Isabel

Having lived all my life in the Northeast (except for one year in San Francisco), Tucson is a new world for me. I was born in New York, attended Cornell University, and raised my children in the mid-Hudson Valley. I've lived for the past twenty-plus years in the Boston area. The Southwest has been calling me since I drove across New Mexico and Arizona with my veterinarian husband before my first child was born. I returned to Arizona briefly this fall and fell in love with Tucson and with the vision of Stone Curves.

I like painting, adventures, exploring, swimming, theater, dance, reading and discussing (history, arts and ideas, politics, food and cooking). Innovation and creativity fascinate and rejuvenate me.

I design and develop online learning programs for a living and would like to work with local university distance learning programs and enrichment courses for younger scholars. I was once an art teacher, so I look forward to working with the Stone Curves kids on art projects.

Right now, I'm living what I hope is my last New England winter. Although I have two grown children (living in New York and Connecticut, respectively), I have no grandchildren, so I hope to be an extra grandmother to the kids at Stone Curves. I'm looking forward to swimming in the Stone Curves pool, painting the desert, learning to cook for large groups of people(!?!), and listening to lots of mariachi music.

My household includes a handsome polydactyl black cat named Nikki, who sees auras.

       Carl Manz and 

    Christine Johnson

We moved to Tucson from Bastrop, Texas in the summer of 2004.  Prior to
our move, we owned and managed residential rental property. 
Anticipating the economic changes attendant on "peak oil," we moved
here in order to participate in the development of Stone Curves.  Our
hope is that Stone Curves will one day become an exemplary part of the
larger collection of built sustainable communities.

Carl is working towards getting a good number of people onto electric
power assisted bikes.  He designs a custom bike that will get a person,
depending on their needs, up and down a mountain with ease or across
town and back without exhausting their own personal energy reserves.

Christine works in community association management, assisting
homeowner associations in their governance responsibilities and
financial and facilities management.

             Chris

Diversity is the spice of life. My path for the earlier part of this life was of a physical nature and I enrolled in the graduate school of planet earth. Biking and climbing around the world has taught me the value of a good pair of shoes, strong lungs, and the ability to really appreciate ramen noodles. I am an extreme liberal and think that GW Bush and decaf coffee are the antichrists. The demise of western civilization began with light beer which has led to Barbie dolls and Hummers.

My 6 year old daughter Sequoia is my greatest teacher and her constant living in the moment is a reminder that it is the journey and not the destination that holds the greatest value. The other member of the family is our dog, Socrates, who reminds us that an unexamined life is not worth living.

Currently I am pursuing a Masters in Counseling Psychology and am enjoying getting my mind stretched as I attempt to learn from the archtypes of my dreamscape. The working world is made up of guiding rock climbs, working as a facilitator for Miraval, program development for the Youth Corps of Southern Arizona, and an internship with a local substance abuse clinic. In my free time I am Dad and I sleep.

Stone Curves is about meeting people who revel in their eclectivity, embrace diversity, and are on a path that is dictated by heart and not by the media.

      Tom and Janette

Tom was born in Budapest, Hungary, at the end of September in 1941. His first experience of community living came in 1944 when he huddled in an air raid shelter, carved into the side of a cliff, and heard distant explosions of aerial bombardment.

With his mother, he left his native Hungary in 1957 and came to the United States -- Oberlin, Ohio -- in 1958. After getting a little learning in that town's college and at the Journalism School of Columbia University, he became a newspaper copy editor and reporter in the Boston area. In a couple of years, literary interests drew him from Boston to the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Tom spent the bulk of his working years as a professor of English and Journalism at Loop (later Harold Washington) College in downtown Chicago. After he and Janette retired, they moved to Tucson in the spring of 2000. Currently, Tom's main interests are philosophy, literature, cooking and hanging out with congenial people. He'd like to learn more about gardening in southern Arizona.

Having long believed that the quality of one's life is largely determined by the quality of the people around one, Tom finds himself contended living at Stone Curves.

