Tag: writing

Health & Lifestyle · Mental Health

Let’s Hear it for the Boy

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

A friend of mine once asked me how I come up with ideas for my blog posts. I confessed to her that my process is not so thought out, but rather a let’s just see what happens approach. If I feel like I have the stamina to write something for the blog on a particular day, I open my laptop and hope to be inspired.

Most of the time, to my own astonishment, it works and words string into sentences and paragraphs like a dream. There have been seven times (maybe eight with this one, who knows?) when it hasn’t, but I have grown used to ignoring the number of unfinished drafts in my writing view of the blog. Maybe one day I’ll devote fresh eyes to those, but for now the back burner is big enough to hold them all, so there they will sit for now.

Sometimes a title comes first – sometimes a particular line of a poem. Sometimes a memory or a feeling gets typed out and sits alone on the otherwise blank page for a while until words fill in the space around it, disguising it amongst the forest of sentences and stanzas, seemingly equal to the rest.

I clutter with words. They are something I found again when I began to simplify things. Writing words brings me joy and so I do not set a limit on them.

I always wished I could speak as comfortably as I write, but something gets lost in translation with the whole words coming out of my mouth thing while simultaneously breathing and thinking. It’s nerve-racking to go off script when other people improvise. I often rewrite conversations in my head that have already happened. The ones that can’t be edited are torturous. I write conversations that will never happen as well and wonder how they’d play out in reality.

I used to have a debilitating fear of talking on the phone to strangers. Like, I was afraid to order a pizza growing up and I love pizza. There was even one time during college when I thought I left my wallet in a restaurant and Mike told me it was ok and to just call the restaurant and he was sure it would be there. All I can say in response to that is thank goodness that wallet was just stuck between the car door and the passenger seat of Mike’s mom’s car, otherwise it would have been irretrievable. I mean it was bad you guys.

To have an irrational fear of saying words as a person who loves words doesn’t make any sense and I let it limit me for way too long. I soon learned, however, to my relief, that I wasn’t the only one who had trouble on the phone.

The summer after graduating college, I got an internship as a scheduling coordinator at a rehearsal rental studio in Manhattan. I remember keeping a Post-It note in front of the phone at work with impossibly difficult information to remember such as my name, the name of the studio, and the studio’s phone number so that when my throat began to tighten when I picked up the receiver and my thoughts turned to static, I’d have some lifeline to hold onto. I know– tough stuff.

It wasn’t until I got a call at the rental studio from a boy who was clearly more nervous on the phone than I was that I began to get over this irrational fear. He forgot to give me his name when he booked and hung up before I finished asking for that info. I called him back to finish the booking, silently praising my Post-It note strategy, knowing that without it, I’d be drowning due to my overactive salivary glands that switched on as soon as I picked up the receiver. The boy picked up and admitted that he was nervous talking on the phone. I told him not to worry and that I was too sometimes (white lie- I know). I got his name and finished his booking and we ended the call, each feeling a little less alone perhaps and a little more comfortable on the phone. That phone call changed a lot for me and I grew confident in a career that heavily involved answering and making phone calls.

Writing helped me cope with my phone phobia. I used to write out everything I needed to say on the phone if I were making an important call; in fact, I still do sometimes. I have even learned that some of my friends do this too and it makes me feel less like a malfunctioning robot of society. Somehow, seeing the words written out in an order that makes sense before I release them from my mouth gives me confidence. You can’t, however, pre-plan most of life’s conversations. Like I said before, I clutter with words. They are shoved in the hall closet of my head like miscellany after panic-cleaning and I’d hate for something to fall out that would disrupt the order of the room. Sometimes, however, words fall out and get a laugh or a smile and those make the uncertainty of it all worthwhile.

Poetry

Watered Down Whiskey

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

I take a sip of watered down whiskey.

Honey sweetness coats my tongue

And climbs my palate walls,

like a spell of rain on rewind.

Ginger heat slides down my throat

And spreads across my chest,

A fermented shield beneath my skin.

Spiced warmth seeps into my armor

And I am fortified with soothing calm.

The sensation of the aftertaste follows,

A pleasant burn that lingers.

Thoughts relax and the world warps,

Viewed through a curved lens.

Apprehensions subside, the words easy to find,

And the impossible is a matter of effort.

Synapses twinkle,

Transmissions fire,

And there are too many ideas to write down.

