CURRENT MISSION

"I came to your shore as a stranger, I lived in your house as a guest, I leave your door as a friend..." Tagore

ABOUT ME

"My house says to me, 'œDo not leave me, for here dwells your past.' And the road says to me, '€œCome and follow me, for I am your future.' And I say to both my house and the road, 'I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death will change all things."
Kahlil Gibran
I walk slowly, a casual stroll, enjoying everything, like a big kid. I am unapologetically a hopeless romantic. Many times, my friends have rolled their eyes at this laughingly, but I'm also a pragmatic optimist. People are people, and I am romantic, not naive. But, you should never lose your sense of wonder! When I get excited, I talk fast, and to those I'm most comfortable with, I tend to speak and think in wild tangents that are challenging to follow. I'm always smiling. I make up silly stories and try to make friends out of everyone. Lifelong, preferably.

I have a huge, pathetically romantic dreamer's heart and an old soul. I enjoy the moments when you find a connection with someone and chat for hours, about all kinds of silly things, yet it only seems like a short time. I follow my intuition about things and people, but also try to ignore it occasionally, lol. Things happen for a reason, and I delight in discovering the simple ways one thing changes another. The coincidences I experience through Couchsurfing alone are too numerous to remember! I'm definitely a free spirit and absolutely eclectic.I suppose you'll just have to learn the rest of me.
I'm curious about everything, really! Talk to me about the most inconsequential thing, and I'll love it. I love silly trivia, little fun things to know.
I loooove music and if I had the courage, my dream would be to sing for a living.
I'd love to retire at the end of my life as someone much like Maya Angelou, or Da Vinci...a true renaissance (wo)man, having lived many lives in my one. If you think about it, there truly are SOO many years to live in this life, it is a tragic waste to define yourself by one title. You can invent yourself a million times over, making you all that much more fascinating in the twilight years of your life, rocking on the front porch regaling about your years as a belly dancer, or singer, a writer, or food critic. All things I love....
"Should you sit upon a cloud you would not see the boundary line btween one country and another, nor the boundary stone between a farm and a farm. it is a pity you cannot sit upon a cloud." Khalil Gibran

PHILOSOPHY

Success
To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves “Who am I to be gorgeous, brilliant talented fabulous?”
Actually who are you not to be?
You are a child of the universe
your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people wont feel insecure around you.
We are born to manifest the glory that is within us.
It is not just in some of us , but in all of us
and as we let our own light shine
We unconsciously give others permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear
our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela
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Finish each day and be done with it. You did what you could; begin the next too high-spirited to be encumbered with old nonsense.
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"Too much work, and no vacation, deserves at least a small libation. So hail! my friends, and raise your glasses; work's the curse of the drinking classes." Oscar Wilde
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The greatest support we can have is mindfulness, which means being totally present in each moment. If the mind remains centered, it cannot make up stories about the injustice of the world or one's friends, or about one's desires or sorrows. All these stories could fill many volumes, but when we are mindful such verbalizations stop. Being mindful means being fully absorbed in the moment, leaving no room for anything else. We are filled with the momentary happening, whatever it is--standing or sitting or lying down, feeling pleasure or pain--and we maintain a nonjudgmental awareness, a "just knowing."

-Ayya Khema, "Be an Island"

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Ambassador, hostess with the mostest, potlucks, tons of events and parties, dinners, airport taxi, etc...I regularly make sure we Houstonians meet, and when I have surfers, I try to make sure they meet others in the city.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've hosted oodles of people now, and meeting each and every one of them inspired me to travel. My first trip was a 6 month backpacking tour, and I would pick places often by choosing to visit former surfers. Couchsurfing opens the world to you! I've since become a junkie.

Interests

'Il bel far niente'

I would love to witness and be a part of dance in every part of the world, at a restaurant, or family gathering, wedding or something where everyone breaks out into traditional dance and has a grand ol' time.
Just like in the Bollywood movies. Lol

Singing with my dad or at karaoke,
Music, Animals, Cooking, Reading, Writing, Bellydance, Gardening, Latin dance, new food, recipes, & restaurants, Taking my dog to Brazos Bend state park and watching her reaction to the alligators, Exploring things, Calligraphy, the smell of old book stores and fresh cut grass, cafes and 'tennis', or just some place with chairs and hanging out with friends, Chatting, soaking up the sun, people watching,Poetry,Opera,Plays,Quoting movies and song lyrics and having some get it,Breaking into song at will...

