Liltay in...

Hello! As I embark on another era of journaling (this time with subscribers), I want to give on-the-fence folks a taste of what to expect. I'm excited to see where this goes. For now, I'm committing to one year, which still, in middle life seems like a long time.

I've decided to launch this journal for a few very different reasons:

1. I'm going on a solo adventure for the first time in twenty years and I want to make sure I capture as much of Australia and New Zealand as I can, and I want to share my perspective with friends, family, and clients.

2. My memory has changed a lot since the pandemic and I simply forget conversations, promises, experiences. Perhaps returning to a regular practice of writing will strengthen my memory muscle. There is so much I don't want to forget these days, and especially in the coming year.

3. I'm stepping into the classroom for the first time this fall (despite an informal teaching resumé that spans more than a decade) and I am certain I will need a (healthy) way to process the experience. When I accepted the position, one of my fears was that it would negatively impact my career plans for my own artistic practice. However, as I've been madly crafting projects for my incredible substitute (who will run five classes for the first 6 weeks of the semester), I've had a creative growth spurt that is reminiscent of my most fruitful periods of college. Perhaps I've stepped into a period of life where all the knowledge, experience, trial and error, and consistent practice has settled into my core so that I can easily draw inspiration from that core, with a delightful anticipation of transferring it to young people? Lloyd says I'm in my hopeful anticipatory SUMMER phase of teaching. I'm a careful optimist and know that there will be "depths of despair" (thank you, Anne of Green Gables) - but for now, I'm pleasantly surprised by this wellspring of creative productivity brought on specifically by the upcoming teaching position...and I want to write about it (clearly!)

Now, why a pay wall for this journal? It's for me to have accountability. If you, dear reader, are paying for the pleasure of joining me on travels and in the classroom, then I have to take this whole venture seriously. And one thing I've yet to master is accountability with myself. But when faced to others, I do a pretty good job. Again, thank you for the support and for being my friend along this path.

I started a blog one other time in my life, under very similar circumstances. I had just quit my first job out of college. I was on my way to teach English at an elementary school in Wuhan, China (yes, that Wuhan). I knew very little about China and had even less Chinese under my belt. I had an acceptance letter from the China Studies masters program at the Jackson School of International Studies (University of Washington) and one previous trip to Hong Kong as guides for this path. I had deferred the masters program so that I could build a personal relationship with the country that might eventually inform the direction of my graduate studies.

China was lonely, but in a self-inflicted way. I think I needed to figure out who I was as a person and I took myself as far away as possible to do some of that figuring. I'll never forget buying carrots at the grocery store and then spending thirty minutes cutting them up so I could eat raw carrot sticks because that was familiar and comforting to me. But the carrots were stew carrots - massive, rooty things meant to be boiled before being consumed. Stubborn as I was, I persisted in my own way of doing things. It was also hard for me to even leave my apartment to go to the grocery store because I agonized over the interactions I would have to have at the register after I was accused of presenting fake money (a bill valued at less than $20 at the time) to the cashier. Reflecting on these details - which maybe I can only recall because I wrote about the experiences when they happened - I am pretty certain I'm a different kind of traveler now. In any case, I can't wait to find out and I am delighted to be taking you along with me!

XO,

Lillis