As an English student the first thing teachers have asked me is how much impact has the 2020 had in my life. I immediately go silent as my mind rewinds into what I usually end up calling the roller-coaster of my life. It is far than that.

It took me to 2021 to realise that even when the world rather forget this cursed year, I didn't want to. The grow up I experimented and the lessons learned to this point are priceless. The farthest milestone of my life was reached in this unforgettable year and even, I'm still on it.

I am a woman from Mexico, who came to Ireland to pursue her dreams of studying Cultural Heritage. I am someone sensitive for art and science, specially biology, history, and archaeology. I studied Hospitality Management, I'm a polyglot in progress (you may see the table bellow marking my progress in Duolingo and other languages I'm studying in my own pace), an artist who loves to encourage others to try to express themselves.

This is not my first blog, yet is the first step I'm taking after a friend told me that I should write about my experiences in Dublin, Ireland. I guess that after all (the most plot-twisted year in a life, a long time battle against the worst of writer's blockages you may imagine, coming out of the woods after years of depression, and so on…)

Something else you need to know about me is I love to play with words. I've learned this mostly from Oscar Wilde to Taylor Swift.

There's the belief that a name has a power, so my name in this space is Anne Phoenix, for my favourite parks in Dublin (St. Anne's Park and Phoenix Park).

About the wolf

Wolves are in all ways special in this blog: my favourite animal is the wolf and I've been quite compared with it for sharing some features with this animal, though this predator ended up being my sigil when I read 'Women who run with the Wolves' of Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Also, I've read around the Internet folklore that Ireland used to be known as the 'Wolf Land'. Whether this is a fact or not, what is true is that wolves were exterminated from the island back in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (S. XVIII-XIX). It isn't hard to understand why the idea of the wolf reintroduction or comeback would be another goal for this country.

Due my infatuation with Ireland and my constant identification with wolves, this makes me that wolf. And yes, it is lovely for me to think this as another comeback of the wolves to the island.

... under the aspen tree

When reading about Ogham, which I like to refer as the alphabet of the trees, the Aspen tree is both considered the banned tree and the insight tree.

Personally, the 2020 was the year that redefined everything for me, from priorities to relationships. Still in 2021 I feel its aftershocks. Arriving to this island has just being a catalyst for this process, as you might see eventually in my entries.

Ireland is for me this Aspen tree.

So this is about me being in Ireland. Welcome.

Nov 2020 - Feb 2021