Galavanting with Steemit!

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Hi Steemians!

Here’s my first-ever “introducing myself” post to live in the compendiums of the Internet. Maybe it’s because after 40 you just become a type of fearless, but for the first time ever, I’m willing to get out there for-reals. I’ve had some “for-reals” online before. Like when I launched my blog TheGalavantGirl.com in 2009. I put myself on camera and actually talked about something. It’s no big thing in today’s Youtube universe, but for a writer and photographer who was usually behind some kind of keyboard or camera, it was super new and terrifying. But heck, I did it, and it was a blast.

I relaunched my blog again in 2012. I had just been through hurricane Sandy and my husband and I were displaced and out of my apartment for a while. But I kept trucking. I wanted the site to be a spot for others to write, too, if they wished. My webby friend invented some new code for me so that on mobile devices, tapping once allowed you to read the title of a piece. This 2.0 version was a great little ride.

But then in 2015, I slipped through the Internet cracks, falling underneath the online sidewalk, listening to the noise and traffic above me. I’ve been down here a while now. Sometimes I poke my head out on social media. But mostly, I’ve been soaking in the world, thinking.

I didn’t take anything down. You can still see the gelled, once-upon-a-time-two-years-ago blog here. But I’ve been Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’ve been home underground. I’ve also been Daredevil, listening up on the heights. But unlike the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, I’ve been watching, too, people mostly, but nature as well. (You’d be surprised how glorious nature can be in NYC.) I even peeped out and flew from town quite a few times, galavanting as I do. Listening to other languages. Eating other things.

A Fresh Reboot

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Now, it’s time to dig in. I hereby announce to the newly minted Steemian Universe: TheGalavantGirl.com will soon be resurrected anew! I have a new webby guy. He’s on the beautiful island of Sicily coding away. In between his shots of espresso, he’s building me a new site, and I can’t help but be excited about what is soon to live there.

There will be a section called “Elise’s Table” where I write about the passionate, messy, brilliant, tasty, war-torn, squirting-tears-of-laughter, deep-in-the-heart relationship between food and humanity.

There will be “Eating Art” where I’ll dive into something artsy like a book, or play, or museum, or gallery and then review it. But it won’t be just a review. I plan to create a recipe for each adventure. Hopefully others will read, explore, cook, and “art-eat” their way into the comments.

And for a last little bit of blogging pie, I’ll share some photography. My photographic work has been about “bearing witness” to places and people. I have been documenting in a very small way on this pale blue dot the beauty of this place. It’s truly a passion.

My mother asked me (angry and upset her daughter was moving to Manhattan far away from her and family) if I was just going to “galavant around the world the rest of my life.” I answered her with a very honest and straightforward, “yes.” Hence the chosen name: TheGalavantGirl. Thankfully, she’s now wind in my sails.

A New Journey

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I don’t know why I write. I don’t know why food matters so much to me. I don’t know why I feel “soul connected” when I pick up a camera, but I do. It’s just me. I am “TheGalavantGirl,” and I hope to make some friends along this new journey. I don’t know if anything I ever create will matter to anyone. But the artist is just called to create. The rest is left to the “soup.” That big soupy universe out there. Wondrous and mysterious that it is.

So that’s me. Nice to meet you.

Elise McMullen-Ciotti, The Galavant Girl