Pennsylvania is ground zero for Lyme disease, and one Drexel professor is pursuing a cure

By Claire Maria Porter

Kerry Boland doesn’t remember getting a tick bite. It was 2002 and she was entering her first semester at Georgetown University when she began experiencing flu-like symptoms, which landed her in the emergency room.  A short time after she started experiencing extreme food intolerances. She couldn’t eat gluten without hours of vomiting following. One morning two years later,   when she was studying overseas in a direct matriculation program at the Université Lumière Lyon 2 in Lyon, France, she tried to get out of bed to hit her alarm. “My legs weren’t working, I was basically paralyzed from the waist down,” she says. She frantically called her family back home in Washington, D.C., telling them she thought she had meningitis. When her host family she was living with returned and called the hospital, Boland got a cortisone shot from the medical team and was told she probably had a pinched nerve or muscle spasms. Later that same day she had more “spasms,” which she later learned were seizures. She returned to the U.S. a month later and got an MRI to evaluate for a suspected slipped disc. “They couldn’t find a thing,” she says. “At that point, the mystery began.”

Tick populations are expanding in both geographic range and number, and the list of tick-borne illnesses, most notably, Lyme disease, is on the rise as well. According to the Centers for Disease Control, it’s the fastest-growing vector-borne disease in the country. 

Science is still unraveling the complexities of this puzzling disease and one Philadelphia scientist, Garth Ehrlich, is trying to get ahead of the curve.

I asked Ehrlich, molecular biologist and professor at Drexel University, when the most appropriate time to publish a story on Lyme disease might be. 

Anytime, he said—there is really no such thing as “tick season” anymore.

Ticks are arachnids, meaning they are more closely related to spiders and scorpions than insects. They are considered ectoparasites (external parasites), meaning they live by eating the blood of other animals. There are 899 known species, with 90 of those species residing in the Un ited States. 

The loathsome deer tick, also known as the black-legged tick, is about the size of a sesame seed, with a reddish abdomen and black semi-circle on its dorsal area.

Deer ticks were first thrust into public consciousness in the 1970s. This was when scientists discovered that the bloodsucker from the Rocky Mountains was the only carrier of Lyme disease (which, if little understood today, was much less understood at that time). The flu-like symptoms and bullseye rash became synonymous with the arachnid.

The lifespan of a deer tick is about two years from egg to adult. They dine on animal blood just three times: the first to change from larva to nymph: the second from nymph to adult; and finally, one more time as an adult to lay eggs. At any one of those three feedings, they can pick up Lyme bacteria from an infected animal. 

In order to transmit the bacteria to another host, the tick must be attached for at least 24 hours. 

About 300,000 people are diagnosed with Lyme each year according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those numbers are increasing across the country, and Pennsylvania is the epicenter. Between 2004 and 2016, Pennsylvania saw more than 73,610 cases of tick-borne diseases — more than any other state.

Lyme disease is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a bacteria from the same family that causes syphilis and gum disease. It only creates chronic diseases, says Ehrlich.

Early symptoms of Lyme include flu-like symptoms, namely fatigue. If untreated with antibiotics, it can lead to facial paralysis, arthritis and neurological disorders.

Boland’s symptoms spanned the entire spectrum of Lyme disease symptoms: numbness in her hands, sharp shooting pains, depression and anxiety that didn’t respond to medication, severe gastritis and food intolerances, and finally neurological issues, including brain fog and memory loss.

Boland had been tested numerous times for Lyme disease with the Two-Tier Lyme test, the two-step test commonly used when a patient presents with symptoms of Lyme. It was always negative. 

“I have a laundry list of diagnoses,” says Boland. Most if not all of them are probably triggered by her untreated Lyme, she says.

She’s been diagnosed with everything from Hashimoto’s disease in 2006, to Lupus in 2015. 

“I just felt like people were throwing pamphlets at me,” she says. “They weren’t really listening to me and my symptoms or looking at the timeline.”

She says some doctors were questioning her mental health. 

“My vitals looked amazing. They wouldn’t believe me. They thought I was a hypochondriac,” she says.

By 2016, 14 years after her first flu-like symptoms, Boland had trouble walking without feeling like she would pass out.

“My immune system started attacking my liver. My organs were failing. I made peace with the fact that I might die young,” she recalls. 

Boland, like most Americans, believed that the Two-Tier test for Lyme disease was reliable. 

The truth is that a reliable test for Lyme disease doesn’t exist. 