I hardly know this me,

This artist whose craft comes easy

Temporarily.

And I think perhaps I owe this burst

To the sips of watered down whiskey.

Health & Lifestyle

Conjuring Dreams and Nightmares

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

I have not been sleeping well lately, you guys. Since mid-July, when I decided to leave my full-time job, I have been working on a novel. Before I started working on it, I felt a little lost and unfulfilled by my career and was questioning my self-worth too often, pulling up little to satisfy the cavity of what I had to show for my contributions to the world, thus far. I craved a sense of fulfillment that I could actualize and needed to pursue an activity at full-steam that would make me feel like myself again.

My stock on happiness and self-worth had dwindled below the recommended reserve and I felt disappointed in myself for not nurturing my creative strengths, for so long. Even if this novel doesn’t end up making a single penny and even if it is rejected by publishers, it will have been worth the time for what I have gained in self-discovery. I feel like me again, and it’s taken a long time, but for the first time since college, I feel like a writer again. Writing a book has been a dream of mine since I was a kid and now, it is one that I am determined to make a reality with this new project.

When I started working on this novel in July, I had no idea how long it would take to finish a first draft. To be honest, I had little confidence that I’d even be able to do it and worried that the initial excitement of the process would wear off. My mantra became Jodi Picoult’s wise quote, “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page,” so I wrote some bad pages to start and then they morphed into a plottable base for a story and a set of characters whom I have grown to love.

As I got to writing, the confidence in my ability to accomplish the task at hand began to grow. I began reading about other successful writers’ routines and habits and was able to ballpark a timeline for when I could likely have a first draft finished. In September, I set a deadline of October 17th for my first draft. Now that that deadline is just around the corner, I am not as afraid of it as I thought I’d be. I have been diving deeper into the world that I have spent the past three months creating and that world is growing more developed each day. So far, it has been a passion project not without its difficulties – both creatively and psychologically.

I like to write mystery. If you’ve every read a mystery, you’ll know that the genre requires some shady characters. I have been putting off writing the details to the darker side of my story for a while, but last week, I finally plunged down the rabbit hole of researching and writing them and have yet to come out the other side.

I have learned that I have two designated writing spaces in our home. One is the chaise seat of our blue couch, where I am writing this now, and the other is at my desk that I also use as a nightstand. I think the concept of a designated writing space can come in handy when working on building a villain’s story arc, however, I think I used the wrong one when constructing mine.

Writing a villainous story arc at my desk right next to where I sleep was not a wise idea. It is hard to sleep easy where you have created a monster. When I close my eyes at night, the stories I have read for research come to mind and the stories that I have created join them, invading the counting sheep’s pasture with dark clouds and ominous sounds, causing them to flee because they too can sense that something bad is lurking there. I get through the battle of sleep, on edge from the start, wondering what evil awaits me in my REM cycle, and let me tell you, it has been pretty creative, you guys.

I’ve always had a talent for being easily frightened. Pair that with a fear of the dark and terrible vision and voila!; you’ve got yourself a bedroom stalker that is actually just a table with a fan on top of it. While I, without my glasses on, am the most likely thing to go bump in the night, my imagination plays tricks on me with evils that aren’t there, conjured from harmless shadows, shapes, and light.

Coffee probably doesn’t help either. Some days, I can’t seem to write a word without coffee so I have coffee and then I have some more to keep going. Something that used to be a slow, enjoyable part of my morning routine has become a crutch for putting words on the page, but I think I’d like for coffee to go back to being a moderated morning indulgence to simply enjoy as I wake up. Writing anxiety-inducing story arcs on two cups of coffee isn’t a blend that hits the spot. For my writing sessions, I think I’ll switch to herbal tea and see if a sense of calm comes easier when it’s time to sleep.

Either way, I think the sense of accomplishment of finishing a first draft will be worth the sleepless nights and that perhaps I could use some toughening up anyway for the rewrite road ahead. But now, it’s that time in the day to close my laptop and take in the ocean view and a few sips of chamomile and honey to help guide me back from the winding depths of Wonderland.

Health & Lifestyle · Reviews & Reflections

Little Desks and Little Women

Beth DeFries2 Comments

Yesterday, after going for a run, tackling some errands for the shore house’s rental turnover, and doing some timed writing, I treated myself by watching Greta Gerwig’s adaption of Little Women. Movies about writers have always drawn me in and I don’t know how I let this one go unwatched for almost four years. I have never read Louisa May Alcott’s original story, nor have I seen any of the film adaptions, but yesterday, the March family opened their homemade curtain to a new world and had me hooked.

