I’m a flower child who was raised on sun shine & rock n’ roll along the sandy shores of Oak Island, North Carolina. A town that’s approximately 14 miles long and 7,000 people strong.
Growing up a stone’s throw from the ocean means a piece of my soul will always reside in the sand. Yet, I keep my arms open to adventure with passport firmly in hand. It may sound like my head is up in the clouds, but stick with me and you’ll see I’m pretty down to Earth.
I can’t carry a tune to save my life, but I consider music’ my religion and Bob Dylan the Pope. I like to say, if my heart were a compass it would lead you dancing, reading, writing, and traveling.
I am a US Historian by major, but a writer by nature.
During my undergraduate at UNC Chapel Hill, I focused my studies on the world beyond 1900 / the political & social movements of 20th century America. For my twenty-five page history thesis, I explored the politicization of rock n’ roll and how it created a medium of communication within the counterculture movement. I sought to answer the question, “why did Woodstock, and it’s three days of peace, love, and music, come to represent the 1960’s as a whole which was America’s most violent, volatile, and divisive decade?”
Realizing I had more questions than answers, I decided to take inspiration from my counterculture predecessors and solo-backpack around the world after graduating from UNC at the spry, wide-eyed age of twenty-two. I was equipped with a carry-on sized backpack, ample youthful exuberance, and the gusto for letting experience be my guru.
I originally planned to wander around Europe and South East Asia for eight months, but forty-eight hours after touching down in Cambodia;
Oddities odyssey called to me, it was then I knew
normalcy was forever my adversary.
Destined to be a renegade revolving on the backside of reality,
I decided perma-vagabond was the life for me.
After traveling across 5 continents, 26 countries, and racking up more miles than Major Tom, in over two and a half years, I decided to call Northern California my new home base where I live with my boyfriend Brennan and pet cat, Jake (he adopted us.)
Brennan and I met while I was pin-balling around the west coast and living out of my car in 2017. We spent a few months traveling across Africa and Europe before officially dating and now the rest is history in the making. The two of us have some worldly expeditions planned, but in the meantime, we are living the farmer life.
When my hands aren’t in the dirt, pressing flowers, making jam, baking bread, or preforming any other task the farm life call for, they are crafting poetry, satire, historical fiction, or thought-provoking articles.
I’m attracted to street art, a firm believer it’s never too cold for ice cream, I praise the Gods for the love of oatmeal, possess horribull spelling skills, but an insatiable appetite for vocabulary, I photograph all that catches my eye, find entomology enthralling, but have a mild phobia of stickers.
I’ve been known to; craft in the woods, throw a pretzel stick arm during a friendly bout of hacky sack, habitually lock my keys in my car, prattle in a fake British accent, laugh at my own corny puns, rap a lil’ Eminem and dance like a wacky-waving inflatable arm man.
I am a part time vegetarian, but a full time wanderer starving to live life like my favorite pair of red Vans.
So stay tuned,
because one of these days I just might come to a city near you!
Cheers & Always Good Vibes,
Rita
That Blonde Vagabond 