There are multiple reasons for this, says Ehrlich, one being that the agents used to make that test were developed from a 40-year old strain of Lyme. The organism evolves, he says, so you could be infected with a variant strain of Lyme that has mutated and the test wouldn’t recognize it.

It was a Pennsylvania friend that first told her that the test for Lyme disease was faulty and urged her to pursue a diagnosis by other means.

“In 2017, I finally found a functional medicine doctor who believed me and my symptoms,” says Boland.

Her doctor requested various Lyme disease and immune tests to help find the root cause of her symptoms, including a Western Blot and CD57 test. After being referred to a Lyme-literate doctor (LLMD), she tested positive for two coinfections—Babesia, a Malaria-like blood parasite, and a bacteria known as Ehrlichia—both transmitted by ticks.

“That’s when I finally got my answer,” she says. She was officially diagnosed with Lyme disease. “But it wasn’t over yet.”

She began antibiotic treatment, but it made her terribly sick. 

“If you talk to any Lyme patient you’ll hear the term ‘herxing’,” she says, “where you’re killing off so many bugs…and as they die, they release toxins into your body and produce inflammatory cytokines.” 

The detox pathways of Lyme patients are already weakened, and so the body can’t process the toxins, and you feel even sicker, she explains. Not unlike the side-effects of chemotherapy.

Lyme bacteria is immunosuppressant, says Ehrlich. Like the HIV virus, it reduces the body’s ability to fight not only Lyme disease but other infections as well. 

Boland eventually learned that she had been experiencing “Chronic inflammatory response syndrome,” and that her Lyme disease had activated certain genes so that her immune system doesn’t recognize biotoxins. So any exposure to toxic mold (such as in water-damaged buildings) causes inflammation and a worsening of Lyme symptoms, and makes treatment more complicated.

According to Ehrlich, the main factors behind the surge in deer ticks, and thus heightened cases of Lyme disease, are climate change, a lack of tick predators and an explosion of the mouse population.

Yes, the mouse.

In fact the name deer tick is misleading. It suggests that deer are the main host for these ticks. Deer can carry them, says Ehrlich, but the vast majority are on mice. Because of the misnomer, most people don’t realize that they can be bitten by a deer tick in their yard or on a city playground.

These mice are everywhere, including our homes.  The white-footed mouse has been referred to as one of “the most successful mammals in Pennsylvania,” owing to their range and ability to survive in diverse habitats.

In a yet-unreleased study by Ehrlich’s lab on white-footed mouse specimens, 25% of the mice tested positive for Lyme disease. 

In the lab, there are two things that Ehrlich and his team are focusing on. The first is characterizing all of the different bacteria ticks can carry.

“Lyme ticks are sewers,” he says. “People [with Lyme] are probably co-infected with pathogens.”

Ehrlich’s lab uses a unique classification system, what he calls “pan-domain for diagnostics criteria,” which allows them to identify every bacteria down to the species.

“Others can only tell you various species,” he says. “We can tell you every species that’s there.”

There are enormous differences even within strains of Lyme bacteria, he says, like “the difference between a chihuahua and a Saint Bernard.”

Chronic Lyme is another focus of the lab. 

More than 50% of people infected with Lyme never get the bullseye rash, meaning they have a higher risk of developing chronic Lyme, he says.

“When it becomes chronic, we have no cures for it,” says Ehrlich, adding that once the bacteria becomes chronic in the brain, it’s inoperable. 

Once the biofilm has colonized the body, there are no current drugs that can eradicate it, he explains. 

His lab is trying to invent a drug that can combat chronic bacteria by blocking the enzyme that triggers the bacteria to transition from acute to chronic. This drug could be used to combat all kinds of chronic diseases in concert with traditional antibiotics.

He gives the example of children who have cystic fibrosis. They get chronic infections in their lungs that can’t be cured.

“We can never get rid of them, but we can control them,” he says. “That’s basically what we have to do with chronic Lyme disease.”

Boland is now a member of the PA Lyme Resource Network, a cohort founded in 2012 that provides resources on Lyme Disease, and support and advocacy for Lyme patients. 

“Since my diagnosis, I was looking for a way to put purpose to my pain,” says Boland.

She was feeling discouraged by the lack of information and the amount of misinformation. 

“I really wanted to help educate people about the disease because I wouldn’t wish this on anyone,” she says. “I hope my story and experience can help prevent this from happening to someone else.”

The network advocates that long-term antibiotic treatment is both safe and rational. 

“It can be beneficial because Lyme can be persistent,” says Boland.