Jo March and her sisters, Meg, Beth, and Amy found unbridled passion in their interests: writing, love, music, art, and family. They faced financial struggles, loneliness, impulsiveness, heartbreak, anger, and loss, but always found their way back to goodness with the guidance and warmth of their mother, Marmee, the influence of their father-in wanting to make him proud as he served the Union Army, and in the good-natured characters they met along the way, giving and trading hearts and lessons throughout the story.

I read that the set of the March home in Gerwig’s adaption got the nickname of “the jewel box” as it was plain on the outside and held lots of color within. The film’s set designers curated a home that reflected the characters’ creativity, warmth, love, chaos, and closeness. The different time settings in the story and the opposing tones were communicated with light which made it easy to recognize when a transition was happening to reflect the characters’ current state or former.

Jo’s writing studio in the attic was absolutely wonderful and rich with color and possibility. The minimalist in me rebels against my desire for a cluttered writing space, but I won’t give in. Something about books, art, costumes, candles, and miscellany just jog ideas like an uncluttered space can’t. I think I will create a small cluttered writing space in my home to see if it helps brings more ideas to light.

I have read and heard from other writer friends that making a dedicated writing space can feed the frequency of your writing and that it is essential in getting you to get something down even when your brain is like an art gallery between installations without another artist lined up. Right now, I am sitting on the blue couch in the living room with the sunlight streaming through our triptych view of the ocean. It is certainly a comfortable space, and perhaps will serve as a dedicated writing space, though lately I am floating around trying to find just that.

I have a very little desk, currently tucked away against the wall, that I sometime use if I feel like writing on the floor beneath the window. Sitting on the floor is a quirk that I do when I need to feel more grounded. I often sit on the floor at large gatherings with family or with friends to feel less anxious and more in-control. I guess that’s strange, but I don’t know; it just feels right and I tend to follow my gut. I like writing under the window at my little desk and sitting on top of the empty gray and white braided oval throw rug that I placed there not long after we moved in. The round shape of the rug is calming and it looks very warm and inviting in the sunlight and warm and inviting inspires cozy writing for me.

The warmth of the day is beginning to seep through the drafty window and summer is in full swing outside. I feel pleasantly lazy and truly happy and don’t know where the day will take me, but will keep an open mind. Like for the March girls I met yesterday, I am fulfilled by simple pleasures and know that whatever may happen, there is a happy ending in sight.

Mental Health · Poetry

Fortune Favors

Beth DeFries2 Comments

My mind is a deconsecrated cathedral turned into hipster apartments full of whimsy, mismatched decor, and white-washed walls.

The Madonna weeps over a modern record player with the Abbey Road B-side scratching on repeat in a studio kitchen,

Majestic in her broken panes of stained glass, cemented together with black composite.

She is beautiful and her suffering-an art.

She is womanhood and childhood and loss.

Taken for granted,

Rent-stabilized cost of losing a savior

for location location location.

The stations of the cross taken down,

Their shadows left behind beneath un-frescoed white walls to make room for mass-produced art from Target.

My creativity, removed from its sepulcher during construction, is haunting the rooms, evicting the mundane tenants who are satisfied with the status quo.

The times they are a changin’,

Rearranging priorities and preferences,

The colors-more vibrant, the words-more bold.

I write on the walls with lipstick and crayon, like Harold in his purple world

With a grown-up twist.

Unformed and malleable,

Full of possibility and light,

I grow and glow.

I illuminate past the confines of the bulbs in the IKEA pendant fixtures,

A mixture of grace and insanity come to life in a way that finally pulls the room together.

Free to curate slowly with care,

My soul revived with abundant self-worth and self-love,

Absolutely enough 

and ready to take on the neighborhood market – Upscale and laid back with an unbeatable view of  the future.

I grip my grasp on happiness with a firm hold,

finally bold 

And recognize that “can” is a word in my vocabulary again.

Survival does not depend on compromising on dreams and

Split seams can always be mended.

Everything will extend beyond fine.

Unraveled thread, re-wound.

Possibility abounding.

I am me. I am she.

I am mine.