Janette lived in Chicago and worked in educational publishing until four years ago. She and Tom had visited her son David and his family in Tucson several times before deciding to move here. Once here, she decided that she preferred hiking, volunteering at Sabino Canyon, attending SAGE classes, and babysitting for her grandchildren (now numbering five since her daughter Marianne and her family moved to Tucson in 2003) to working as a freelance editor. She continues, however, to think of herself as a writer and educator and hopes to remain useful as such for the rest of her life.

She loves to travel and has just visited Guetamala recently.

 Hannah, Matt, and Dahlia

        Monika

Monika is an open minded graduate student in sociology.  She has worked in a variety of volunteer and paid positions including director of a crisis line, phlebotomist, EMT, reiki master, Chinese-speaking missionary, ACT teacher, secretary, research assistant to an author, file clerk, hospice volunteer, substitute teacher, piano instructor, actress, minister, writer, investor, ocial researcher, nursing assistant and foster kitty care provider.  It has been said that she has a "hyperactive initiative drive."  She also enjoys community and is looking forward to developing relationships at Stone Curves.  She will be living with an eclectic collection of cats and roommates.

  Cynthia and Martin

      Martin grew up in the big city of Detroit, MI, but developed an appreciation of rural life and nature at his grandparents' farm. He learned about community organizing in the Civil Rights era and the anti-war movements of the last 30 years.

     Martin has been drawing and painting since grade school. He took a minor in Fine Arts at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI along with a BA in Philosophy.

     Martin traveled around North America and Europe in the 70's, writing songs and playing guitar and banjo in bars and cafes. He worked in food co-ops, and was president of the Russell Gulch Co-operative marketing Association researching alternatives in energy use. He lived in several intentional communities, including an ashram where he learned yoga.

     Martin received a graduate degree in Social Work from the University of Washington in 1991. He moved to the Silver City area in 1993 as a Social Worker at Gila Regional Medical Center. He is now a Crisis Counselor at SAMHC Crisis Center in Tucson.

     Martin believes that when we work together we become stronger and smarter and better able to handle our changing world. He looks forward to meeting everyone and being a member of the Stone Curves community.    

     Cynthia Ann grew up in a small farming community, population 6,000, in southeastern Wisconsin. She likes the familiarity of a small town environment but loves the culture and opportunity a bigger city has to offer.

     Cynthia Ann has lived in the southwest for 24 years and was guided to Tucson 1  1/2 years ago with her husband Martin by her side. She is a real newcomer to the concept of cohousing, however, from the moment she took the initial Stone Curves tourshe knew that Stone Curves was a place she could call home. She treasures the idea of living in a conscious community where there is respect for the environment and each other, where diversity is encouraged and the support offered that allows each other to work their process. She looks forward to great times in the common house, learning more about permaculture and quiet times on their porch and balconies.

     Cynthia is a scholarship counselor at the University of Arizona. In addition she has facilitated consious energy breathing, is aReiki Master, does ear coning, and facilitates fire ceremonies for purification.

             Kathy                                                                                           

It was love at first sight when I first arrived in Tucson in December of 1968. Being from Buffalo, NY, I was dazzled by the warm, sunny turquoise blue skies and the exquisite beauty of the desert. Tucson's charm captured my heart and I felt that I was home.

I felt the same sense of 'coming home' when I moved into the Stone Curves Community. Living here has felt like 'being a member of a large family' of interesting people sharing common objectives. It is definitely a wonderful opportunity for growth, as we learn to live in community. I look forward to the richness of possibilities and potential of life together over the years.

As a quick background, vocationally, my life has followed two pursuits. art and science. I am currently a Senior Research Specialist in the Neural Systems, Memory and Aging division of Arizona Research Labs at the University of Arizona.

My greatest love is ever expanding my consciousness and deepening my understanding by exposing myself to new ideas and experiences. I enjoy just being. I enjoy being with people, and being in nature, and activities like reading, hiking, rockscaping, and the arts.

Joe and Linda

        Laurel

I'm a gardener, a sea kayaker, a mother of two grown children, a teacher, a member of a large and close-knit family, a traveler, a dancer, a singer, and a maker of good soups.

I worked for many years at the University of Arizona , teaching English as a Second Language and also a couple of graduate courses for people in the Master's program in ESL. I've also written a few books that have been well received by teachers.