The majority of Lyme cases are treatable with antibiotics; if caught early, they can be very effective. 

However, short-term Lyme treatment can just as well fail, and that percentage of patients needs different options, says Boland.

And if you suspect you might have a tick-borne illness, or if you’re still not feeling well after the initial course of antibiotics:

“Go see a Lyme-literate doc because you don’t want to end up like me,” she says. “It gets way more complicated in late stage to get to remission.”

Pennsylvania has been number one in reported cases for seven years running and 30 percent of those reported cases are children and youth. 

“Ticks do not discriminate,” she says. “Everyone is at risk.”

Lyme disease is still under-researched with low awareness and a low rate of prevention actions. Yet, it’s rapidly becoming more prevalent and affecting all populations. 

“We need help,” says Boland, from health practitioners, who could benefit Lyme patients by learning more about the disease and from elected officials, who could push for things like insurance coverage for long-term treatment. 

“It’s controversial and it shouldn’t be,” Boland says. “As a patient, it’s really traumatic to be in that crossfire.”

Black trans women overcome adversity to help others at LGBTQ center

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  Tatyana Woodard, community health engagement coordinator at the Mazzoni Center, wants to take on more leadership in her community. (Photo by Albert Yee)

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  Joniece Greer, community engagement specialist at the Mazzoni Center, dispels the notion that being trans is a chocie, and fights for full equality. (Photo courtesy of Mazzoni Center)

By Constance Garcia-Barrio

For a black transgender woman, being true to one’s self sometimes exacts a horrific price. One hears little about them unless they make lurid headlines as victims of violence—as did Michelle “Tamika” Washington, shot to death on May 19 in North Philly. 

This odd cocktail of sensationalism and silence often breeds stereotypes on the public’s part and frustration for black transgender women who are trying to change the way others see them. 

“Sometimes I feel like the work I’m doing is invisible,” says Tatyana Woodard, 31, a black transgender woman and community health engagement coordinator at the Mazzoni Center at 1348 Bainbridge Street, an organization devoted to the health of the LGBTQ community. 

“I try to help trans people,” she says.

Besides being pigeonholed, black transgender people face more homelessness, discrimination in employment and higher rates of extreme poverty than non-transgender black people, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the United States. Black transgender women also suffer the highest levels of fatal violence within the LGBTQ community, notes the Williams Institute, a think tank on gender identity and public policy at UCLA School of Law. 

“Being a black trans woman, I can’t even explain how hard it is,” says Joniece Greer, 30, the community engagement specialist and facilitator of Mazzoni Center’s Sisterly L.O.V.E. (Leading Others Via Education) program for transgender women. 

“There are layers [of difficulty]: racism, transphobia, shunning by your own community,” Greer says. “I’ve been called a faggot, spit on and hit.”

“Sometimes it feels like people’s self-hate gets projected onto you,” Greer adds.

Projection may help explain the violence by men against black transgender women. 

“If I’m a man and I find myself attracted to a trans woman with male genitalia, what does that say about me?” says Portia Hunt, Ph.D., a Mount Airy therapist in private practice. “Fear about one’s own identity may underlie the violence.” 

Greer, born in Ohio, knew by age 4 or 5 that she was different. “I liked playing with dolls, and I felt more comfortable being around my sisters,” she says. “I will never identify as a man.”

Greer dispels the idea that transgender people can decide to be otherwise. 

“It’s not something you choose,” she says. “Most of us don’t want to be trans. You know your life is going to be hard.”

Hunt, too, counters the idea of choice. 

“Some people don’t have a clue that your genitals may not reflect your internal sense of yourself,” she says. “The truth is, we all have masculine and feminine qualities.”

One transgender woman put it this way: “It’s like you’re born into the wrong body.”

At age 8 or 9, Woodard began wearing girls’ clothes privately in her bedroom. 

“My mom would find them and throw them out,” she says. Life became harder when Woodard entered high school. She was terrified. 

“I felt like there was no place for me,” she says. Then Woodard, whose father had died when she was 5, and her mother had a big argument about the clothes issue.

“I ended up dropping out of school and leaving home,” she says.

Greer, whose parents divorced when she was 10, was raised by her mother. At odds with her mother, she left home at 17. 

“When trans kids leave home or get kicked out at age 13 or 14, they have no life skills, no training, no guidance,” Greer says. “It can lead to the drug scene or sex work.”

Families may feel embarrassed about the young transgender person, especially if family members feel shamed in a close-knit religious community, Hunt noted. Yet shunning a young trans person may come at a high cost. 

