It's incredible; in just one generation our culture has gone from the one-relationship, one-career, one-life model, to multiple everythings. I think it's both exhausting and exhilarating, the challenge of constant reinvention. My latest version of myself brought me to the PNW from the East coast five years ago. "I found my people," I tell my friends. Took me a long time to get here. Before I drove cross-country to this land of open, smiling faces and casual dress, I spent a decade caregiving four people dying from cancer, including my husband, mother, and two friends. In that same time period, I also launched a writing career and learned about the world of publishing, got a masters degree, renovated and sold two homes, and did a training in a certain kind of counseling called "Family Systems Therapy." I use that knowledge today to help people who are in grief or who are stuck in their lives. Those experiences also inspired a deep interest in alternative healing and energy medicine that is an ongoing study.

Since I got here, I've fallen in love with photography and launched a greeting card business featuring dogs in cars. I've created a collection of nearly 100 images and one goal is to get them into healthcare settings, where people could use a reason to smile. If possible, I like anything that I create to serve the greater good.

Only recently I looked around and decided that it's been too long since I just had ordinary fun. I've barely explored this glorious state, let alone Seattle. I'm looking for warm companionship, stimulating conversations, some good laughs, someone who loves all kinds of music (I used to play the fiddle and sing in a 6-person women's acapella pop group), dancing (swing, salsa, tango), who can contribute creative inspiration, and, if it feels right, some romance. And if not romance, a close friendship with an interesting man who wants more out of life than the status quo would be perfect.

Someday, I'd like to spend more time abroad or in Mexico. My son lives in the Czech Republic, so I go there at least once a year. When I was 18, I bicycled through Italy for 4 months and then, at age 33, I bicycled around England off and on for a year. I once was part of a team that did the waterways of the Lewis and Clark trail by Hovercraft. Nature is a passion and I love adventure, although I'm not as strong as I used to be. Sometimes I can get a thrill just standing on the side of a highway, or waiting for a bus. If you know what I mean, perhaps you'll tell me what that's about for you.

I'm open and easy-going, a good listener, intuitive thinker, humorous, spontaneous and generally a happy person. At the same time, I have an introspective side, can be secretly shy, and in some ways, love solitude although I am not solitary. I enjoy a good discussion and love to learn from others. I have been known to break into song in public (in fact, I once visited a series of restaurants in my former Vermont town, offering to sing for my dinner--scored a donut). Want to harmonize?

Talk talk talk plus a hot decaf toddy (is there such a thing?) and preferably outdoors, or at least with a view. javascrapt:smilie('')