In 2001 I had to quit daily teaching because of a repetitive strain injury. I miss the regular contact with students, but I love the flexibility I have in my days now. I'm writing a textbook for new immigrants, and I lead workshops for teachers, here in

Tucson , in other states, and sometimes overseas. In the workshops I share practical activities that help students learn more while making teachers' lives easier. I also lead workshops on stress reduction. I love the creative exchanges of ideas that happen in these workshops!

I'm looking forward to more creativity in my life, to the next adventure - whatever it may be - and to getting to know more Stone Curvers.  

Vicky Bradley

I've enjoyed raising my two, now adult children, Veronica and Charles, in my "adopted" city of Tucson. We have always enjoyed the outdoor life of Arizona and neighboring states, camping, and exploring the backroads. I also love to play tennis, and taking the younger StoneCurvers on Junior Hikes. I'm blessed to have work that I love in a variety of clinical settings and a private practice (yes, please refer!), and enjoy relaxing when I come home to our StoneCurves community. One day I hope to spend more time painting and playing music, and traveling to some, as yet unknown, corners of the world. Vicky.

Rob

Rob, a member of the Stone Curves community since January '05, is 48 years old and challenged by Asperger's Syndrome, schizophrenia and epilepsy. His interests are mainly involved with rock music from the 60's (the Beatle Invasion) and the space program. Rob has worked for the past 15 years in various industries and is presently working at a docent at the Pima County Air and Space Museum. He shares his home with his 14 yr. old kitty, General. Rob's sister, Ann, lives in Tucson and her 6 grown children are very close to Rob and are interested in learning more about the philosophy of cohousing. Rob's mother, Lu, spends the winters here in Tucson and is also delighted with the concepts of neighborhood that have established Stone Curves. Rob very much enjoys the Tucson sunshine and doesn't miss walking in the cold and snow of his former home in Ohio.

                   Tyler, Everest and Tanya                  

Tyler, although a self-professed introvert given to long reveries when he thinks he sees a wild mushroom, can sometimes be fun if you get between one and one-and-a-quarter glasses of wine in him.  He rarely has occasion to get in as much trouble as he used to, so at the age of thirty, he feels it is time to be getting back in touch with his Inner Teenager. 
FUN FACT:  Tyler just got a landscape architecture degree from UC Davis, and is moving to Tucson for, of all things, a job.  It all sounds so normal that it must be a dream!

Everest, for his part, claims to be either 1) an AX gas from outer space with glowing red eyes, an allergy to oil, and a 40-billion-year past, or 2) Mosquito Man, undercover as a third grader. 
FUN FACT:  If you were to spread Everest's legos out one layer deep, they would cover the state of Rhode Island.

Tanya has the good fortune of being outwardly indistinguishable from a regular person, and can appear in public without arousing any suspicion. One of her favorite activities is writing "to do" lists after she's already done most of the things on the list. She also likes mountains, Nabokov, expensive restaurants, Magic (the card game), interesting people, and the word "cristae" - not necessarily in that order.  
FUN FACT:  She has always wanted a pet marmot.

        Ania

Ania’s name reflects her Polish ancestry. She currently lives north of Tucson in the other Valley of the Sun, Phoenix. Ania came to investigate cohousing in Tucson thinking there must be people in the Phoenix area interested in this concept. However, no cohousing group has yet formed in Phoenix. At this point in her life, she doesn't want to wait five to ten years to live in a community based on cooperation such as Stone Curves, so she shifted her thinking to, "Go where the cohousing community is building, become part of the process, and a job will follow." Ania is currently a teacher at a secondary charter school in Phoenix.

She’s acting on faith that Stone Curves Cohousing is the life style she wants to age with and invite her two married daughters and their families to enjoy when they visit. Ania gained a new title this year, Granny Anny, with the arrival of her first grandchild, Niobe, who at four days old had her passport picture taken. With passport in her Mami's hand, she returned to Honduras at one month old where her father eagerly awaited the arrival of his wife and daughter. Niobe is a world citizen in the making!

Ania says "I trust I'll have years of active service to Stone Curves, and when my sitting time on the porch increases, I'll have more time for sharing stories with children of all ages, and I'll have neighbors who care about me. I can't think of a better long-term care policy or ‘assisted living’ than the investment I'm making in Stone Curves Cohousing."