CURRENT MISSION

To seek happiness and hopefully even find it.

ABOUT ME

Talkative introvert, listener, reader, gazer, continually re-enchanted by the beauty in nature and the arts.

PHILOSOPHY

The time to live is little, but that little is sweet.
(Euripides)

Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence. Being, then, is the dazzle each of us makes as we thread the dance of those three rhythms of our lives.
(George Santayana)

It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.
(David St. Hubbins)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I am so happy someone not only conceived of the idea of a personal hospitality network for travelers, but made it tangible and operational too. Travel blesses not only individuals but the world as a whole and it should be manageable for everyone.

The people I've met who participate in CS are adventurous yet optimistic and trusting souls, and that combination is something I admire deeply.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've surfed in Nashville TN, Philadelphia PA, and Louisville KY thus far. All wonderful experiences. Looking forward to more of the same, and to hosting someday too, when circumstances permit.

Interests

I'm fascinated by the ancient world, and also the mid-to-late Victorian & Edwardian era (poetry, literature, art, architecture). My loves are my family and friends and cats, trivia, board games, movies, mythology & folklore, ghost stories, missing persons, mountains, forests, quiet beaches, back roads & scenic routes, savoring the changing seasons, sharing good conversation, good food, good drink, the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun.

I have so many travel fantasy destinations I can't list them all, and with my life as it currently is, most of them won't be feasible. I'm especially fascinated lately with the idea of traveling to Puerto Rico, in particular the art museum in Ponce (a Pre-Raphaelite pilgrimage) and the "Spanish Virgin" islands of Culebra and Vieques. I love that feral horses roam Vieques, and the fact that a former military training area is now a nature preserve.

• cats
• horses
• arts
• literature
• poetry
• folklore
• architecture
• beauty
• perfumes
• dancing
• dining
• drinking
• trivia
• movies
• board games
• traveling
• swimming
• beaches
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Favorite films:
Picnic at Hanging Rock, Fanny och Alexander, Mulholland Drive, Caché, Jacob's Ladder, Valerie a týden divů, West Side Story, The Wicker Man, Inglourious Basterds, The Innocents, Spoorloos, Walkabout, The Others, Inland Empire, El Orfanato, Kynodontas, The Trip, Lost Highway, The Last of the Mohicans, The Big Lebowski, Fight Club, Donnie Darko, Lake Mungo, Bull Durham, The Secret Garden, Cabaret, This Is Spın̈al Tap, Star Wars, sex lies and videotape, Kukushka, Master & Commander, Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

TV shows [via DVD]: Orphan Black, Sherlock, Arrested Development, Flight of the Conchords, Firefly, Rome, Battlestar Galactica, Drunk History, Key & Peele (tho)

Music: Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Steeleye Span, The Who, Duran Duran, Donovan, Yes, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens, Leo Kottke, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, The Guess Who, Abba, Dead Can Dance, Portishead, Owain Phyfe, baroque composers, symphonic Gershwin, and countless random delights from the British Invasion onwards (but esp. 1965-1985).

Authors: Mary Renault, Edith Wharton, Shirley Jackson, Robert Aickman, Walter de la Mare, Dickens, Hardy, Lawrence, Forster, Twain, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Maugham, Nabokov, Ian McEwan, Gillian Flynn, Tana French. Poets: Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Swinburne, Fiona MacLeod, Lawrence, H.D., Robinson Jeffers, Dylan Thomas, the Spoon River anthology.

Here is a list of my favorite books: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/171400-tess-avelland?format=html&shelf=favorites

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

30 Years Ago
-Rode the Polar Express train in Ontario northward from the town where the roads end, and saw a tiny settlement of Cree Indians. I got smiled at by a real live papoose happily strapped to her cradleboard, propped against a table near her mother. My fourteen year old self was beside herself.

20 Years Ago
-On my first night in Greece, having arrived in Athens after dark, my friend and I took a walk, leaving the sidewalk to clamber up a slope of the Acropolis (illegally no doubt), not knowing what we'd see at the top — then we gazed down speechless into the Odeon of Herodes Atticus.

15 Years Ago
-I played the goddess Persephone in an autumnal ritual, a journey to the underworld in a torch-lit forest by night.

6 Years Ago
-I got diagnosed a rare appendiceal cancer and underwent two major surgeries with 6 organs removed. What's amazing about that? Well, I survived.

1 Year Ago
-While on Edisto Island, I saw a school of dolphins swim by, leaping and playing. I laughed and cried, and went down the beach following them until they were gone.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I want to hear about your life and travels. If you want to hear about mine, that's cool too. I might be able to make you laugh. I love to try.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Canada, Germany, Greece, United States, Virgin Islands, U.S.

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States