About
Paige Luna
Dancer. Chef. Restaurant owner. Author.
Still figuring it out.
I've Never Been Very Good at Staying in One Lane
I moved to New York City to become a professional dancer. Then I choreographed, owned a dance company, worked as a production assistant, became a personal trainer, went to culinary school, built businesses, and opened Scarlet Kitchen & Lounge. I know. It sounds exhausting. Imagine living it.
Some people call that reinvention. Some members of my family probably call it further evidence that I have never known how to sit still or what the fuck I'm doing. They may all be right.
But every time I changed direction, I was following something I couldn't ignore. Even when the new thing made absolutely no sense to anyone else. Especially then.
At the time, I thought I was starting over again and again. Looking back, every version of me was following the same thread. I just couldn't see where it was leading yet. Eventually, it led to a restaurant, an ending I never saw coming, several identity crises, and forty-eight chapters. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Part Where Everything Changed
Scarlet was equal parts restaurant, stage, second home, and complete takeover of my personality. I loved creating a place where people could eat, celebrate, connect, and feel like they belonged there. I also had absolutely no idea where the restaurant ended and I began.
When Scarlet closed, I didn't have another clever career move waiting in the wings. I was wrecked. I went to Florida for the holidays planning to leave again. Instead, I stayed for three months. That season pulled me back toward parts of myself I hadn't heard from in years. Movement. Dance. Spirituality. Writing. Creativity that didn't need to become a menu, a business plan, or something I could measure by the end of the day.
I started getting on camera even though I hated seeing myself and hearing my own voice. I started writing about things I had spent years trying not to say out loud. Little by little, I stopped trying to rebuild the woman I had been before the restaurant closed. I started paying attention to the woman who was still there.
What I'm Doing Now
Now I write. I create. I move. I dance, train, make art, tell stories, get on camera, and follow ideas before I know exactly what they're going to become. Sometimes the art is a chapter. Sometimes it's movement. Sometimes it's a conversation, a video, a photograph, or a sentence that won't leave me alone until I do something with it.
I'm building a body of work around identity, belonging, ambition, starting over, and what happens when we stop editing ourselves to make everyone else more comfortable.
At the center of that work is my first book, I Am Here for It. Forty-eight chapters later, this is apparently what all those lives were preparing me to create.
A Few Things You Should
Probably Know About Me
I live in Florida. Dolphins are my friends, and I will stop a conversation mid-sentence when one appears.
I love God, movement, dresses, good food, enormous dreams, loud laughter — and people who let themselves be complicated.
Changing your mind can be an act of honesty.
We are allowed to want beautiful things and meaningful lives.
Ambition can be incredible when we don't make ourselves the price.
I am deeply interested in being human and completely uninterested in pretending I have mastered it. I don't have everything figured out — but the next chapter rarely asks for permission before it begins.