Hello, nice to meet you

About Me

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Call it a quarter life crisis, call it running away, finding myself, or whatever other label we tend to need to categorize those who claw against the norm. All I knew for sure was that there was a bright, big world outside of my comfortable American life and I intended to find out exactly what else it had to offer.

It would have been easy to stay. There was no reason for me to go, other than the unquenchable desire to explore the unknown that had been bubbling underneath, unable to be silenced. And at 25, the only thing I was entirely sure of in my small life was that I would regret it forever if I did not at least find out. And the only thing I feared more than leaving itself, was never leaving at all.

So I left. Abandoning a job and life that I loved, I took my sheepish mound of a few thousand dollars, and without any more of a plan than ten flights spread out over 6 months that would turn into 3 years and 11 countries that would turn into 21, I packed a backpack and fled the so desired American Dream.

My life-long passions for writing and art consumed me in these beautiful and exotic, new places. I became obsessed with capturing their essence,,

... Needing the reader to smell the wafting of olives in the Tuscan air, feel their sun-scorched skin caked with dried salt after a dip in the Mediterranean Sea, and be transported to Meursault on the brink of summer, sitting in a dank, underground wine cellar with a glass of 2001 Narvaux, their tongues tingling with notes of prickly peach and mandarin oranges.

And so I filled my blog with my favorite scenes, stories, adventures and wineries that I had scratched down in the countless pages of five leather-bound journals.

Today, I am fusing my love of travel, writing, and art to bring to life hand-painted journals in hopes of inspiring others to travel and write their own story. Each journal is a one-of-a-kind, abstract expression of the very real places I have been and the wonder they have imprinted on me.

I have always thought colors, in and of themselves, evoked very distinct emotions. Combined with brushstrokes, I think they are all that are needed to tell a tale, capture a moment, a place, an adventure, a memory. I invite you to pick up your own call to immortality and use these journals to write it all down. Every little thing. Leave nothing untouched.

This is A Gypsy Breeze.