Of Wanderings and Words Has Moved

New Horizons — Rendered by the author in DALL-E

Hello, wanderer! This blog has officially moved to a new home on Ghost. You can now find all future posts here:

👉 https://shannonhilson.ghost.io/

All recent posts from this cycle of my writing life on Blogger have been migrated, so nothing’s lost, just replanted in fresher, more nurturing soil. The look may be different, but the writing, reflections, and odd fragments you know and love from Of Wanderings and Words are still exactly the same.

The Blogger version of Wanderings will remain up for a little while longer, so old links still work, but all new posts will appear on Ghost moving forward. You can now also subscribe to my posts, so you're always on top of what's new, as Ghost offers that option. It's completely free and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

That said, thanks for walking this meadow with me here over the years. If you’d like to keep wandering with me, I’d love for you to follow along. 

See you in the new space!

— Shannon

Leaving the Meadow (Sort Of): Why I’m Moving from Blogger to Ghost

Leaving Step — Rendered by the author in Midjourney

Believe me, I'm all too aware that there’s a certain irony to writing an almost-goodbye post for a blogging platform on… well, that very same blogging platform. It’s like breaking up with someone over dinner at their favorite restaurant. “The breadsticks are great, but I really think we should see other people.”

So, friends, here we are. This is me letting you know that Of Wanderings and Words will be moving soon. Don't worry. It’s not a dramatic eviction or a panicked midnight suitcase situation or anything like that. More like a bittersweet graduation — a natural step forward, even if I still feel the tug of the old meadow I’ve been tending for so many years running now.

The Blogger Meadow

I’ve always thought of Blogger as something of a meadow, especially in recent years. A little wild, a little neglected, but still alive in its own way. The grass grows high here, flowers pop up unannounced, and nobody’s really trimming the hedges with any regularity. It’s not pristine or perfect, but it’s always felt like a place where you can wander in, kick off your shoes, and just… be.

That was the appeal for me when I restarted this blog earlier this year. I didn’t have to worry about algorithms, subscriber counts, or even whether anyone would find what I wrote. And because of that, I wrote differently.

Some of my favorite posts happened here precisely because there wasn’t pressure. Take my recent Slacker essay, for example. That piece sprouted in the meadow without me even trying for anything specific, and it ended up resonating more than I expected. It was a welcome reminder that sometimes my best writing happens when I stop aiming for “important” all the time and just write like nobody’s watching.

Blogger gave me that. And for that, I’ll always be grateful.

Here I Am, For Real

On selfies, tarot spreads, and showing more of the face behind the words

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about faces lately. Not just the ones we show to the world, but also the ones we hide, as well as the ones that slip out in quiet moments when we think no one’s really looking.

Yesterday was Seth's birthday, and we had a little Lord of the Rings fire pit party planned. I wanted to clean up a little bit out back, get things ready, and maybe cut some flowers for a table centerpiece before it got too late in the day. 

I also spontaneously decided it was a good opportunity to brush out my hair, put on some simple makeup, and maybe snap a quick selfie or two. (It had been a while.) 

So I did that and shared one of the selfies across my social media platforms, just for a little something different. Nothing super staged, just me as I was on a sunny Saturday afternoon, pro "pineapple on pizza" t-shirt, sigil rings, and all. People loved it, as it had been a while since I'd really shared anything raw, behind the scenes, or completely unfiltered.

That, combined with how far back a Facebook friend recently had to dig into my timeline to find real pictures of me, made me realize I need to share more of this. Not because mysticism, myth-making, art, and creativity somehow aren’t real (because they absolutely are), but because even the best creative content can start to feel disembodied if I never anchor them back to the ordinary human face that’s living them into existence.

So this is me floating some of the same energy into my long-form writing spaces, tea in hand, freckles and shadows intact.

Faces Matter

Something I've noticed over my many years as a ghostwriter, copywriter, and essay writer of all stripes (and have been reminded of). People don’t truly fall in love with content. They fall in love with the people and stories behind it.

The articles, the images, the mystical fragments — those things might absolutely draw someone in who's never been to your world before, but what keeps them watching is ultimately the human heartbeat underneath it all. When I share my writing or my artwork without ever showing the person creating it, I imagine it can start to feel like it came from nowhere, like my voice is floating at people from out of a void instead of from another human.

