CURRENT MISSION

Hear the stories, link them together, pass them along...

ABOUT ME

I'm 63, married for 40 years, two grown daughters. I'm an old time fiddler, an internet consultant, a contradancer (and contradance and square dance caller), an international autoharp champion, a writer, director of a Threshold Choir (a group of women who sing individually and in pairs at the bedsides of those who are very ill or dying), a free speech advocate, and one of those few who show up regularly at local council meetings to make sure the elected councillors don't do anything too obnoxious.

Some friends from the dance community got me interested in Couchsurfing. For years I'd been organizing my trips so that I could stay with friends, but loved the idea of being able to visit places where I didn't have anyone to visit and getting the kind of local insight that you just can't get staying in hotels. I love learning and speaking the languages too - language shapes the way people think, so it's much more interesting to be able to understand others' native languages than to force them to re-phrase in English.

Ask me anything else you want to know -- I'm out of ideas for this profile right now :-)

PHILOSOPHY

Still trying to figure it out. I seem to spend a lot of time just paying attention to what's going on around me.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We had been hosting pretty regularly and it's been great fun. Right now we're taking a break -- I've been working on two CD's in addition to all my other activities, and that doesn't make for easy hosting. I travel on my own from time to time, so I'll probably couch surf the next time I do that in a place where I don't have any particular friends to visit. But that will be after the pandemic is past :-(

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

For a while we were hosting about two per month, and have had a bunch of near-misses because we're not near any kind of public transportation. The hosting is a blast -- if you haven't tried it, you ought to :-)

Interests

Making music with others, international travel, contradancing, Second Life, crochet, sustainable landscape gardens, farmer's markets, cooking. Oh, ok, I've gotten to be a SERIOUS foodie getting so involved with growing and eating local :-)

• writing
• singing
• dancing
• cooking
• traveling
• crochet
• music
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Entirely eclectic tastes on the movies and books, ranging from science fiction and fantasy to documentary and biographical and back again. And pretty eclectic on the music too. I'll listen to anything at all performed really well and at an acoustic level that won't cause me to stop up my ears to prevent damage. Well, ok, I DO like the Rolling Stones and have been known to see them live so I guess that's not entirely accurate. But I prefer traditional acoustic music from anywhere and everywhere. Most of what I play myself is Celtic or American, but I've also been part of a Bulgarian women's choir and various Jewish and Israeli ensembles. During the COVID-19 pandemic I’ve been playing and performing over JamKazam with a friend in NYC and jamming occasionally with other friends as they figure out the tech and get connected.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Spent three weeks living in Tel Aviv and taking Hebrew class with a group of immigrants.

Teach, Learn, Share

Autoharp, voice, and old time Appalachian fiddle. And if you always wanted to sing and someone told you a long time ago to just move your mouth or that you couldn't be in the choir, I'd be happy to show you that you already ARE a good singer.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Veggies from my garden if I'm traveling in summer, stories of singing at bedsides of hospice patients, a jam session, a fiddle or voice or crochet or autoharp lesson (or just some tunes), ideas about cooking.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Cuba, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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