CURRENT MISSION

To design places that support human connection - with each other and with the world around us. Traveling to help myself comprehend those places and those connections!

ABOUT ME

I'm always up for an adventure, and a natural leader, but I love it when my friends (or new friends) take the wheel and suggest an exciting itinerary. I'm engaging and like to be a great guest - I hope to feel a little bit of what it means to live in every place I visit, even if it's just what it means to do dishes or wake up to the sounds in the courtyard. I'm a great pick-up for your ultimate team, companion for your beer or wine tasting excursion, or partner for plein air drawing.

I work to cultivate gratitude and an appreciation for the beauty of the everyday.

PHILOSOPHY

Act with a warm heart
Create peace
Cultivate deep relationships
Get shit done
Give thanks and recognize everyday amazingness
Laugh and Sing as much as possible
Learn constantly
Live simply
Return to mindfulness (perspective, gratitude, time in responses)
Seek challenges
Value creativity

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Though I've slept on many couches and floors, I've never used Couchsurfing to do so until now. However, I love staying in people's homes and experiencing a little bit of their lives. I've slept in haylofts and off-season cabins, on front porches and in back yards, and I always love the feeling of waking up in a new place.

Interests

I love to read, sew, play ultimate frisbee, and cook and eat delicious food. I love to go on hikes that others have planned, especially to see fantastic plants, mosses, and animal bones along the way. I live to go dancing, but I'm not the best at partner dancing, so you'll have to excuse me if I trip on a spin. I'm fascinated by architecture and the way that spaces communicate to us - I'm looking for places that are uplifting and that infuse their inhabitants lives with beauty.

• animals
• singing
• architecture
• design
• beauty
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• wine
• beer
• wine tasting
• flying
• traveling
• drawing
• hiking
• snowboarding

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: The Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson, Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami, Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware, Atmospheres by Peter Zumthor, and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace.

Magazines: Harper's, The Atlantic

Movies: Amelie, The Straight Story, Babe, Afterlife, Dancer in the Dark, Triplets of Belleville

TV: Wallander, Sherlock, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Dexter, Luther, The Fall, and most other crime dramas

Music: I love going to Pickathon. Bonnie Prince Billy, Jens Lekman, Johanna Newsom, Grizzly Bear, Beirut, Vampire Weekend, M83, MGMT, Beck, Radiohead, Paul Simon (and Garfunkel), Gillian Welch, Belle and Sebastian, Jose Gonzales, Marissa Nadler, Alela Diane, Frank Ocean, Stevie Wonder, Vieux Farka Toure, Toumani Diabate, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Sam Cooke. I love finding new music, and I love a lot of musicians not on this list.

Food: Lamb/Duck/Rabbit, Dark green veggies, berries, cheese. I have a goal in life to learn my ABCs - to taste as many types of apples, beer, and cheese as possible.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I loved watching the surfers in the Lofoten Islands braving the water above the Arctic Circle, while I played on the shore that was made of thousands of colorful shell shards.

Sitting in the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Turku, Finland (Pekka Pitanen), I felt the depth of sorrow and grieving embraced by the space.

Then, there's that moment when you're snowboarding or laying out for a frisbee where you let go of the earth for just a moment, and you fly, just a little bit, in full harmony with gravity. That gets me every time.

Countries I’ve Visited

Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Finland, United Kingdom, United States