Living in the heart of Le Plateau in Montreal, my favorite city in the world. My roommates and I are building a creative, artistic community in our apartment, hosting events and workshops right in our living room!

As for me, I spent several years a reckless pursuit of beauty and connection around the world before settling here. I left New York to wander through a bit of the US before beginning my sultry love affair with South America. Went to Argentina for four months, then fell in love with Medellín, Colombia and went fucking crazy in Berlin and Montreal (where I first fell in love with the city).

I meant to move to Montreal, but the pandemic stopped me. So instead I went to Ukraine for a zen retreat and ended up living there for two years until the war started and I escaped. We can talk about that part later, it's very heavy.

Feel free to follow me on Instagram: @backpackjesus

One of the driving forces in my travel is deep learning of skills. I went to Austin to immerse myself in blues guitar so I could develop my playing. I went to Buenos Aires so I could deeply focus on Tango. I've also spent five months in India learning sitar.

Right now I'm focused on contact improv, blues dancing, shibari, and playing music with friends.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I would love to host creative people who can contribute inspiration for the creative space we're building with our apartment. Whether that's just through stories, ideas and energy, or if you're actually down to make art to leave behind, all positive vibes are welcome and good to learn from.

Whereas the news would have you believe the world is scary place of monsters and mayhem, the people I meet inspire me to believe the world is a warm, squishy hug for those who hug it back.

Interests

American folk and blues, sitar, Ecstatic Dance and dacing in general. I meditate for about 30 minute to and hour every morning and want to help spread meditation to the world.

• burningman
• dancing
• indian food
• meditation
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• blues
• slackline
• ecstatic dance
• contact improv

Music, Movies, and Books

Of Montreal | Shaky Graves | Emily Wolfe | Gary Clark Jr | Dave Van Ronk |Joanna Newsom | Radical Face | Neutral Milk Hotel | Animal Collective | Nana Grizol | The Beatles

Haruki Murakami is really important to me. Perks of Being a Wallflower has been pretty influential for me as well. I really like the (spoken word) poetry of this guy I met in New York named Jared Singer. Also "Crickets Have Arthritis" by Shane Koyczan is breathtaking.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

My life changed on my last day of work at the worst job I've ever had. One last day of flipping burgers at a shitty fast food restaurant. When I got on the subway, I saw a bunch of hippies (there's a picture in my photos).

Long story short, they convinced me to skip out on my last day of work to go to a Grateful Dead concert with them. After texting my boss that I wasn't going to come in, I threw my work uniform into a bush and followed them.

After getting a miracle ticket, they gave me acid and the show started. I literally learned how to dance at that show. Ask me about it and I'll explain in person. But dancing is now one of my biggest passions and number one source of joy in life.

A couple months later, one of the hippies scored free tickets to String Cheese Incident and gave me one. We went, had a great time, took more acid, and danced barefoot in the aisles of the theater. That experience was fodder for an opening line I used on a girl I matched with on Tinder. Get this-- she was at that same concert!

We dated for a little over a year, which was my first long term relationship. In April that year, she and I went to a Bassnectar concert, where by some twist of fate, we ran into the hippie crew from The Grateful Dead concert. It turned out she already knew those hippies because they had been close friends since long before we met.

Universe works in mysterious ways...

What I Can Share with Hosts

I play guitar, write songs, and love playing house concerts. I give damn good back rubs and can cook solid Indian food.

I also meditate every damn day and am happy to take you through some mindfulness exercises and meditate with you.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Argentina, Belgium, Colombia, India, United States