Buzz Magazine San Diego

On What Are Friends For, Gabrielle Ruiz & Pallavi Sastry dive deep and revel in all the facets of platonic love. But their friendship wasn’t always secure.

After originally meeting on a summer theatre job in 2007, GxP were mostly colleagues who awkwardly interacted in New York City in audition waiting rooms or once at a street fair in Queens. After genuinely reconnecting over health and wellness in 2012, they learned to get over themselves and carry on vulnerable conversations without the pressure of entertainment industry competition. They knew they wanted to work together again one day; they were simply waiting for the right project.

They’ve tackled issues such as working with friends, race and friendship, building community, recovering from trauma, mentoring, friendship breakups, and what is a “best friend?”

Past episode guests have included Javier Muñoz (Hamilton), Alysia Reiner (Orange is the New Black), Harvey Guillen (What We Do in the Shadows), Travis McElroy (My Brother, My Brother, and Me), Melissa Barrera (Vida), Karen David (Fear the Walking Dead), Kelli O’Hara (The King and I), Poorna Jagannathan (Never Have I Ever), Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect), and more.

WAFF Podcast releases new episodes on Tuesdays on all major podcast platforms. Exclusive vodcast episodes and the iconic WAFF Live Shows are available exclusively on Patreon at www.patreon.com/waffpodcast.

I would say that my journey started years ago, at the age of thirteen, when I got my first little digital camera. I immediately fell in love with the way I was able to capture the beauty I saw in the world and in the people around me, freezing fleeting moments forever. Over the next several years, I continued to explore this passion of mine and quickly began to learn and grow.

When I started college, I decided on what I saw as the “safe” choice: majoring in Psychology and keeping film and photography as a side hobby. I experienced a lot of uncertainty during my first year as I saw how everyone else around me seemed to know exactly what their purpose in life was. I couldn’t say the same. Towards the end of the fall semester, I was sitting in one of my classes and experienced a powerful conviction. I had never heard God’s voice clearly before, but that day, I heard Him speak over me, urging me to pursue film as a career and reassuring me that I needn’t worry. He would get me there.

I had no idea what this calling entailed- I wasn’t even sure if my university offered a film major. But, in faith, I responded with a “yes”. With no active effort on my part, doors began opening and details began falling in to place. A month later, I was asked to shoot my first wedding. Since then, I have had the opportunity to work on countless other projects, including short films, music videos, interview shows, promotional videos, and short documentaries. I have watched God reveal his sovereign plan to me over and over again, constantly reaffirming my calling to use this passion for His glory.

Now, four years later, I’ve just graduated from college and am making my start in the professional world. I recently launched a startup production company, On the Clouds Media, with some of my good friends. My hope is to continue finding stories that inspire me and tell them in a visually impactful way.

As a young child I always gravitated towards Music & Fashion. I always found interest in how songs were produced and also the story behind the artist. My radio career began in 2016 on a small platform named “Restless Nation Radio” in San Diego , California and within a year I found myself in Hollywood , California on DJ Skee’s very own Dash Radio as the Creator / Host of The Fixxx Audiocast which is a radio show that provides raw and uncut interviews with some of today’s hottest artist in both Music & Entertainment. Music has always been therapeutic for me so naturally the interest in becoming a DJ / Music Producer was a match that was destined to be made. I am 1 1/2 of the production team Wealth Rok Music with Artist / Producer D-Rok The CaliProduk teaming together to produce some of the hottest songs in the industry today.

Jennymelva and Maci, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
(Jennymelva) If someone had told me five years ago that I’d one day open a collective space for self-healing, I would just have laughed and brushed it aside. As a child, I grew up in a broken home. And at some points, I didn’t have one. I had to move from relative to relative, place to place. My childhood exposed me to trauma and this only carried on through my teen and my adult years. But five years ago, something shifted. I woke up one morning, looked at the mirror and I couldn’t recognize myself. I couldn’t understand how I had gotten to the dark place I was in. I knew that if I continued to let the trauma cycle through my life, I knew nothing would change. I didn’t know what would come, but I knew I had to change.

I finally found that I had the courage to build the life I’ve always imagined. I made the biggest decision of my life and jumped into the uncertainty. Leaving Murrieta, I took my kids with me and moved to San Diego. That is when self-discovery and deep healing work began. By releasing limiting beliefs, understanding shadow work and learning to reprogram my subconscious mind, I knew I always had a purpose in life to help others by sharing my truth and providing space for other human beings to self-heal. That journey led me to various mentors who remain important to my life today. Magic Is Real, by Lizzie Rose, guided me through energy healing. Yoga with Shawna inspired me to be the teacher that I am today.

