CURRENT MISSION

Settling into routine a two city lifestyle (Austin and Seattle) without losing my vital connections in each of them

ABOUT ME

I've been in Seattle for 23+ years and wildly love the urban Northwest US - the beauty of nature close by in every form, fairly sane and welcoming natives, and plenty of city pleasures to keep the mind alive. I just started dividing my time between Austin and Seattle (~9mos:~3mos routine) to try to get the best of both places. I've retired from the health care field (small community clinics), and am hoping for more time to travel (both to see friends and family who've scattered like dandelion fluff all over the planet, and to see brand new places). I've shared my house in Seattle with housemates, and have been really lucky to find from many places and interests (Senegal, Uganda, Germany, Canada, and, of course, all parts of California). The diversity of housemates feeds my travel lust when I'm stuck here and I think that Couch Surfing can help out with that also.

PHILOSOPHY

Be kind, listen more, talk less, treat people the way you want to be treated, embrace new experience with both arms, seek to learn all you can. I recently saw a quote that I love (I've googled it back to Socrates) - something like: "Strive to become what you desire to appear". Yep.
I'm fibbing about being a beginning Esperanto speaker, but my mom was when she was a young idealist, and I loved the idea when I was a kid - still a good one, if it weren't quite so exclusively European in flavor.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Hosting travelers and (in the past, less recently) going to local meet-ups of the Seattle group. I've surfed 3 or 4 times, though - and it's very nice to be on the other side of the equation now and then.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've hosted 60+ surfers and I've always spent lots of my travel energy visiting familiar couches (friends or friends-of-friends) and shied away from the hotel experience (for lots of reasons). When I pay for lodging, I lean to the funky back streets joint (hostel, rented room in a home, etc.) where one can meet other people of interest. I love love love the idea that this lifestyle has been validated by CS.

Interests

The people I live with, both in Austin and Seattle, love conversation, shared good food, music/art/reading, outdoor activity of many kinds, planned and spontaneous social events in and out of the house, wandering the neighborhood cafes and haunts in the sunshine or the rain. We're a friendly bunch.

• arts
• beauty
• dining
• reading
• traveling
• music
• outdoor activities
• surfing

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: I Like MANY types of music, but I am partial to the singer/songwriter or alt rock live music scene, and in Ballard (where I live in Seattle) there are several great venues for hearing good music. In Austin it's hard to go wrong - so much great music to see everywhere! Best concert of my life (LONG life, many great concerts) was the Flaming Lips a few years ago!
Movies:In general I love movies that focus on character more than plot - of ANY type, but it seems as if foreign or US indie movies are stronger in that regard. But even a Hollywood blockbuster can please me when all the characters are real humans, not action figures. The Lives of Others, Once, You and Me and Everyone We Know, Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lawrence of Arabia, Across the Universe, Twelve Angry Men, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Down By Law, to name a few.
Books: lots of literary fiction (Cormac MacCarthy, Robert Stone, Jane Smiley, Michael Chabon), and lots of short fiction and essays, as in the New Yorker or Granta. (Sadly, I feel as if the lures of the internet have ruined my reading habit, but I'm hoping retirement will nurse it back to life.)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

In rural Honduras: Sending a horribly ill boy off into the night, surrounded by his family, guided only by weak flashlights and oil lamps, on a hand propelled flatbed rail car in hope of finding care at a real clinic in the next town 9k away. We were in the tiny roadless village where he lived and where I was visiting, and I had done all in my power to treat him from my small bag of medical tricks, but it wasn't nearly enough. Then seeing him return in the morning having found no more care in the town, but high fever broken, coming back to life. Understanding that sometimes all you can offer is yourself and whatever happens is what will happen. Very grateful not to have learned that lesson through a more dire outcome, though I know it was a flip of the coin.

Teach, Learn, Share

Hmm. I have plenty to learn, especially stories from travelers...and anyone who knows anything about construction, since I'm up to my neck in projects here and in Seattle. Share - well I'm a health care professional, so I can often give advice in that realm within reason (definitely sometimes useful when you're on the road).

Countries I’ve Visited

Cuba, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Martinique, Morocco, Nicaragua, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Honduras, Mexico, United States

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