Guest Post | Soul Traveling by Elizabeth Hudson.

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Today’s guest post is brought to you by Elizabeth Hudson of StoryWrought.Wordpress.com. She’s traveling to Ireland this week, a place that is dear to my heart [I’ve been there 3 times.] What’s your soulmate country?

irelandphoto
Soul Traveling.
Even as I write this post, I’m sitting in the airport, tingly fingers moving across the keyboard.
Why am I nervous? I couldn’t tell you.
I’ve traveled before – many times in fact.
But never to my soul mate country.
My friend Amanda termed the phrase, and while I cannot take credit for it, I can understand it completely.
You know, that one place where you feel more at home than anywhere else in the world. And even if you haven’t made it there yet, that one place that you long for, unable to rationally explain the desire to others. It’s that landscape that you’ve dreamt of for years, even without glimpsing with your own eyes.
For some, it’s Chile. For others, it’s South Africa, Italy, or Thailand. For you, it may be New Zealand or Sweden. But for me, it’s Ireland. And it’s always been Ireland.
And it’s Ireland that I’m betting everything on.
Four days ago I said goodbye to a steady salary, a position with promotional promise, the choice of renewing my lease with a roommate I call best friend. All for Ireland.
I booked a flight and gave my three-week notice, determined that a two-week road trip in Ireland would change me. Inspire my being with new experiences, new words, new characters and electrify my writing.
I haven’t the slightest clue what will happen in the upcoming months. I just know that I’m going to come home from Ireland [unwillingly], write until my knuckles ache, and look for any way to make it abroad again.
Because travel does so much for the soul. It reassures a writer that the world is still a beautiful and endless space. 
That purpose can still be found out there in the wilds of city streets and spongy moors. That all you have to hear is that clear whisper of vocation in your ear.
“But you must be quite sure, Stephen, that you have a vocation because it would be terrible if you found afterwards that you had none.”
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
So in only a matter of hours, I’ll be landing in Shannon to search out the answers I’ve been waiting so long to hear: that I am a lover of words for a reason.
Ireland must be that place.

~

elizabeth hudsonElizabeth Hudson is a writer and blogger at StoryWrought.Wordpress.com currently abroad in her soulmate country of Ireland. She writes about writing, creativity, travel and story. You can catch more of her musings at @wanderinglizzie.

[Photograph by Bethany Suckrow. Taken outside Temple Bar in Dublin, November 2008.]

Inspired By.

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I’m headed home in the morning to spend the weekend with my family for a belated birthday celebration. As I go I am distinctly aware of the blessing that this moment is. Holidays and birthdays and anniversaries tend to flag a reminder: you’re in a different place than you thought you would be. That can be good, and it can be bad. A few months ago I was afraid of my birthday. I was afraid that it wouldn’t be celebratory, because at that point my mom was in the hospital, and we weren’t sure if and when she would leave. But this birthday has turned out differently, beyond expectations. She’s home, and the distinct cheer in her voice leaves me speechless, deeply grateful beyond words.
It’s this gratitude for life, this gratitude for grace that is my motivation and inspiration for the project I’m working on, soon to be revealed. And so I ask you, as I often do when we reach the end of another week, what is it you’re grateful for? What inspires and motivates you? What makes you laugh? Cry? Create? Demonstrate your gratitude.
Next week I want to go in depth with you about the experience of traveling abroad and how it changed the way I approach life, my writing, my dreams and my goals. If you have had a similar experience, I’d love to read about it. Please email me at shewritesandrights[at]gmail[dot]com to share a guest post next week about traveling as it relates to personal, creative and spiritual growth.
Until then, here are a few lovelinks from around the interwebs this week…
Happiness or Holiness? What should really determine a good relationship.
“The times I argued I was an adult, I was a child. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had the fervor nor the interest to make my point.” No Children in New York.
I love Missy Durant’s imagery here about holding the door closed. And also this quote, “…That’s because I wrote a book. Which was a good idea, until I realized people would read it. “ Um, yeah.

The Age Issue.

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It’s funny. I don’t feel 24. And perhaps that’s because I’ve never been 24 and the feeling of it will settle into my skin as the next 365 days wear on. Sometimes, I feel older. The kind of older that comes with experiencing life at a faster pace than a lot of people my age. Sometimes, I feel way too young for the things I’m doing, especially when people have the habit of telling me so. Sometimes I feel far removed from the younger me, the adolescent me that felt quiet and sensitive and frizzy-haired. Sometimes I am her again, and the present feels like an alternate universe I stepped into, unknowingly, as I opened my closet to get dressed for school.
So what advice can I give myself as I step into a new year?
I think,
given the unpredictability of the present,
given the patience required in this stage of waiting and growing,
given the fact that I am now officially 24 years old and I do not have things figured out as 14-year-old me might have expected,
the thing I must do is learn.
I don’t want to have things figured out. I want to stay curious and hungry and restless enough to want to learn. I want to read and reflect and write and ask questions and search and pray so that the ideas and the answers and the possibilities keep coming. I want to begin each day with anticipation for what I will discover that day, understanding that whatever it is will not be the whole puzzle, but merely one more piece.
Learning is my motivation to live.
~
Here are a few posts that taught me something this week:
“I wonder if I’m still a writer or a content creator.” And 4 other things that I wish I didn’t have in common with every other writer/blogger on the planet.
Remember this post? Here’s another beautiful essay about the Fading Art of Letter Writing.
We’ve sheared the textile of our own lives. And it’s time to put down the scissors.
[Thanks Tyler for the great links yesterday!]
[Image via]

Inspired By.

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Guess what, guys?
It’s my birthday! 
And what a good birthday it’s been. Hubs surprised me with a HUGE book – a complete collection of e.e. cummings. Does he know me well or what? Anyway, I’m going out for dinner with my closest loves tonight [at least my off-line ones, because I really do love all of you a whole lot], and I can hardly wait. But first, I wanted to wish you all a happy weekend, and ask for a wee little birthday present in return. Instead of me giving you a list of love-links today, can you give me a link in the comments to the best article or blog post you’ve read this week? I’ll share my own list of weekly favorites tomorrow, but for today, I’d love to see a few of yours.

Have a wonderful weekend – one full of life, full of color, full of wishes come true.

xo,
B.