“It may result [in] suicide,” Greer says. 

When Greer left Ohio, she could count on very few people. “My best friends, Will and Lu, and my godmother were my strongest support system,” she says. In time, two of her sisters, a niece and Greer’s father grew close to her. 

“Before my father passed away in March of 2016, he said he loved me and apologized for not being there when I needed him,” she says. “It meant a lot, especially coming from a black father. Most of us don’t get that.” 

After Woodard left home, she still had the support of a younger brother, an older half-sister and a maternal aunt, she said, noting that she and Greer both work with trans youth and their siblings who want to be allies. 

“My aunt—my mom’s older sister—told my mom, ‘If you’re having a hard time, think how Tatyana must feel,’ ” Woodard says. 

Woodard’s mother began searching online and consulting different sources for understanding, Woodard recalled. It paid off. “Our relationship is 20 times better now,” she says. “My mom’s my biggest supporter.”

Both Woodard and Greer would like to go to school, Greer for social work and holistic healing, and Woodard to take on more leadership in her community.

Greer, the recipient of a 2015 pancreas-kidney transplant—“I had end-stage kidney disease by 2014”—must also attend to her health. “I can get lots of sympathy, even pity, when people know my health history, but that annoys me,” she says.

In the meantime, Woodard and Greer will work toward making Philadelphia more welcoming to black transgender women so that they can focus less on survival and more on developing their talents and contributing to the city. 

“There need to be panels, discussions and community forums to educate people,” Greer says, affirming the conclusions of Andrew R. Flores, Ph.D., a visiting scholar at UCLA’s Williams Institute who found that more information and images of trans people reduce prejudice against them. However, more than a larger public presence is required. 

“Trans people need a job corps, access to housing and culturally competent health care,” Greer says. “In other words, we want the same things as everyone else.”

Dear Lois, cleaning feels like a never-ending waste of time that keeps us from doing what we really want to do. What’s the point?

Illustration by Luke Cloran

It isn’t easy to accept that our dirt and mess are important. Why would we want to? Many of us feel there are bigger, better and more exciting things to do with our lives than to vacuum and dust the house. In actuality, the mess is a window through which we see the deep, unknown world of inner consciousness calling us to engage with life in a very practical way. The dust on the shelves is us—the dead part of us. The death, the dirt, the unsavory aspects of our tangible reality, they don’t need the negative connotations, and addressing them does not have to be a “chore.”

The house carries, sees and holds it all. It is volatile, alive and subject to change just like the people within it. It hears the fights and registers the neglect; it holds the trauma of depression and illness, all the while striving for restoration and wholeness. 

We carry this same structure within our consciousness. Our bodies, living yet dying, are the subjects and objects of care: eating well, personal hygiene and overall wellness are undoubtedly important. How is it, then, that we convince ourselves that caring for our homes is boring and trivial? 

Our homes are an extension of ourselves and of the present, and it is counterintuitive to long for bigger, better and more exciting lives when we resent interacting with our homes and lives as they are. 

There is a tendency to look outside of the present for a sense of larger purpose and importance. Dirty dishes and grimy bathrooms seem pointless and menial when we feel “destined for greatness” somewhere else in the world. But if the present were different, if we were relieved of the drudgery of everyday responsibilities, would we make good on our self-perceived importance or sit right back down in front of the TV? For successful movement out of this existential crisis, we need a paradigm shift.

Unless we are planning to leave the present moment in favor of a different one, the mess, clutter and dust we ignore will become an exponentially larger problem in the future. In lieu of personal action, we might throw money at the problem to make it go away or do the mental gymnastics to convince ourselves that we “like” living in the chaos and grime. To each their own. If we cared for our bodies in the same way, we would have to accept that sickness is the norm and that preventative care is not worth our time. 

Good form will carry us through the hardest days and most exhausting evenings. If we can truly accept ourselves where we are, on this journey, in this home, with this job, with these people surrounding us, we embrace the true freedom of interacting with our lives as they are. Although I may wish to be “somewhere else,” I am here now, and not in a future that may never materialize. I have high hopes for what I would like to see for myself and our world, but no expectations. I embrace that life comes with maintenance and work. I also embrace relaxation, restoration and the fruit of the seeds I have planted. In looking at the whole, I respect the trivial. 

The future depends on a sustained involvement in life as it is right now. 

