Marilea RabasaMarilea's early life involved interfacing with several world cultures. In high school, she went to France one summer to study French. That whet her appetite for travel, and she volunteered as an English teacher on a mission in Puerto Rico for two sumers. Her first husband joined the Foreign Service and for fifteen years they traveled from Nicaragua to Ecuador to Greece to Italy-with three children and a dog.After her divorce, she moved on to the next phase of her life where she consolidated her cultural experiences with her vocation in the classroom. She was an English as a Second Language high school teacher for seventeen years in Virginia. She met her present partner, Gene, at this time. Toward the end of her teaching career, she earned a Master of Arts in teaching. That journey, a master's in reflective practice, was a critical tool toward under-standing her own life journey.Now in her third act, and retired from teaching, she has time to reflect back on her fortunate life, continue to learn and grow, and put some stories down on paper. Her two award-winning memoirs chronicled the generational substance use disorder in both herself and her daughter. Her third memoir, Gene and Toots, is a love story written with her partner about her ultimate recovery from the disease. We follow the couple traveling around the national parks in the United States, Canada, Greece, and Hawaii over the course of nearly thirty years. It completes this series of memoirs on substance use disorder.Writing is an illuminating form of self-discovery, and it helps Marilea put her life into better perspective. This has proven to be valuable rite of passage for many men and women in their golden years, and she hopes to teach life-writing to seniors. Read More Read Less