The human mind is a curious thing.
I fell fully in love with literature back in high school, while studying different authors and genres. But when you don’t cultivate the garden of knowledge you possess for some time, the flowers wither and the shapes blur.

That’s exactly what happened with Bram Stoker.

I read Dracula for the first time when I was seventeen and have reread it a few times since. However, over time, the life of the author became secondary to me—like so many others did once adulthood’s priorities took hold. I couldn’t even remember that he was from Dublin during my first visit to this country in 2023. Oh, the blissful ignorance!

But then, all of a sudden, I heard the call again. Something pulled softly at that thread in my soul, like a whisper behind the mist. A summoning home. And I’m not talking about “home” only in the figurative sense.

For those of you who might not know—finding a place to live in Dublin isn’t easy. It’s usually much simpler once you’re already here. It took me a few weeks to find place of my own when I first decided to move to this beautiful country. Yet, somehow, I found it even before landing.

Ireland brought me back to literature, and to the pillars where that love was born in the first place. Dracula and Bram Stoker found their way back to me. And here’s the most poetic (non)coincidence of all: it turns out I now live not far from the house he once called home. I walk past it every morning on my way to work, and all of this is like the most poetic (non)coincidence woven by the Universe itself into the tapestry of my own destiny and this journey I try to portray with my own pen and ink.

Every kind of art is an organic form that transforms with time and is subject to the perspective of the spectator and their own experiences. Of course, there is always a “correct” way to analyse a piece, yet no two people will ever see it in exactly the same way. And even their vision will change depending on the time in their lives when they encounter it. Even as we write our own stories, chapter by chapter, everything shifts and transforms.

Consciously or unconsciously, the Wheel of Fortune brought me to Dublin, where I am reconnecting with my love for literature, my fingers stained in ink. I find myself returning to Bram Stoker’s park every time my impostor syndrome starts creeping back in, seeking advice and reassurance in the path once walked by the genius of others. There, I am learning to listen to my own voice—and to silence the noise of fear, the kind of fear that kills the soul. Because sometimes, not even the stones will hold our names for all eternity. In our quest for eternal glory and remembrance, we often forget that first, we must forge our legacy by finding the courage to take the first step outside the box of our own limitations.

With love,

A.