Health & Lifestyle · Mental Health · Social Media

Winter for a Wallflower

Beth DeFries1 Comment

I have been casually thinking about further minimizing my use of social media and quitting Facebook for over a year now, but I did not seriously consider deleting my account until November of 2022 while visiting a friend in California. We sat in a dive bar in Venice at some late hour of the eastern pacific night, drinking pints of beer and spilling about life.

“I’m thinking of getting rid of Facebook,” I said too loudly with fortified, liquid confidence.

“Yeah; you and everybody’s parents are the only people who still use it,” my friend joked bluntly.

While factually untrue, it did make me recognize how many of my friends no longer use Facebook as a social platform. I felt like a searchlight had locked on me, shining a harsh blue exposure up from beneath my chin, preparing me for some on-the-fly campfire story that I wasn’t even sort of ready to tell. Sitting in that high-top, busted-pleather, half-booth in Venice, my feet dangling above the sticky floor, the seed of an idea germinated and I knew with certainty that someday I would extricate myself from social media’s entangled roots. Two days ago, I finally felt ready to approach that “Delete Account” button, knowing that it was the right move for me.

I prepared for my departure as I saw fit. I wrote down birthdays. I notified my Facebook community of when I would leave the platform, giving family and friends the opportunity to reach out if they wanted to keep in touch. Most importantly, to me, I saved pictures from my account and Mike’s, revisiting old memories that I’d not looked at in years. With my memories harvested and stored away, I felt ready to continue on my journey and leave Facebook behind.

I pulled up the login screen four times on Wednesday, without thinking about it, and it became clear to me that this might be a tough withdrawal process. Social media caused a lot of easy access to distraction for me and I finally felt it was time to fight off that distraction to pursue creative hobbies and make time for healthier physical and mental practices.

Wednesday morning before work, instead of scrolling through my Newsfeed while mindlessly chomping on my cereal, I sat in a chair by the window and watched the sun rise out of pink clouds over the Atlantic, enjoying each crunchy bite. This morning, I felt inspired to do some writing on this post which I have been struggling with for the past couple of days. Already, I am feeling more grounded in my own life. I am happening upon inspiration during times when I would not have noticed it or pursued it due to scrolling on social media, and I am feeling the wispy roots of my creativity beginning to take hold again.

For years, I nourished a carefully edited portrayal of life for an audience of friends, family, and people I’d avoid on the street. I had grown like a flowering vine, clinging to my wall, not easily torn away. But now it is winter with spring in sight, and I am ready for sprays of wildflowers to bloom again.

Cozy Posts · Health & Lifestyle · Minimalism

Too much honey…

Beth DeFries2 Comments

Hello again friends; I know it’s been a while.

I’ve been struggling to get back to writing, unable to give confidence to any particular idea. Right now, I am just typing and sipping a glass of Malbec, hoping that each word (and my grape juice) will help tug me out of Rabbit’s doorway and into a post worth your time and my own. Thanks in advance for bearing with me and I’m sorry if this is absolute stuff and fluff.

I admit that sometimes, even after reducing the amount of items that we have in our home, the laundry basket still overflows, the entryway table hides beneath the camouflage of grocery receipts and sheathed credit card offers, the throw blankets rest in crumpled piles on the new, blue sofa, and there are shoes seemingly everywhere.

No matter how many steps I climb to get closer to my own ideal of cozy minimalism, I think I’ll always gravitate towards a messy reality. I could have three things and at least two of those would somehow find their way to the wrong spot the next day. I need to learn to accept that.

My mind is a curious, cluttered place that doesn’t match my curated home. I struggle to cope with the mental mess a lot of the time, sometimes leaving the door open to too many thoughts and baseless insecurities, allowing them to sneak in amidst the darkness like unwelcome Heffalumps encouraging self-doubt to take the reins and to make the sensible parts of the oversized, aspic-walnut in my head go numb.

Alas, I run on.

When I am down, I am not able to express what I am thinking in spoken words, and words are supposed to be my rescue ledge. Their abandonment is greatly unappreciated. Sometimes my brain thinks faster than my words which leads to stumbling over them and then a deeper lack of confidence. This is why I need to get back to writing. I know that I am capable of intelligence, confidence, and true expression on the page. I can use my own words as a map to navigate my own creative woods.

When there is clutter in my physical environment, it is difficult to decompress, relax, and feel cozy. I crave cozy constantly and when it’s not there, it’s easy to get lost in my composited mind. Cozy wraps me up in welcoming, warm snuggles and tells me, “You can fucking do this.”

