We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.

When I was a little girl, I told everyone that I was going to be an author. In my childhood bedroom, you'll find countless notebooks with frayed edges filled with mundane experiences I would have otherwise forgotten, secrets that I could only entrust to the page, drawings of characters that I built in my mind, stories of my own invention, terrible poetry. As an only child, I often only had myself and my imagination for days on end. I remember a moment in my adolescence, as a confused 12-year-old, when I felt particularly low - I crawled into my attic bedroom, a warm, comforting space, and began  to write a poem.

Then, I grew a little older. High school happened. I made memories with my best friends and fell in love for the first time. I realized that I had life ahead of me outside of the village where I grew up. I began to focus on school and work and success and all of the things that I thought happy people did, and I stopped writing for myself. I wrote beautiful analyses of classic novels and historical events, but my silly poetry and journal entries made an abrupt stop.

 (I also played cards a lot.)


Now, I'm a third-year student at Ohio State. When they said that college was going to be a time of personal growth, they weren't kidding. While the first time I fell in love was in high school, my first heartbreak was in college, and it was a doozy. I've traveled the world, made some impulsive decisions, learned to think critically, and realized nobody has to live life in that straight line we learn about growing up. I've written too many academic articles and next to no personal writing.

I don't want to regret not writing at all during this time in my life. Blogs are a great way to write and include other forms of visual media to tell the ultimate story. Although I love one-on-one time with pen and paper, I want to record events and interests and ideas because it is fun and ultimately, this life is about happiness.

Why the name "A Star to Sail Her By"? My favorite movie in the world is the 1971 film Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. A little known fact is that much of the wisdom Willy Wonka imparts in the film is unoriginal, taken from poetry, often Shakespeare. Before he gets on the boat for the absolutely terrifying trip down the chocolate river, Wonka says "All I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by," taken from a beautiful poem called "Sea Fever" by John Masefield. Actually, the poem is sort of a pretentious cry for adventure on the open sea, and even says "vagrant gyspy life" at one point, but in the context of a wacky film adaptation of a dark-spirited children's book about candy, it really speaks to me.

I haven't written in a while. Bear with me.
Love, Marisa