So, I’ve neglected the basement. I’ve thrown things down there, let it become a place where I hide bad habits. I’ve closed the door to ignore it. What does that say? I know that it is just a basement, so who cares if it’s a mess? But it serves as a reminder that I am not appropriately caring for the spaces that I have right now. I can rationalize that the space is inadequate, too small, that it serves as a multifunctioning space that can’t ever possibly be what I want it to be. Or, I can ignore the wish for a different situation and make the time to deal with my mountain of clutter. The experience doesn’t have to be negative—it is an opportunity for self-reflection and self-determination.

When faced with an uphill climb, the tendency is to look for a way out without addressing the habits that brought the mess in the first place. Press a button and the cleaning fairy will make the dust and clutter go away—is this the dream? How lazy and out of touch with reality! It will be no different in a new space. Poor habits follow us wherever we go.  

Examining our everyday behaviors, domestic habits and relationship with our tangible reality is essential for the development of self-knowledge and freedom. There is no cure to be bought, no shortcut to be found and no savior from the truth that our dead skin cells become dust. 

Cleaning up after ourselves and the ones we love is worth our time. We can transcend the existential dread of trivial work, set a new bar for domestic gender equality and redefine this central issue for our modern times. As a species, we must evolve by looking at where we are now, seeing the mess, the trash and the grime. We must stop and give thought, weight and importance to the habits we will instill in future generations and the impact this will have on the future of this planet. We shouldn’t let the realities of domesticity deter us from action. We can learn through our existence that we are living, breathing creatures worth taking care of, and act accordingly.

For this professional organizer, a better world starts with a better home

Photo by Rachael Warriner

By Claire Marie Porter

On a windy spring afternoon at the Quaker “Meeting Cottage,” a wide yellowish-brown house on the grounds of the Germantown Friends School, Lois Volta, 36, a musician, writer, mother and professional cleaning consultant gives a tour of her home—and her inner world. 

“Home doesn’t have to suck,” says Volta. “But a beautiful life takes work.”

Her home, which smells like wood and dough, is full of trinkets, instruments and art. There’s a wood stove in the dining room. There are fresh-cut flowers and cookies on the table. It is the epitome of cozy. In her living room, instruments are part of the landscape. There’s a table runner on a keyboard, which is decorated with framed photographs. Everything seems to have its place. Volta, in a mustard yellow dress, has a lilting voice and graceful mannerisms. She is one of those people you feel like you’ve always known. 

In a sonnet, the  “volta” is a turn of thought or argument. Often, the signpost is a “but” or “yet,” followed by a line that changes the entire meaning of the poem. Volta lives up to her surname’s meaning, flipping stigmas of cleanliness and duty and undercutting domestic pressures on women by offering a feminist, meaning-driven service. Volta Naturals is a company that addresses the roots of mess and habit; one that emphasizes confronting indifference and dread.

Teaching someone to clean can be sacred, says Volta. When talking through the intimacies of a closet, or a pile of neglected papers, trust, vulnerability and humility are exchanged, and habits, fears and desires can safely surface.

“I wanted to flip the script on what it means to be a cleaning professional,” she says. “I don’t clean up people’s trash; I take care of people.” 

For Volta, teaching someone to take care of their things is the equivalent of teaching them to take care of themselves.

“Self care is washing your dishes,” she says. “I’ve learned so many spiritual lessons while washing dishes.”

Cleanliness isn’t just about sanitation. Volta emphasizes she is not a germaphobe and believes it’s okay to leave things undone. It’s about consciousness in the home: awareness-based living habits. 

If you make a mess and leave it, someone else is cleaning it up, she says. It sounds simple, but actually internalizing the concept, as a child or a roommate or partner, can have radical effects. 

“If you’re in control of what you do, you have more to give,” she says. “The person who’s cleaning up after you has more to give, and it can be harmonious.” 

Health is contagious, she says: “Love draws love to itself. Healthiness draws healthiness to itself.”

Volta grew up in Abington, Pennsylvania, and weaved her way through living spaces in Brewerytown, Fishtown and Northern Liberties as a young adult. She settled down in Germantown with her three daughters seven years ago.

She reflects on her duties as a child. She was taught to clean and care for her belongings while her brothers, she says, cut the grass. 

“It’s really clear that girls are raised differently than boys,” she says. “Am I nurturing of the home because of who I am? Or was I taught that?”

She lived in a Germantown commune, but was kicked out for having “high expectations for cleanliness.” So, she started her own cleaning company. 

In 2013, she brought on a staff of 10 women—the cleaning “misfits,” she calls them. Those clean-freak roommates who wanted everyone to do their own dishes.

