What is your best childhood memory?
I remember spending a lot of time in our tall pine windbreak. I would climb as high as I could – as a seven or eight year old – something like 5 or 6 stories high and just gaze at the landscape.
This is where I fell in love with the vastness of existence. I didn’t know it then, but this laid a foundation for an observant, mindful, and slower pace of life that I now seek and hope to share with others.
What are you most proud of?
Pride is a fickle thing for me. I’m not one to say I deserve anything – if I get something I’ve either earned it or I got lucky. The things I’m most proud of came as a result of a lot of luck and a lot of work. Creating and engaging with people through my business, Walking Space, is me at my proudest. But it goes deeper than pride, because I don’t care one way or another if I “make it” or if it’s successful. It’s more living in an intentional way and knowing that my direction is right.
What is your favorite music, or What is your all time favorite song, or What ‘one’ song do you think a person should listen to at least once?
This one is hard – I have so many. For those of us with a passion for the driftless I think listening to Dvorak’s American Quartet is a must as it was written while he spent the summer in Spillville, IA, in the Driftless area. It lull’s me when I’m tired, it excites me when I’m walking, it really embodies the sound of the region.
If you could travel anywhere, where would you go and why?
The next place I’d like to go is to Patagonia on the southern tip of South America. I think it’s vastness, untouched beauty, and hard-to-reach places sounds very enticing.
If you could only keep three possessions, what would they be?
My Russian nesting doll, my converted bus I built, and a 6X3 foot coloring poster that my family colored with me one Christmas.
What was one of your most defining moments in life?
The most defining, so far, has been walking the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. The 500-mile pilgrimage built a confidence and love of myself that I hadn’t felt since childhood. It was also the place where my business Walking Space was originally conceived.
How do you spend your free-time?
I go on long walks, I read, I play the ukulele, spend time with my family and friends and I write.
What are your favorite reads, (books, magazines, online stuff, cereal box) and why?
I was to give a book to everyone to read it would be Awareness by Anthony de Mello. He is a Christina Jesuit Priest from India whose mix of eastern and western religion gave me so much peace in times of turmoil. It still gives me new insights.
If you could witness any event of the past, present, or future, what would it be?
I would have liked to see some of the great marches from history – the salt march in India, the walk across the bridge in Selma, the march on Washington, the trail of tears. These walks defined generations and we still look to them as examples of great pride or tragedy and they remind us of our best and worst times.
What is a skill you’d like to learn and why?
I’m still working on becoming proficient at another language – Spanish to be precise. I know how valuable that skill can be as I lived in another country and to have that understanding of another language is so worth the time it takes to learn.
What does a perfect day look like to you?
Sunrise yoga, a 10-hour walk, supper around like-minded friends, and campfire under the stars.
If you were to tell a friend to come and visit the Driftless Area, and they ask “Why” … what would you tell them?
The intentional living that is found here is unlike any place in the US. People purposefully live their passions and dreams and share that with whomever they meet. The landscape has something for everyone. If you get bored here, you’re not looking hard enough – but being “bored” here is part of the wonder of the place.