Next Steps

Woohoo! I have my own site to experiment on. There's a lot more I need to do to make it my own. I want to learn TailwindCSS. Back in the day Bootstrap was my go to but it seems like Tailwind offers much more customization which is what I'm going for. Then for the experiences I want to create I was looking at a few different options. As of now, I've settled on GSAP which I couldn't be more excited for. It's the exact kind of cool scrolling and animation experiences I want to create.

For instance, one idea I've had ever since I was a teenager was an animated scroll experience for this poem by William Woodsworth:

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

To me it's just such a beautiful poem with such vivid imagery it's begging to be animated and embellished by the kind of thing I'm hoping to make. As I read it so many cool ideas are coming to me that could even add meaning to the poem, like at the start the explorer is a young man and in the end on his couch he is an old man. Who knows, but first I need to learn GSAP.

I think a good place to start once I've gone through the basic introduction is a page with some rolling hills and a blue sky and as you scroll more and more daffodils sprout up out of the ground. Sort of like when the forest God steps across the meadow in Princess Mononoke:

From there I can start to chip away at the full poem and making a stunning experience. My friend Nikita just got accepted into a grad school program for poetry so I'd love to get good enough to animate some of her poems one day. All exciting stuff, that's all for now!

--Tarek