"Recipe for greatness — To bear up under loss, to fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief, to be victor over anger, to smile when tears are close, to resist evil men and base instincts, to hate hate and to love love, to go on when it would seem good to die, to seek ever after the glory and the dream, to look up with unquenchable faith in something evermore about to be, that is what any man can do, and so be great."Zane Grey

• animals
• dogs
• writing
• books
• poetry
• singing
• performing arts
• beauty
• make up
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• recipes
• walking
• partying
• drinking
• flying
• gardening
• trivia
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• music
• karaoke
• opera
• backpacking
• tennis
• calligraphy

Music, Movies, and Books

Fave Movies: League of Their Own, Snatch, Fight Club,Phantom of the Opera, Before Sunrise, The Babe, The old musicals like South Pacific and State Fair, Because I Said So, Sound of Music, Ferris Bueller, Princess Bride, Grease, Moulin Rouge, Goonies, Benny and Joon, Harry Potter, Gladiator, Inglorious Bastards, Chronicles of Narnia, Rang De Basanti, Chocolat, Dil Se, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanaam, Dilwaani Dulhania Le Jayenge, Devdas....the list goes on

Books: Fountainhead, Shantaram, Les Miserables, Eat Pray Love, The Alchemist, Italy: The Passionate Traveller's Guide, The Zahir, The Bridge Across Forever, The Groom to Have Been, Any Rumi, Neruda, Tagore, Sartre, Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Crichton, Chronicles of Narnia, Dean Koontz, Cookbooks, Dummies Books: Opera, Gardening, Business, Italian...Three Cups of Tea, the list goes on.
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"I remember the first albatross I ever saw. ... At intervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king's ghost in super natural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets not below the heavens. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself..." --(Herman Melville, Moby Dick)

Music: Wow, this space is just not big enough...
Sarah McLachlan, Regina Spektor, Dido, Jewel, Alannah Myles, Phantom of the Opera, Sarah Bareilles, Beirut, Magnetic Fields, Hania Lee, Titzio Ferrano, Energipsy, Il Divo, Capricho Arabe by Francisco Tarrega, Angel Barrios, Kari Rueslåtten, Engenheiros do Hawaii, The Three Tenors, Andrea Bocelli, Andrew Lloyd Webber, A.R. Rahman, Across the Universe soundtrack, Toby Lightman, Weird Al Yankovic, AC/DC, Guns n Roses, Bon Jovi, Amy Winehouse, Andrea Bocelli, Aretha Franklin, Augustana, Bach, Benassi Brothers, Pit Bull, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Liz Wright, Breaking Benjamin, The Carpenters, Charlotte Church, Collective Soul, Otis Redding, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Storyville, Double Trouble, Janis Joplin, Ian Moore, Malford Milligan...you know, good stuff.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Walking through an entire network of pathways built in the treetops of a rainforest...then relaxing after an energetic snowball fight in a mountaintop restaurant, dining while overlooking sleeping grizzly bears.
All in the same day!

Seeing the traffic in New Delhi as President Obama arrived.

Making it out of Athens the day of the beginning huge protest with tear gas and destruction.

Walking through Tahrir Square in a revolutionary Cairo, and singing in Cairo Opera House.

The connections that happen only through something like CS. Finding a friend from Texas randomly while roaming through India. Flying into the same terminal as a CS friend on the same day, on separate flights and from two separate countries. Flying out from that trip and having a friend from another country riding on the same flight back 'home'.

The moment when a new surfer walks in the door and you sit down and talk...getting deep into who they are within just an hour or few short minutes.

Sitting on stage with my uncle's band and watching B.B. King perform.

Riding an A.T.V. through the Costa Rican rainforest.

Stepping down by the side of the road into a natural hot spring in Costa Rica

Singing in Le Cafe Monmartre in Paris, the passersby stopping to listen, the crowd encouraging me when I got shy.

Driving through the Himalayas and Ghats.

visited 15 states (42.8%)Create your own visited map of India

Teach, Learn, Share

Pienso que no podemos andar alrededor midiendo nuestra bondad por lo que no hacemos. Por lo que nos negamos, lo que resistimos, y que excluimos. Pienso que tenemos que medir la bondad por lo que nosotros *abraza*, lo que creamos... y que incluimos.

English - I think that we can't go around... measuring our goodness by what we don't do. By what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think... we've got to measure goodness by what we *embrace*, what we create... and who we include.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Costa Rica, Croatia, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Malta, Morocco, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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