When Volta began feeling sick from using her client’s cleaning products, she started making her own. She uses vinegar and water and an all-purpose spray that she makes from washing soda, castile soap and essential oils. 

“The washing soda breaks down the dirt and the castille washes it away,” she says, “while the basil has an earthy smell, the peppermint keeps it bright.”

The smell is invigorating.

“It’s a different kind of cleaning smell,” she says, “I would like to change the smell of clean.”

This isn’t your typical cleaning service either, as you’ll read on Volta’s website. It’s a holistic service that might bring you fresh flowers, bake you cookies or teach you body awareness while you scrub the tub. 

“If I can get people to see their own dirt, maybe I can get them to care,” she says. “And if I can make it spiritual…or political, maybe I can get them to care.”

She also wants her clients to see that hiring a cleaning company can be a political statement—a feminist act that helps undercut the social systemic burden placed on women to clean, organize and manage the home.

“We keep talking about gender equality out there,” she says, in reference to the working world, “but our homes are still not equal.”

Not only do we need to work and fight for equal wages, Volta says, we’re still doing most of the child-rearing, housekeeping, grocery-shopping   and carrying the mental load, she says. 

“If anything, women are under different types of pressure,” she says.

In the era of tidying authority Marie Kondo, followers tend to go through a hazing period when they throw the contents from their closets onto the floor, sift out the items that “spark joy” and discard the rest.

While Volta takes some tips from the KonMari philosophy, and believes it’s a good place for people to start, her emphasis is on addressing the root of mess. 

Like Kondo, she believes in organizing. But she also believes in changing the way you live, by addressing capitalism, addressing spending habits and addressing gender inequality in the home. 

Paring down your belongings is only one part of that. 

“Mess is a byproduct of life,” she says. “That work is never done. Just be patient with it.”

She points out some items in her bedroom, one of which is a pale yellow vanity her husband fashioned from discarded furniture pieces. Most of her furniture is found on trash day or in re-fab stores. The room is tidy but brimming with beautiful things. 

In Volta’s own closet, she has a handful of hanging items. She swooshes them back and forth.

“You should have the space to look through your clothes,” she says.

Closet organizing is one of Volta’s specialties.

“It’s a really good place for people to start,”she says. “It’s very personal.” 

She opens her dresser drawers. Shirts, sweaters, and pants are snugly lined up in little squares.

“When you fold upright, the stuff you don’t really wear gets pushed to the back,” she says. It’s important to regularly evaluate how many of each clothing item you need.

“Oh, and I don’t do socks,” she says, pulling out a basket of loose ones from under the bed. “The kids can come and get them. Get your own socks, pair ‘em up. I can’t do everything.”

After a few years in the cleaning business, Volta was dying to make some real changes and produce more long-term effects. 

“That’s when I got into the idea of ‘Decluttered space, decluttered minds,’ ” she says, a phrase that’s meant to shift people’s perceptions of what cleaning can do for the mind, body and spirit. 

“It’s hard work, but it’s valuable work,” Volta says. “It’s not the bottom of the barrel.” 

She’s moving away from being a cleaning lady and wants to meet with clients who are interested in a journey—not a quick fix, but a complete reframing. 

“I’ll help you push reset, and I’ll teach you how to keep it up,” she says.

We need to be okay with addressing our shortcomings when it comes to our living habits, she says: “The home is a beautiful place to learn that lesson.”

She recently started a zine, “The Inner World of Volta,” which she designs and writes herself. It’s a self-help handbook full of rules, life hacks, tips and musings on gender and mindfulness. 

“Intimate awareness of our external spaces brings a more acute knowledge of our internal state—both the good and the grime,” she writes. 

There are recipes, and even little sketches of proper clothing-folding techniques. 

“Gratitude transforms laborious tasks into things that can and should be enjoyed,” she writes. 

The next zine is going to be all about family involvement, Volta says. The emphasis will be on how families can share the household burden.

“These people are going to be taking care of us when we’re old,” she says. “I don’t want them to flop out of the nest, I want them to soar.” 

Parents have become too lenient, she believes, due to the pressures of different parenting styles and the fear of damaging the child. As a result, most parents aren’t teaching their kids basic life skills.

“We’re all in this together,” she says. “If we want to be a positive force, if we want to make the world a better place—how can we do that if we’re not making our homes better places? It’s too idealistic. It has to be tangible. It’s gotta feel good.”

“It’s time,” she says, “to look at the dirt.”