Reflections

Hi. Remember me? I’m HannaH Jane. I used to post all kinds of stuff here regularly – my writing, recipes, projects I’d done (with or without the collaboration of my husband), travel adventures, ponderings about various aspects of life. Over the past couple years, my writings have been mostly limited to my handwritten journals, and as far as you all knew, I just fell off the world or, likely a more accurate description, ceased to exist. That’s the way the internet works, right?

Surprise! Here I am, popping back into existence.

What happened? Honestly? Life did. I was involved with a massive development project at work. In the time since beginning this site, I changed careers from teacher to software developer. And in the past two and a half years, that area of my life has demanded the bulk of my energy and time. Since, like you, I am not infinite, some areas of my life simply had to be abandoned for some time, especially once the travel started. I have been on the road Monday through Friday almost every week of the past year and a half. This time has, in more that metaphorical ways, been a journey. But in the words of JRR Tolkien’s beloved Samwise Gamgee, “Well, I’ll back.”

I titled this piece Reflections because I am doing just that. It is New Year’s Day 2020, and I’m sure plenty of you are reflecting as well – learning from the past so that the new can be even better; rejoicing perhaps that the old is past and the new is now; perhaps expressing gratitude for the blessings and lessons of 2019 and other years gone by. I suppose I am doing all of the above. I am not the person who left home mid-2018, and that is as it should be. If I had not changed, we can all assume I would just be dead. No one can pass through such change without changing oneself. The woman from July 2018 seems naïve, a bit selfish, rigid, resistant, and reactive. Obviously, she was strong and enduring. She made it to January 2020, so in that light, I will give her my admiration and gratitude. I will also not mourn her passing. A reflection is in many ways, an altered perspective (caused of course by light bouncing back to our eyes). In reflections, we see in ways we haven’t before, and the details they reveal can be invaluable if we will only pay attention.

So what is coming here on HannaH Jane Writes? Well, I promise my 2019 booklist here in a few days, and in the coming weeks, we will get back to some of my writings, recipes, adventures, and projects. It will be the same, but also different. When you go “there and back again”, expect to be changed.

Happy New Year!