Between Relics and Legends: My First Dreams of Adventure | by Deirdre Foreman | Sep, 2025
Every passion has an origin, a spark hidden in the folds of childhood. Mine came wrapped in adventure, dust, and legends — and it never really left me.
I was five years old, and the world was still an unknown place, an ancient book full of blank pages waiting to be written. Then, one evening, everything changed. On the television screen appeared a man with a dusty hat and a whip in his hand. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It wasn’t just a movie, it was a door to a world I didn’t know existed, and I stepped through it without hesitation.
From that moment on, adventure became my reality. Summer afternoons turned into expeditions in search of ancient treasures hidden beneath the sand of the courtyard. Armed with a toy shovel and flashlight, I dug for relics that, to others, were just stones — but to me, they were fragments of a forgotten past. Every corner of the house could conceal a mystery: under the bed, in my grandmother’s drawers, between the yellowed pages of old books.
Then came the TV series: The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Relic Hunter, Stargate. Stories that told me real archaeology wasn’t just about digs and dust, but about puzzles to solve, cultures to understand, entire civilizations to bring back to light. They weren’t just games — they were lessons disguised as adventures, pushing me to ask: who were these people who lived before us? What languages did they speak? What stories did they tell?
At the time, I knew nothing about mythology or anthropology, but I felt there was something ancient calling me. The more I grew, the more my journey strayed from the usual paths: I wasn’t interested in the most famous pyramids or the ruins everyone already talked about. I dreamed of walking among the pagodas of China, touching the carved stones of Thailand, losing myself in the legends of the Philippines. I was fascinated by the Celts and the Norse, by runes etched into wood, by stories of warriors and gods carved into ice and wind. I didn’t just want to know — I wanted to discover.
I was ready for anything. I knew real archaeology wasn’t like in the movies: no deadly traps, no chases on rope bridges. But I also knew that every unearthed object had a story to tell, and I wanted to be there to listen. Yet while I dreamed of the past, the adult world was looking forward. “It’s not a real job,” they said. “It’s wasted effort, there’s no money in it.” They pushed me toward safer, more practical, more concrete paths.
And so, the adventure was interrupted. But it never truly ended. Even today, when I dive into a book on ancient history or watch a documentary about the ruins of Angkor Wat, I feel that spark inside me. The little girl with the flashlight and the shovel is still here, hidden between the pages of my story, ready to resurface at the first opportunity. Because real dreams never disappear — they only hide under layers of dust, waiting to be rediscovered.
