CURRENT MISSION

minimalize

ABOUT ME

I am a strong believer that my daily life is my life, so the best way to describe who I am is to describe what I do every day.I like spending time in the sun, sitting outside with friends, having a picnic (or a dinner party), or walking around in natural spaces. I like to laugh, and I like people who do the same and who aren't afraid to be a little bit absurd. I am a big fan of taking trains, especially long-distance. I do some of my best thinking during silence in movement. Other times (often in winter) I'm constantly reading, visiting bookstores and libraries to read whatever interests me. I take my reading to cafes mostly, where I usually order a chai tea latte or a green tea. My preferred mode of transportation is bicycle, and when I travel I like to make long-distance cycling trips witnessing changes in landscapes. In my free time I like to relax with friends, watch films, go to art exhibitions, attend theater productions, and take yoga and dance lessons regularly. I like to meet friends to go on long walks, explore abandoned buildings, or go on a random adventure. At the moment I am taking weekend trips to cities throughout Europe because I love to meet new people, discover new landscapes, and photograph architecture and people.

Sometimes I like to make some structural change, sometimes I prefer the intimacy of giving back to small communities. I love life in urban centers and natural spaces (sorry, I can't stand the suburbs).My rule of thumb (for now): more humor, more creativity, more fun; less seriousness.I want to do many things in life. Work on a farm, start a school (or maybe even a company), teach abroad, open my own coffee shop, offer yoga classes, become an amateur dancer, write a book, hike several mountain ranges, and create my own studio. I spend lots of time thinking about what it means to work, and what work gives me meaning. Living in several different places and meeting a number of strangers-turned-friends during my travels, I've learned the wonderful ability to talk to anyone about just anything. I've been told I'm a great communicator, and I make friends very easily. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps trust more easily than not. I've been told I have an incredible ability to empathize. Forgive me if I ask you too many questions when I first meet you -- I'm just curious and I love to learn from people.

PHILOSOPHY

Moving away from dichotomies of subject-object, fact-value, body-mind. Approaching holisms.

"Begin anywhere." John Cage

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." Robert A. Heinlein

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." Walt Whitman

"If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not 'studying a profession,' for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've surfed in England, Holland, and Germany, and looking to host very soon!

Interests

minimalism, reading, being with people, bicycling, tea, yoga, meditation, veganism, art, architecture, film, used bookstores, black and white, dancing, organic farming, sustainability, cityscapes, traveling, vegan/vegetarian cooking, photography, writing short stories, irony and satire, playing hostess, dinner parties, performance, music and gigs, theater, running on fresh grass, picnics, ice skating, swimming, climbing trees, tinkering with the piano, costumes, theater, whistles, spirituality, ayurvedic medicine, candlelight, bright tapestries, smell scapes, hot rice milk, balconies, long-distance treks, being in nature, fall leaves, long walks, early mornings, playgrounds and swingsets, surprises from the radio, drawing and painting, planting trees, living with less things, slow food, gardens, ecovillages, bizarre juxtapositions, empathy and authenticity, evening wind, creativity, serendipity, white wine, arts & crafts, intuition, virtue, artistic inventions, entrepreneurship of all sorts, finding creative uses for old things.

• arts
• writing
• books
• theater
• performing arts
• architecture
• design
• photography
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• wine
• white wine
• coffee
• picnic
• vegetarian
• vegan
• yoga
• running
• meditation
• walking
• partying
• crafts
• shopping
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• painting
• drawing
• minimalism
• music
• piano
• cycling
• hiking
• rock climbing
• swimming
• medicine

Music, Movies, and Books

apparat, moderat, pantha du prince, cut copy, booka shade, trentemøller, chromatics, lcd soundsystem, m83, the xx, miike snow, beirut, broken social scene, the naked and famous, interpol, handsome furs, parov stelar, julian plenti, tegan and sara, the temper trap, the national, sigur ros, metric, halou, bloc party, vitalic, deerhunter, arcade fire, the cure, dirty projectors, pinback, secret cities, mogwai, blonde redhead, florence + the machine, hanne hukkelberg, casiokids, four tet, marconi union, caribou, crystal castles

night on earth, mulholland drive, lost highway, requiem for a dream, little miss sunshine, into the wild, lost in translation, garden state, fight club, boys don't cry, the hours, girl interrupted, eternal sunshine, before sunrise, before sunset, monty python, manhattan, spirited away.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I backpacked across Spain for a month walking the Camino de Santiago, watching the sunrise and sunset for thirty days. The Camino was a continuous conversation with people and nature. Pilgrims walk, sometimes meet, sometimes leave, we share our lives in the moment while fully aware of the transience.

Teach, Learn, Share

Dancing (all kinds, although mostly contemporary), creative writing, yoga (would love to share my practice with someone), improvisation.

I've played the piano since age 8, so I could teach you how to play or how to read music.

I can't say I'm an expert at photography, but I like working with both analogue and digital. I would like to think I've been getting better over the years...

Would love to learn how to draw, sketch, paint if you know how to.

Countries I’ve Visited

China, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, United Kingdom, United States

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