Some people travel in the hopes of "finding themselves", getting in touch with the nebulous sense of self lurking behind the banality of everyday life. Cliche as it might sound,I think I was one of those people during my vacation to New England last week. Kind of.

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My paternal grandparents live in the rural part of Connecticut, filled with old trees growing in what was once older sheepfolds. We stayed at their house for a couple of days, both to visit with Dad's side of the family and as a base station for various college visits for Sheridan. Nature seems to pervade the area, the lawn fading into the woods with no clear demarcation. There's a couple of shrubs, some bird feeders, and then rows of thin, straight trees until the horizon.

I saw more birds those few days than I usually do in a week. Woodpeckers were mooching off the hummingbird feeder the way squirrels eat all our regular birdseed. My grandparents even had a lovely blue parakeet. It was wonderful to just watch him preen and peck around his birdcage. Whenever I simply watched the animals, the plants, or just the forest around me, I felt peaceful. Relaxed. It was a wonderful feeling.

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I seem to like Boston a lot. I've only really been there twice, once for a day trip a couple of years ago and just now for Sheridan's college visit to Emerson, but something about it seems just my style. Maybe it's the street plan. Boston was built as a city before urban planning was widely practiced, so the streets bend and meet each other at odd angles, the buildings looming over the narrow streets like a massive labyrinth. Maybe it's the fact that you can find a brick-and-mortar store that sells Catholic church supplies like priest vestments and communion chalices. (Personally, I thought that all went online.) Or maybe it's because it can support colleges like Emerson College.

While my sister, aspiring Broadway star she is, was interested in Emerson for its theatre program, I found most of what Emerson did fascinating. While it claims to be a "liberal arts school", it is quite liberal with that definition, being almost exclusively focused on the arts and communications. Emerson goes in depth in its fields, letting you study marketing, journalism, film and television, creative writing and publishing, or pretty much anything that falls under those categories. You can even major in comedy, of all things. Comedy. They have state-of-the-art TV studios that they update yearly, the chance to go on the red carpet in LA, access to a theater that makes our Fulton Theatre here in Lancaster seem like a blackbox...I just love this environment. I love that the school goes all in on the arts and it encourages you to go all in on your passions. I love being across the street from the Boston Common (and honestly, its plethora of Pokestops).

So basically, I'm considering doing grad school here. That'd be ironic if Sheridan chose this one.

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Cape Cod has always been a magical place for me. My family always went up there during the summer, and I have many wonderful memories of both just lounging around in the beach house my grandparents owned and exploring the many various towns on the Cape. There's Sandwich, with the fish hatchery and kitschy seafood places, Chatham with the wonderful small-town vibe and fancy beach hotels (with a fancy restaurant open to the public), and Provincetown with the cute little game shop and whale watches.

If I am to be truly honest, the best of those places is the beach. Well, most of the ones we've been to, anyway. I just love walking along the sand, looking at shells and feeling the seafoam lap against my legs. Sometimes, I would just stand barefoot at the edge of the ocean, staring out at the water. The waves would rush towards me, cold water flowing over my numbed feet. Occasionally a bigger one would approach, like a wall of water charging at you. When it hit, the water would be over my ankles for a moment, then swiftly pulled back towards the sea, bringing sand and shells and algae with it. If I stood there a long time, the sand would bury my feet, leaving me rooted like a tree. Eventually, you stop thinking in words, staring at the water and the waves and the line where the azure ocean meets the turquoise sky.

I'm not sure how to achieve the inner peace I found at the beach, or in Boston or the forest. As soon as I left whatever was there, I went right back to the mundane worries like trying to get writing done or getting caught up in a videogame. Although I am back in Pennsylvania, I still feel that what I found on vacation is somehow still in my reach. I just need to center myself, know what I want, and go find it.