The truth is, most of us want to know who’s behind the words. We want to see the face that laughs at its own bad jokes, the hands that shuffle the cards, the eyes that have cried through the lessons someone is now writing about. That’s what makes it real and keeps it relatable.

So showing my own face here for the first time in a while, freckles and all, is my way of saying, "Yes, the things I write about are real, but so am I." I'll do my best to make it a regular thing moving forward.

The Myth of Being “Done” (and Why I Don't Buy It)

Because life doesn’t come with an expiration date, no matter what society tells you

Expiration Date – Rendered by the author in Midjourney

By now, we're all pretty familiar with the unspoken cultural norm that says once you reach a certain age, life quietly rolls down the shutters on you, whether you're ready or not. The fun is supposed to be over. You’re no longer “the target demographic,” no longer the shiny thing in the spotlight. If life were a high school cafeteria, you’ve basically been quietly reassigned to the side table with the wilted salad at that point.

Naturally, no one really says any of this out loud (except when they do). It’s more in the way advertising pivots away from you, in the roles women are offered in movies, in the slightly pitying tone people use when they say things like, “Well, at least you don’t have to worry about all that anymore.” The underlying meaning is that your days of being alive-alive are over, so please enjoy your new hobbies — couponing, knitting, and hoping for grandkids.

Well, I'm here to tell that that’s nonsense.

The Myth of Being "Done"

If you’re a woman, especially, you’ve probably already felt it, even if you're still young. It's like someone stamps this social expiration date across your forehead at some point in your 30s or 40s. By then, apparently, your best hair days are behind you, your skin is now public property for retinol marketing campaigns, and if you still want to feel attractive or adventurous? Well, that’s honestly seen as kind of sad.

But here’s the thing that I've personally noticed. The desire to feel beautiful or alive doesn't necessarily go away. Society just keeps telling you it should. Like, “Thanks for playing, we’ll take it from here. Go sit down.” And it’s maddening.

It's also problematic because we eventually start to absorb those messages and believe them. Even people who don’t consciously subscribe to the idea that fun, beauty, and vitality are youth-only clubs can still feel it creeping in. Even people like me, who've never really valued social norms or cared about meeting them. That gnawing little whisper inside: 

"Maybe it really is over. Maybe I’ve already had my shot at life."

But then something happens.

The Loitering God Manifesto

On wasting time with dignity, and why it might be the holiest thing you can do

Somewhere out there – in the alley behind your favorite coffee shop, perched on a bench at the edge of the park, or leaning casually against the convenience store wall – lives a god you won’t find in any official pantheon. 

This god doesn’t ask for tithes, penance, or a 10-point productivity plan. He doesn't have a spreadsheet for your soul. His temple is a bus stop with a schedule that never quite lines up. His hymn is the click of a half-melted ice cube in a paper cup. His holy text is oddly elegant graffiti scrawled on the bathroom wall.

I call him the Loitering God. 

And honestly? I think we need him now more than ever.

Who (or What) Is the Loitering God?

The Loitering God is the patron saint of “hanging around.” Of lingering where you don’t technically “need” to be. Of moments that don’t look like much on the calendar but end up meaning so much more than the so-called big-ticket events.

This god is not here for hustle. Don't expect him to make an appearance to bless your 10,000 steps, your inbox zero, or your color-coded planner. Instead, he blesses the cigarette break, the side-street wander, and the leaning-too-long on a railing while your mind drifts far away somewhere, deliciously off-track.

Where other gods might demand sacrifice, the Loitering God simply asks you to waste some time with dignity.

The Holy Articles of Loitering

The Loitering God isn't big on rules and rigid ways of doing things. But if he were inclined to give you a few directives to follow, I imagine they'd read a little like this.

1. Thou shalt waste time without shame

Sit on the curb. Watch ants. Reorganize the fridge magnets into an epic poem. Follow all those weird little urges you get to do something just to satisfy your curiosity. In the Loitering God's world, none of this is a waste.

2. The bench is an altar

Every time you sit without rushing, you consecrate the act of existing in the space you're in. Plastic bench at a bus stop? Sacred. The grass outside the laundromat? Holy ground. 

3. To dawdle is divine

The universe doesn’t need you to move through it at full tilt all the time. Sometimes the most miraculous thing you can do is stall, wander, pause, and see what appears in the gaps.