I find cozy in empowering conversations with my husband, family, and friends, in warm cups of tea with too much honey, in dry red wine, and in stretched out sweatpants and squashy coral pillows. I recognize how incredibly lucky I am to have people in my life who love me and to be able to curate a home that fosters my happiness to the best of my ability. In theory, I should never want for more and yet sometimes, I am an absolute Eeyore. In the words of somebody, somewhere who Mike and I quote all the time (most likely the writers on Psych), “That don’t make no sense.”

So here is my attempt at diving back into my pond of words, hoping for a little black rain cloud to float on by with a heavy rain that will irrigate my potential and grow my creativity. I am sorry if it doesn’t last, but I would like to give it a shot. With my strong support system, I know I can never be stuck for long. “He-ho, e-o, there she goes!“

Six Months of Cozy!
Health & Lifestyle

Six Months of Cozy!

Beth DeFries1 Comment

Today is the six-month anniversary of cozy does it! Hooray!

This is my twenty-second post in six months and I feel incredibly proud of that. If you are reading this as a blogger who is just getting started, I wish you luck and encouragement and urge you not to feel pressured by the blank page. You can do this and you can do this at whatever pace is right for you.

I started this blog as a healthier writing outlet to social media and it turned into something much more nourishing and sustaining for me. I realize now that the title that came to me as I was sipping coffee at our kitchen table early in the morning on August first and the themes of coziness and minimalism have provided me with positive, focused fuel for my writing. I don’t know exactly what it was that ignited the spark in me, a perpetual procrastinator, to sit down and figure out how to start a blog that morning- to purchase a domain name, choose a layout design, and tailor the font to best suit my topic, but I am so thankful. Having a subject matter that continuously feeds my creative energy and urges my flow of ideas each time I am met with a blank page is something I have not experienced in over a decade and it is something that I do not take for granted.

I have self-identified as a writer since I was a little kiddo and this is the first time in a long time that I feel honest in that claim. Writer’s block is a very real struggle that attacks a writer’s confidence, pushes aspirations out of reach, and induces personal anxiety. I am personally familiar with feeling lost on the snowy expanse of a blank Word document and the unsteady falling sensation of slipping around on buttery journal pages. The most useful tools for me, oddly enough, have been to remove the pressure of goal-setting when it comes to my own creativity, and to strip away any expectation of success and go into creative endeavors knowing that I may be my only audience member.

Back on that August morning, I realized that I just wanted to write for the sake of writing. I just wanted to reclaim that part of me for myself and no one else.

Over the past few years, I have occasionally taken part in creative retreats and artist salons organized by other artist friends of mine. I would go to these events, hoping that being an audience member to the mismatched collection of creative contributions would inspire me or instill in me a drive to exercise my creativity. Unfortunately and surprisingly, the events had the opposite effect on me. While they seemed to work wonders for other artist friends of mine who are more deadline-driven and fueled by ambitions of making it professionally, I found that when my turn to present would come, the acid would rise from my stomach to my esophagus and set off cacophonous alarms ringing in my head, pumping a rush of blood to the tips of my ears, unveiling me as an imposter.

In my recent post, Beth’s Picture Show, I wrote a little about the dangers of comparison. When I used to find myself included in public gatherings of artists presenting their work, a quiet ball of jealousy would begin to tumble and grow as I compared my own creations to those of the more talented song writers, painters, illustrators, playwrights, poets, and musicians present. I thought with an unattractive bitterness, why should I even bother?

Other artists reading this may be thinking, well if you want to succeed as an artist, you need to be able to take criticism. Sound familiar to anyone? Anyone? Bueller? They are right, of course, if success as a professional is indeed your goal. But there are other types of success too – smaller, less obvious ones. I acknowledge that editors are necessary to tailor a piece to its best possible version, but for me – at least for right now- it is more important to just be writing. I am talented enough for myself and my talent has different, not worse, actualizations than it does for other artists. The pure and simple exercise of somewhat consistent writing is simultaneously enough and more than I could ever have hoped for these past six months.

