Years ago, when the world was young... at the beginning of the Iraq War... when we still were under the reign of the Bush the Second... when college was something for adults and older siblings... right smack-dab in the middle of my favorite awkward period of life known as adolescence... I had a very close group of friends. (Well, I still have a very close group of friends, but this one was special). And together we decided to create story, which all of us would write, in which all of us had our own character that represented us in ways both obvious and vague. My character was based on my love for J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, and she was one badass elf named Lauremir. She was strong, graceful, wise, occasionally a leader, and turned into a big green monster whenever she didn't get what she wanted or whenever someone angered her.
Eventually, these characters became us, and my friends and I became synonymous with our characters. "Lauremir" became not just my nickname, but a nerdy 13-year-old with acne and an insatiable appetite for books. And so, I became the elf. To my friends. To anyone else, that probably would have been a little weird.
The name, and to some minor extent, the persona, has stuck with me over the years. The last name "Bennet" was added at some point as an homage to my all-time, number one, absolute favorite female author, Jane Austen, and the name "Lauremir Bennet" has since been used in pretty much every online social networking/blogging/art site I've ever joined where a screen name was required. It's nice to have a little continuity, or perhaps constancy, in life.
Thus, I am not an elf. But, indeed, the elf I am.
The slight misnomer comes into play with the word "travelling." It is perfectly true; I will be travelling from Boston to Paris, from Paris to Aix-en-Provence, and from there to who knows where. However, it will not be a constant in my life. I will not be travelling the world. I will not be in a new country every other week. As awesome as that would be, it is unrealistic, and so I ask of you to instead think of the full title of this blog as "The Elf, Who Is Actually Human, Who Experiences Punctuated Travels, But Mostly Stays In One Place In France." Not a very pretty title, though, is it?
Therefore, at the price of ever so very marginally misleading you, I have opted to choose a much shorter and nicer blog title: "The Travelling Elf."
I do ever so hope that you enjoy reading this blog. It is my intent to create a new entry on a weekly basis, and perhaps even more frequently than that, should there be something particularly interesting that I just must share with you in order for my day to be complete. I plan on sharing as much as possible about my time spent away from San Diego and away from Wellesley with all of you lovely people. This includes, but is not limited to, stories about my travels, awkward moments with strangers in foreign places, unfortunate mishaps that led to fortunate results, photographs of whatever happens to strike my fancy that day (or is pertinent to the blog entry), musings about the world at large, rants that express my frustration with life and school, and so on and so forth.
Originally, I had promised to send roughly five people short of a gazillion letters about my time in France. However, I decided to use a blog, instead. There are a few people who will still be getting postcards and/or letters (they threatened me with shoes, cluebats, and death by fire, so I had to say yes), but for everyone else, I look forward to communicating with you on the Interwebz!
Much Hugs and Love,
Rachel
No comments:
Post a Comment