

Even within the Democratic Party, there’s so much division. I think a big part of that is because there’s a lack of empathy. And what I think local journalism can do is bring all of that down to a level where you are working with your community to build that empathy and tell stories that directly affect people. How do the issues that are happening now nationally affect people day to day? Local journalism and independent journalism have the capacity to really get down to that micro level as opposed to the macro level.

I think it’s so encouraging that there is someone who’s really focused on local journalism, because I understand that it’s been financially difficult for these kinds of organizations. I’ve read of areas called news deserts, where they no longer have their own media. The next town over needs to cover their news. The media also acts like a government ombudsman in that area. So there isn’t really like a watchdog role.

It’s encouraging how someone who’s so young and about to graduate grad school is really focused on local journalism. You have so many different tools. You’re really able to dig deep, probably even report in Spanish as needed, and really build a community with the local people that you’re interviewing.

Thank you.

Identifying with Characters and Feeling Seen

I also wanted to ask you about your work with PBS KIDS. I know you’ve since left them, but I saw your previous social media post about Alma’s Way—which I understand is a show for children that’s focused on Puerto Rican culture—and found it really fascinating. Would you mind explaining a little bit about that?

Alma’s Way is a show on PBS KIDS about a little Puerto Rican girl named Alma who lives in the Bronx. She connects with her community in a way that I think is really relatable to a lot of Puerto Ricans living in the city.

And it’s beautiful because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a show anywhere that so accurately portrays my upbringing. It’s almost surreal to see something like that on screen.

I remember watching shows on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon growing up. There was one type of family out there and they called their mom “Mom,” and their dad “Dad.” They usually were upper middle class with a really nice house. Their parents were always around.

I know that’s the reality for a lot of people, but I just didn’t see myself in it. It felt like I was just watching these shows and movies. But the crazy thing is that I didn’t know that at the time. I felt like something was not relatable, but I didn’t know what it was.

It was only when Alma came on TV and I started working and helping with it at PBS KIDS that I realized that I was missing out on so much. The majority of middle-class, white, American-born children saw [other shows] and connected with it in a way that I didn’t know.

It was only when I saw Alma that I saw [scenes like:] a visit from your family means getting all the old family photos out, dancing the salsa, or making mofongo, which is a traditional Puerto Rican dish.

I saw that and thought, “I could have grown up with this.” This could have really changed my perspective on my culture. It would have made me feel a lot less like an outsider as well. I could have had a show where I could see people calling their mom “Mami” and their dad “Papi,” because that’s what I call my parents.

And I’m really glad that kids get to have that now. You don’t know what you don’t have until you realize what’s possible.

Did you get to provide feedback in order to make it more authentic, such as the words they should use?

Yeah, I had the opportunity to check out some scripts early on and share some thoughts about different things, including wording. I was the only or one of the very few Puerto Ricans at PBS KIDS at the time. So I feel like I had a unique inside look and was able to help bring that to people. That was definitely an honor.

I’m sure that you helped many children as they were growing up. It’s so important to feel seen, because it’s not just about them sitting in front of the television. When they go to school, maybe other children would have watched that show, too, and can relate to them and become friends faster. So it really permeates the rest of their lives as well.

Yeah. I hear kids talking about Alma’s Way. The other day, I was at a Puerto Rican restaurant. And there was a little girl there who was showing people her bomba dance, which is like a traditional Puerto Rican dance. And the mom was telling everybody, “She learned this on Alma’s Way. There’s a show called Alma’s Way about a Puerto Rican girl. Can you believe it?” That was really nice to hear.

Wow, that’s incredible.

Telling Your Story in a Crowded Media Space

This is not about children’s shows, but I’d like to ask about a personal impression I have. 10-15 years ago, it seemed like American adaptations of telenovelas were all the rage. We saw so many great shows like Ugly Betty, Jane the Virgin, and Devious Maids. We also saw shows like Fresh Off the Boat, which is Asian, but also has a big focus on immigrant culture.

I thought this was a trend that would just continue and become the norm. But I don’t see many shows like that anymore, and it feels like we’ve pulled away from that. What are your impressions, and why do you think that’s happening?             

That’s a really good observation. I’ve sensed that as well.

With the chronic online-ness of our society now, paired with the transient nature of streaming, we don’t really have [a show that we watch] at the same time every day. There’s a million seasons of something like American Idol that’s always present.

I think projects and stories have a much smaller window to succeed now that everything’s moving so quickly in the streaming world and in the digital world in general. I think that makes it really hard for like people who are coming from a place of less privilege, like creators of color who may not be the grandchild or child of someone who’s already an established director. And they also may not have started out with a ton of money to work on a project.

In terms of Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming media, everything’s like, “if it’s not an instant hit, then get rid of it.” And that’s just not how things work, especially if you need time to understand another cultural perspective. This is just my theory, but that’s what I think is going on.

I wouldn’t lose hope, though. There are streaming services like Dropout. It’s my favorite streaming service. It’s really cool because you have an independent group of people who have decided to make media that represents underrepresented people. They’ve been incredibly successful in a way that’s really surprising.

So as people of color who are creators in the digital space, we need to be innovative. We need to think on our feet and we need to reframe how things have been done. Because to change the formula, we might need to start something totally new from the ground up.

I’ve never heard of Dropout, but I’ll definitely check it out.

Multiple Routes to Success

Do you have any advice for others who may be struggling with their identity or having difficulty making decisions, like where to be based and what sort of career they want?

Well, first off, a disclaimer: I’m still figuring it out myself. It’s a journey. I wrote a post about this in my most recent newsletter, but I think we’re all raised to believe that we need to follow a formula or track of some sort. And it’s really hard to throw that away. It’s really hard to question that idea of, you go to high school, then you go to college, then you get an internship, then you get a job, etc.

I think that I have been realizing that I need to create my own structure. I need to figure out what works for me. The track is all squiggly, and hopefully, you get to a point where you find what would make you happy and feel successful. That might not be money. It might not be like a claim [to fame]. It might just be something that you feel you’re good at and get positive validation from.

And maybe you have another passion, where you’re writing and getting your poetry published. That’s a personal example. I want to have a poetry career alongside whatever I do.

I don’t think I ever considered that that could be possible, that I could have multiple routes to success, and that my routes could change and look different [over time]. I always kind of saw it as a step ladder. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

You can craft the future you want and customize it as much as you want. It’s scary because there are so many possibilities, but ultimately I think it’s beautiful because you have an opportunity, especially with digital [tools]. That’s why I love digital storytelling, because the digital world has opened up so many possibilities.

I think the advice I would give to someone is to embrace how many options we have now, embrace that you can change your mind, and embrace that success could mean something different to everyone. But also, the whole idea of it is shifting with the times and the technology that we have. Just be malleable and adaptable and creative with the life you want to build.

Thank you so much for that. I completely understand what you mean about having multiple careers. As a child, you’re often asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And you’re supposed to give one-word answers, like, “firefighter” or “illustrator.” It’s hard to imagine that it’s okay to pursue all these different things at the same time. And if you can’t do everything in the same year, then it’s okay to dedicate decades to each career and move between them.

Exactly.

We’re coming to the end of our podcast. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I just want to thank you so much for having me as a guest. It’s been awesome talking to you. It’s super inspiring to watch you take the initiative and follow through on something so cool. And I wish you the best with it. I’m really happy to be on.

Thank you so much, Natalia!

Of course!