That is when I found Maci Ousset, the co-founder of The Sun and her Moon Collective, who was also passionate about self-healing. I had randomly met Maci through a friend of a friend at an Oktoberfest celebration. We shared a wonderful conversation regarding our big dreams to help others. In the months following, and as I was starting to put my business plan into action, I regretted not getting her contact information because I felt we shared the same purpose—to help others heal themselves. Then we ended up walking into the same studio for our Yin Yoga Teacher Training. That is when The Sun and her Moon Collective really started to form.

(Maci) My journey has been marked by adversity, and each obstacle has made me who I am today. Being born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, my first adversity was losing my home and community to Hurricane Katrina. So, at nine years old, I learned the temporality of possessions. A few years later, when I was 12, my mom passed away from cancer; that’s when I learned the temporality of life. Fortunately, through these times of grief and confusion, I had karate to lean on. I studied under a sensei who taught me to be the best, and under his guidance, I got to do karate around the world. I wouldn’t change a thing about what the years of training did for me; although, my karate career did leave me with constant ailments and injuries.

Pain was my normal. The physical pain kept me distracted from my emotional discomfort, so I just kept it around. It wasn’t until I took my first yoga class in April of 2015 that I felt relief, physically, emotionally, and mentally. I began supplementing my karate practice with yoga and was kicking higher than ever, and I was moving through grief and anxiety gracefully. I went off to Argentina in 2017 to study abroad and was truly living life, feeling the best I ever had, and not worrying about a thing. Then, one early Tuesday morning my sister called to tell me that our dad passed away. I left Argentina a month early and there I was; 21 years old, with both of my parents passed, completely independent, and I had to decide.

Do I keep going? Really embracing this theme of temporality, I decided it was my time to make my dreams come true while I still could. With no ties to Louisiana, I headed out after I graduated from LSU with a degree in Spanish. I packed up my Toyota Corolla and moved to San Diego to be close to my sister. This is where my healing journey really kicked off because shortly after the move, I began suffering from anxiety that was manifesting in physical form. My chest was burning, I was experiencing intrusive thoughts, and my body ached in a new place every day.

In November 2018, I finally reached out for help and found a life coach. From there, everything began falling right into place. I started going to Yoga on Mission Beach, then found Yoga with Shawna and became certified in Yin Yoga, Breathwork, and Reiki; and started teaching yoga in April 2019. In the Yin yoga teaching training, I ran into Jennymelva again, and it was then that we knew we were meant to know each other. Little did I know, she had big plans brewing and wanted me to be a part of them. So, we got started! With no clients, no workshops, no equipment, we had nothing but a space and the two of us, ready to heal ourselves and to inspire others to unlock their own healing powers. So here we are, world, and we’re so excited to share our story!

I am originally from Atlanta, Georgia. I started coaching football after serving as a Hospital Corpsman in the Navy. I knew coaching was something that I always wanted to do, but I underestimated how much of an impact one could have in this line of work. After the military, I started out coaching the San Diego Surge women’s football team which was very beneficial because it really pushed me to learn more about the game and how to effectively teach. I was fortunate enough from there to meet the right people to be able to get into the high school game.

Of course!

I began my books where it all started with relationship abuse and decided to publish my works when my Dad passed away which brought me where I am today blessfully with a full supported team. From dealing with PTSD from all that I’ve seen and done I had to persistently reassure myself that I was doing my best and excelling in my passions because what are we without our desire to grow?

I grew up in Indiana and went to nursing school at Purdue University. After a couple of years of working in the intensive care unit back in the Midwest I started my travel nursing career, landing my first travel assignment in LA at USC medical center. In LA is where I started my Martial Arts journey as well at Krav Maga Worldwide in West LA. I then continued my Krav Maga training up in Santa Barbara where I also began to take private lessons in Brazilian jiu jitsu. Once finished with my Santa Barbara travel assignment (1 year), I took a contract up in San Francisco where I began training Brazilian jiu jitsu under Ralph Gracie Black belt, Renan Silva. After spending about a year in San Francisco, I made the plunge to San Diego where I took a permanent RN position at UCSD in the ICU. I continued my Jiu Jitsu training under Clark Gracie. After about another year of training Martial Arts, one of my instructor Michael Sands asked if I could CPR certify all of the Clark Gracie Academy instructors. I told him I didn’t have my instructor certification, but would look into it so I could train them. 2 months later I received my AHA CPR instructor certification and certified all of the Clark Gracie Instructor. This was the start of Martial Arts Med. I would give something back to the Martial Arts community. As time went on, I realized that my experience in the hospital and Martials arts complimented each other well. I began running self defense classes focused on non-violent techniques. Something nurses and healthcare workers could use in the hospital setting if someone becomes combative or agressive. I have experience a lot of violence during my time working in the hospital and so have a lot of my co workers. Some nurses even out of work to rehab because they were attacked by a patient. I am currently in the process of developing a hospital self defense system.

