Coming Back

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At the start of each new journey of my life, I have always started a new journal. They have been my means of making sense of the inundation of stimuli in and around me, of confiding in something when I don’t have an immediate support system, and of capturing all of the little, inconspicuous moments that constitute a life well lived.

When I went to Argentina I started a blog using (and heavily editing) my journal writing.  At first I saw of it more as an easy way out of responding to a zillion different emails, but quickly that changed. Rather than writing only for myself, who was living it all first hand, it forced me to search for narrative and meaning in my experiences that would prove interesting for someone else. Writing for an audience helped to teach me how to view and live my life in a much more purposeful way.

I am currently in the process of a different sort of journey. I've spent the last 10 months back in Vermont, which is about the longest stretch of time I've been in one place since I was sixteen. I am practicing the capacity to be present, open and optimistic, even when my default reaction to life in Burlington is to retreat, brood, stress, and otherwise catastrophize. It has been a somewhat bumpy learning process to say the least, complete with good and bad days, progress and setbacks, and frequent bouts of deliriousness. But such is life, or my life anyway, so I'm trying to just be in the moments as they come.

So as I muddle through these transitions, transformations, growing pains and joys, I would like to share the experience with anyone who might care to follow along. This blog will be an accumulation of personal insights, academically inspired ramblings, good stories, and whatever other details feel worth sharing as I move through my life. 

Yours, with love, hope, and half a night's sleep,

Em