It’s the 100th post! When I started this blog 7 years ago, I never considered reaching this milestone. All this began with a desire to document my travels while studying abroad, and it has since transformed into an index of my biggest decisions, most significant lessons, and most treasured experiences. Lately, I’ve been surprising myself with how much I can think to share. Every week for the past several months, I have been writing in this blog, and only a couple years ago, I struggled to write at all.
My creativity comes in waves, and that’s certainly been reflected on this blog, but my commitment to writing has remained constant through the years, and that excites me more than anything. So indulge me this week, as I revisit some of my favorite posts over the years.
This could not be a retrospective without bringing up my very first post: Dia Dhuit Cork City! I had just gotten off a plane for the first time and landed in a different continent. Thus began a semester of exploring Irish history and folklore. I discovered my love for old churches, made friends with flocks of sheep, and kissed a castle. My semester abroad was one of the hardest things I ever did, but through it, I was able to indulge my curiosity in ways I never could before. Such as…
Exploring Loch Ness! Scotland was at the top of my list of favorite places visited. I always think about how good the tea was, but I also had the experience of seeing large swathes of the landscape. When I got on a boat to see the infamous Loch Ness, I was ecstatic. Every now and again, life provides us the opportunity to indulge in our imagination. How incredible it was to believe in the possibility of lake monsters and participate in a story hundreds of years in the making.
Visiting Norway was a lesson in saying “Yes.” My Norwegian friend gave me the insider’s tour of the country. We went skiing in the mountains and suntanning in our winter jackets on the coast. I visited Oslo and was completely overwhelmed by the bustle of the city. The park still resonates with me, and I think about its monolith often—how all those people were climbing to reach the heavens.
Athens was the fulfillment of a dream. The birthplace of my love for stories and history neatly tied up in a Doric column. The week I spent there, I held my younger self in my heart, and I told her she could do anything. I visited all the temples twice and romped through the Mediterranean waves. I hiked the hills and smelled the citrus trees. And I cried. I cried all my anxieties and all my relief. I couldn’t possibly express all my feelings about Athens in one post, so a year later, I wrote another one.
I saw the world differently when I returned home. Everything was more beautiful than I remembered. I fell in love with my home state in a way that encouraged me to explore it with the same curiosity and zeal as I did while abroad. I revisited my favorite places like Popham as well as some new ones like Jasper Beach. I’m happy to say that I still look out my car window and appreciate how amazing every corner of the world is.
This blog has given me the opportunity to explore different styles and content. I revisited my whimsy with the seriousness of an investigative reporter when I wrote about Champ—the lake monster said to be lurking in Lake Champlain. I was researching the topic for my book and, not only was the post fun to write, it was a helpful way to organize my notes. To this day, it’s one of my favorite pieces that I’ve ever written.
But I would be hard-pressed to mention favorite pieces without acknowledging the post I shared in 2020. This one came with news that I had a short story published. My story “Lost Shoes” was part of a limited print anthology that supported COVID19 relief in Maine. I was happy to have a story published that embodied so much of my childhood. I spent years walking the rocky shores of a Maine lake, while searching for frogs and listening to loons. The book is no longer available, but I do know it can be found at some libraries, including the University of Maine’s Fogler Library in the Maine section.
Then were the quiet years, where my blog took a hiatus, as I worked through changes both good and bad. When I briefly emerged to share my three part series “Misery Loves Company Six Feet Apart,” I felt like I was finally expressing years of complex feelings that took me a long time to process. The series features what are probably my most vulnerable posts to date. In it, I shared how I had no longer been writing creatively, and that I feared I didn’t want to be a writer at all. I eventually realized that fear was unfounded.
I didn’t write on this blog for another almost two years, but I wasn’t lying in that series. I was writing again. I write all the time now. Sometimes it feels exhausting, but it makes me so happy. I came back to my blog with the exciting news that I finished writing my novel, and I later shared my editing process. I spoke about my weekly writing sessions, and my experiences with rejection. In the past year, I’ve realized that I really like talking about writing, and that’s been reflected in my blog.
I haven’t forgotten my roots, and though I don’t travel as much as I did, I try to make room for travel and history. I was so happy to finally share my experience as an archaeologist, and I’ve come to appreciate my Places Between series. When I shared earlier in this post that I am always looking out my car window with awe, my Places Between series is proof. These were just the places I remembered to take pictures at. Some places I visit don’t provide a captivating 500 word story, but that doesn’t make me love them any less. I still exclaim “mountains!” every time I drive through Western Maine and am comforted by the rhythm of the waves along the coast.
I promise more exploration in the future of this blog. Both literal and metaphoric. I plan to travel to some different places and try out different types of content. More than anything, my blog is a reflection of me, and I promise that I will always be curious. I hope you all will be too.
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