“It’s been a wild and crazy journey, to say the least,” laughs violinist Damien Escobar, chuckling his way through another day in COVID lockdown as he prepares lunch for his kids and his fiancé. “I got to tell you, I have experienced every emotion one can experience, and a lot of them all at once,” he says, and though Escobar is clearly talking about the “crisis mode” he entered when the pandemic first hit the country, he could just as well be talking about his tumultuous path to the present—definitely a journey, and one he is the first to admit he’s learned and grown from. “I tell people all the time,” he says, “‘In every situation, the first thing I think of is how to help others. What I can do? I’ve learned that the best way to get through a tough time is to remember you are not the only one hurting.”