I hope no artist reading this has shared my sense of inadequacy while being an audience member to other artists’ work, but the realist in me says that’s probably not the case. Let me be one tiny voice telling you that you don’t need to practice your craft all the time to be an artist. You don’t need to constantly cater to a practice that leaves you feeling drained and insufficient if it’s not coming naturally one day. It is ok to be patient with yourself if you are feeling particularly uncreative for one day, week, year, or decade of your life. Your reunion will be waiting for you somewhere down the line and will hit you smack in the middle of the face with a densely packed snowball or maybe introduce itself more subtly in a sip of coffee on a warm, summer morning.

Thank you for reading today’s post! I realize it strayed from the theme of cozy minimalism, but I am glad you gave it a read all the same. I want to extend a quick thank you to my cozy community. I am so grateful for the handful of family and friends who have taken time to read posts over the past six months as well as to the members of the blogging community who have been so encouraging by choosing to follow the blog or “like” a cozy does it post here and there. I only expected an outlet for my writing in starting this blog, but I am so grateful that some readers have chosen to join me on this adventure. Thank you all and happy reading!

Breakfast of Wanderers
Cozy Posts · Travel

Breakfast of Wanderers

Beth DeFries1 Comment

The sunrise tends to wake me up on the weekend days- not because of some inner-light that syncs with the solar forces; the real reason is much less transcendental than that. The “blackout” curtains on our bedroom windows evidently lied about their skills on their resume and my unconscious bias was unfairly influenced by a gut-confidence in their cozy, homespun, buffalo check design. Our windows face full east so the disparity between the advertising and reality became apparent at once.

Mike is able to sleep through the shiny-ness, but I often find myself heading upstairs to enjoy a large mug of some hot liquid while reading on my kindle or wondering if my early morning half-motivation to write something is going to result in my fingertips actually stringing sentences together on my keyboard. Today, the motivation appears to have been real enough.

I am standing at the breakfast counter that separates our kitchen from our living room, sipping piping hot Darjeeling, and flipping through lonely planet’s The Travel Book with semi-absorbed interest. The book is a large, heavy account of vivid photographs and informational blurbs of every country in the world. It was gifted to me by my dear friend, Chelsea, years ago at my bridal shower. I flip through the pages from time to time and have found it to be my go-to entertainment during power outages, which happen more often than in our previous Brooklyn homes (where we never once lost power-ahh the good ol’ days).

I took The Travel Book off of the shelf in our bedroom the other day, realizing that it was not stored in a spot where I use it. It’s not like the book was caked in dust or anything, but I knew it would serve a better purpose upstairs, which it has done as I have looked at it three or four times since.

I enjoy wandering the varying landscapes that spread across the glossy pages, engaging in silent meetings with the smiling locals and being confoundingly absorbed in the intense, bright-eyed stares of more conspicuous emotion opposite the photographer’s lens. I feel the warmth of hot dust on a ranch in the Buenos Aires province, release myself to the wind that flutters strings of colorful prayer flags in Bhutan, and cower at the unimpressed, stern confrontation of an army of albatrosses in the Falkland Islands.

Travel is fuel for excitement and entertainment in our home, as it is for many other people, I imagine. Taking out the excess has resulted in a personal increase in my mental capacity for planning and organization and my favorite things to plan and organize are trips.

Throughout the pandemic, I have satiated my wanderlust by way of virtual walking and driving tours in places around the world from the comfort of our turquoise couch. I have also delved into planning trip itineraries for multiple destinations, trips that will, in hope, actualize some day. My adventures have taken me to the remote corners of Barrow in northern Alaska, the focused (and thin) atmosphere of Everest Base Camp, the sustainably artsy towns and rainforests of Bainbridge Island, a crunchy Quebec City in a growing blanket of snow, the valley-nestled city of Thimphu in Bhutan, and the Greek island of Tinos in a heat wave.

I’ll pick up the remote some nights and Mike will say, “Where are you going today?” I pull up the map on my phone and zoom into different countries like a curious satellite before I settle on my destination. Without having to book a hotel, pack a bag, and remove my belt, liquids, and laptop to go through airport security, I am transported to a new life experience. I gather my surroundings through sight and sound and record them in my mental travel journal.

My virtual travels throughout this past year have broadened my adventurous spirit and geographical comprehension. I feel lucky to live in a time when these places and experiences are virtually accessible. While I cannot recreate the other sensical experiences of my destinations, nor the personality and heart of a location and its local inhabitants, I can be aware that the places and people of the world have so much to offer and that I want to absorb as many experiences as my human lifespan will allow me to.