Who

1. I am an emigrant who writes love letters.
2. ‘Dervala’ is my Ellis Island name. It’s really spelled ‘Dearbhaile’. (And pronounced DER-vla, not der-VA-la, in case you’re wondering.)
3. I am an ENFP / INFP hybrid. Enneagram Type 4 with a 5 wing. (Yes, I love that nonsense.)

Where

1. I was born in Zambia. Raised in Ireland.
2. I used to live in Brooklyn. (Manhattan before that. London before that. Dublin before that. Spain before that.)
3. Then I took a year off to travel in Thailand, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
4. Then I lived in a log cabin at Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario.
5. I moved to another log cabin on Kedey Island, Ottawa, Ontario.
6. I went home to Ireland at the end of 2003.
7. I moved back to Brooklyn in February 2004.
8. Now I live on a hill in San Francisco.

What

I like: people, big cities, wilderness, reading, yoga, hiking, canoeing, poetry, biking, exploring, listening, cooking, meditation, writing, wine, music, movies, celebrity gossip, newness, stories, generosity, solitude, water access, balance, and talking.

I’m interested in: nationality, user interface design, the power of place, industrial design, materialism, ecology, consumer technology, evolutionary psychology, child-rearing in the developing world, Buddhism, language, market forces, architecture, families, human rights law, mental health, and diversity.

I don’t care for: cars, criticism, US Immigration policy, inflexibility, poor public transport, overscheduled childrearing, fennel, fog, and waste.

Why

When I set up my first Blogger account in 2001, the form asked for a tagline. For want of anything better, I put “A love letter.” By the time I had a few hundred thousand words on the clock, it got a bit clearer what I’d meant by that.

It’s all about lurve, baby.

I blog for the same reasons that Alistair Cooke read those Letters From America until he was ninety-six or seven. I’m an emigrant. My family is thousands of miles away, and my friends are scattered around the world. Each entry is a letter home, wherever that is, and it’s also a letter about home, wherever that might be.

It’s a love letter to kids not yet born, and to the friends, strangers, sisters, lovers, and classmates who might stop by.

And it’s mostly (even when I’m cranky) a letter about the things, people, and places that I love. I could store up enthusiasms until I burst, but writing them down is a better way to absorb and share them.

My blog is a message in a bottle with a FedEx tracking number. Hello World.