Yonder is one of those words that I love for the memories and feelings it evokes. For me it has ties to childhood and family, to places heavy with significance, and to lost loved ones.

It’s not a word in common use: for most it will recall the musing of Shakespeare’s Romeo, “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?” or the limitless skies of the “wide blue yonder”.

My first thought, though, is always of when as a young child I would hear my Grandma say that she was “just going in yonder” when she’d go from her living room into the next room to fetch something. I had no idea what it meant back then: on one memorable occasion following a visit I asked my mum, “Have we got a yonder?”

My yonder will always be a magical realm where the promise of the road ahead melds with the dreams of childhood. It’s my Narnia, my Hundred Acre Wood. It’s the home that I carry in my heart, the place towards which I steer my steps.

I’ve been lost, but now I’m starting to feel that my direction is true once more. I’m going yonder; I’m going where I belong and where I will finally find myself.

My Yonder Project

All of this is why I’ve chosen Yonder as the name for a creative project through while I will document and explore my journey through life, trauma, mental illness, and (hopefully) towards some measure of resolution and peace.

Yonder is aspiration, yonder is hope, yonder is the path ahead.