CURRENT MISSION

To sleep only when I'm asleep - otherwise to be fully awake and alive; to celebrate human creativity and the earth's wild & fragile beauty; and to learn!

ABOUT ME

Writer, walker, camper, pretty good cook. Raised a daughter mostly on my own, love spending time with her. For a while when she was a teenager/young adult we shared our home with a number of other girls/young women who for one reason or another couldn't/wouldn't stay with their parents. That experience challenged me a lot and I learned a lot about myself doing it. Now I live in a small intentional community with six other adults. I work as a grantwriter for a non-profit (focusing on migrant farmworker health). I write very short stories, prose poems, and poems.

PHILOSOPHY

We were created to learn about and care for each other and the earth.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I spent September 2008 and part of September 2009 couchsurfing in the UK, and March 2012 in Israel. I look forward to hosting other surfers here in the USA. I hope to be traveling internationally again - sooner or later!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've had had a *very* positive experience as a surfer in the UK and Israel, and have stayed with relatives-of-friends in Mexico, and with friends-of-friends in San Francisco. And I've had co-workers from other parts of the country stay with me. I look forward to hosting surfers from around the world (or around the corner) -

Interests

Camping with others or alone near the Lake Michigan beach in the Manistee National Forest (in Michigan); river kayaking; books and films, live theater (Shakespeare geek), live music. Dearly love the fiction of Lukyanenko, George Mackay Brown, Susanna Clark, Ursula LeGuin, Michael Chabon, Marilynne Robinson and others. I grew up on the beaches of Lake Michigan and feel more at home there than anywhere else on earth, but for now I'm living on the other side of the state. Morning person. Better in small groups than crowds (I can make an exception for music festivals) and better one-on-one than in small groups. In other words, I'm a high-functioning shy person. Good sense of humor, though. Occasionally read hard science for fun. Really idiosyncratic taste in music.

• writing
• books
• poetry
• theater
• beauty
• music festivals
• festivals
• cooking
• movies
• traveling
• music
• live music
• outdoor activities
• kayaking
• camping
• science
• beaches
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Favorite books include: David Howarth's '1066'; Norman Maclean's 'A River Runs Through It'; Ursula LeGuin's 'The Left Hand of Darkness' and most of her other fiction; Susanna Clarke's 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell'; Tim O'Brien's 'The Things They Carried'; Jamaica Kincaid's 'A Small Place'; Sergei Lukyanenko's 'Night Watch'; Marilynne Robinson's 'Gilead', 'Home,' and 'Lila' (but especially 'Home') and George Mackay Brown's 'Greenvoe'. I've read a lot of Shakespeare and seen a lot of great performances on stage. Music: can't list. Same with movies, although I will say that Antonioni's 'Blow Up' was the first movie (I think I was 12!) that made me understand that movies could do things with storytelling that were beyond what I'd ever imagined.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Watching a black bear and her two cubs invade the campsite across from mine in the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan's Upper Peninsula amazed me. They went right into the firepit after the marshmallows that had been abandoned by my camp-neighbors. I may trade this answer out from time to time - I've been amazed a lot!

Teach, Learn, Share

I was a successful grantwriter. I have successfully mentored new grant writers.
I'd love to learn: more outdoor skills - ocean kayaking? & love being introduced to new music/writers/filmmakers/poets; & I want to introduce world travellers to the Lake Michigan beaches and dunes, and to Detroit.

Countries I’ve Visited

Israel, Mexico, Palestine, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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