Four years ago, Melissa Hawks set off to have the adventure of a lifetime solo traveling Europe and the UK and ended up in the middle of a war for her life.
Her trip began with her walking the Camino up the Portuguese coast into Spain, then exploring Ireland and Italy. Her journeys take her from Porto to Dublin to Amalfi to Florence, the beautiful Umbrian countryside, and the many tiny coastal towns in each country she visits.
These essays and poetry were written not long after her trip in 2019 and 2020. There have been some edits for flow and to remove an excessive amount of dramatic sentences written in all caps. But, the impact of these stories lies often in the unexpected or messy, hard moments of its telling. To honor that journey, she tried to keep this as it was written without the added wisdom of time. These collected essays and poems contain allusions to the impact trauma and abuse made on Melissa's perception of herself and her relationships but these are not the salacious details of those traumas.
Instead they tell the stories of her journey, the places she visited, and the folks whose appearance in her story changed her life. These stories may make you laugh, some will probably make you cry or rage but all of them will see you falling a little bit in love with the angels and surfers, sea gods and witches she meets along the way.
TW:
themes of suicide, mental health challenges
allusions to sexual trauma, domestic violence, child abuse