Another hobby and project I’m working on is called Dose of Laughter SD. I produce comedy shows and perform stand up comedy. I have always loved stand up my whole life and wanted to try it out. After getting on stage once, a little over a year ago, I never turned back. Reading and Writing Comedy almost everyday and performing at open mics all over San Diego 3-5times per week.

I grew up like many suburban kids in Massachusetts – drowning in an elusive yet characteristically New England ‘sports obsession’ that I never got assimilated with. Rebellion drew me in. Music was an escape, so was pushing around a board. Skateboarding and music were my two huge creative outlets growing up; I’d lose track of time skating a ledge alone, or recording a song in my dad’s home music studio for hours. I went to Berklee college of music for three years, made incredible memories, friends and connections – while honing many of the professional skills I use today.

I then left Berklee and the fast paced North East and moved to CA, starting a jamband that focused on americana, songwriting and improvisational concerts. I was recognized for some awards and grew a local following, then changing the band a bit and heading out on the road to tour. 4 years of touring the Western half of the country taught me so much and as I sit here in quarantine, shit do I miss and cherish those marginally showered weeks, sleep deprived drives and new friends that you’ve known forever at every juncture.

Taking a break from the road in Fall of 2019 couldn’t have come at a stranger time. I had just built up residencies at multiple local music venues and started releasing music under my own name, while taking various digital marketing classes to help build my fanbase as an artist…….and then boom – covid19. No mo’ toh! No mo’ bars!

For me, fashion has always been intrinsic to who I am. I honestly can’t remember a time in my collective memory when I was okay with allowing other people to dress me, personal expression through fashion has always just been that important to me, and I am so fortunate to have a family who always cultivated that by allowing me to dress myself however I wanted. Dressing myself, and other people has always been a source of joy for me. Literally from pre-school, where I always played dress up during free time or as a child when I had a rule of no more than four outfit changes a day, and I held glamorous tea parties where I would dress my little siblings up. Clothing, styling, dressing up, all of that, it’s always been so fun to me. But something that has always bothered me, from the very beginning of my fascination with fashion, is the strictly enforced gender division, especially when it comes to perceived femininity in clothing. I have a lot of negative memories of this, especially from when I was younger before I really even understood and figured out how to conform to this gender division. Memories of being told to have the boys I was playing dress up change because they shouldn’t wear wigs or dresses; memories of my peers telling me I couldn’t wear my superhero or baseball shirts, because they were for boys. When I graduated high school I moved around a lot and I eventually settled in San Diego where I came out as queer and later gender nonconforming. My partner was also gender nonconforming but prefered “male clothing”, when we first started shopping in ‘male sections’ of stores it was a pretty uncomfortable experience, and it was difficult to find men’s clothing that was petite enough to fit either one of us. I experienced similar experiences with other queer friends while shopping in the women’s sections (just people giving weird looks or staring, not a lot of size variation and the whole awkward situation of changing rooms) and after a while I kind of gave up on shopping. I tried to get into e-commerce for a while but was also dissatisfied at the lack of gender and size diversity showcased by brands. I was frustrated because I felt as though people who looked like a lot of the people I love and think are most beautiful, were not being properly represented within the fashion world. I was inspired by up and coming brands who focused their campaigns on actual representations of beauty. And that was pretty much the culmination of Deconstructed Vintage in 2018. I was tired of traditional shopping and model experiences so I seeked to create my own. I developed a concept for an inclusive, genderfluid shopping experience and so Deconstructed Vintage was born.

My name is Unice Fernández, I’m a portrait and fashion photographer based out of San Diego, California. I’ve always had a love for art, from using film cameras, making candles, painting and so much more. Although I loved art, I never saw it as a career choice because the artists I saw growing up didn’t look like me and as a daughter of immigrant parents art is not a career choice lol. If you ask most children of immigrants, they’ll know what I’m talking about. The pressure of pursuing the “American Dream” and becoming a doctor or lawyer is what we are supposed to do. I realized the true beauty of the “American Dream” is accepting the freedom to become who we were created to be. My parents came to the States for a better life and I didn’t want to waste this opportunity by pursuing another person’s dream. My “American Dream” was following the path God laid out for me before I was born. It may not look like everyone else’s but I learned to be okay with that. It was then that I finally launched my photography business.