About Me — Tasmin Hansmann
When the island called me, I could not resist
Born and raised in Germany, I always felt a little different, like something was out of place. Despite living in the same small town my whole life, I never truly felt at home.
When I traveled to the Azores Archipelago in 2015, it hit me like a lightning strike when my foot first touched the ground of that tiny airport. This is where I belong. And the following week proved me right. The beauty was breathtaking and I had never felt such peace. Ever since the longing to return almost consumed me.
I graduated in 2017 with a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from the LMU Munich. I had a degree but I was so lost. I wanted to be an author, a writer, a storyteller, a poet, but society did not let me. I had to find a “proper” job they said. So I sent applications and went to interviews and, to my surprise, got multiple jobs offered to me. But something was not quite right. I hesitated to accept.
Then I discovered an (unpaid) internship on Pico Island, Azores. It was madness, but every cell in my body screamed YES. So I threw all those great career opportunities in Germany out of the window and decided to pack my bag and move.
It was hard. Not pretty, not beautiful, just really really hard.
I had carried a trauma with me that crashed over me like a wave. I had never lived by myself, let alone thousands of kilometers from every mainland or city in the middle of the ocean. I did not speak the language, I did not make any friends, I was mentally and physically sick to the core. I was alone.
No one was coming to save me. So I saved myself.
Even in those darkest of months, I still saw the beauty. I still felt like I was in the right place. I knew that the volcano, Pico Mountain, and the ocean protected me and guided me to the future I was meant to have.
And slowly, very slowly, I allowed healing to unfold.
The year after my return to Germany was a whirlwind. I broke up with a long-term partner and suffered heartbreak and anxiety and a lot of uncertainty. I was unhappy. So I made the only possible decision:
I bought a One Way Ticket to the islands.
With no job, barely any savings, and not even a place to live. But it was the only way forward. I had to follow my heart.
The Universe has a thing for rewarding you after facing challenges and so, after another few tough weeks after moving to the island, things suddenly fell into place. I met the love of my life, I started to make friends, I had some of the most beautiful days of my life and when I thought I had to leave due to money issues, I got offered an ideal job out of nowhere. I could not believe it.
Everything seemed perfect. But at the end of 2020, I lost my job.
I had no intention of leaving the island and jobs here are rare, especially in the winter during a pandemic with no tourism. So I decided to make my lifelong dream become a reality:
I became a full-time writer.
Both, as a freelancer and an author, I am making my way. I published two books in the first year and document my life on the islands on my YouTube channel. My passion is now my job.
I also started to garden and that changed my life. I suddenly had this intimate connection with nature and I became even more aware of the issues we face in the wake of the climate crisis.
I dedicated my work to the planet.
I became an environmentalist and started to un-learn everything I ever knew and ever was and to truly listen to my surroundings, to activists and scientists and indigenous people. It is a long path that I am still on, but I am willing to learn every single day.
I am a big advocate for living your dreams. But in order to do that, we need to allow Nature to enter into our minds and souls, to transform us, to be open to something more than we learned growing up, and to get uncomfortable along the way. It will be worth it, I promise.
