Last Dispatch from America

I'm looking across the concourse now out into the New York skyline 15-odd miles away and it's still not real. It comes in flashes... trying to explain to Jacob for the final time that I was going to be away for awhile. Izak and Rebecca crying with me. Saying goodbye to my father... hell, even writing about it. But it's still not quite real.

Saying goodbye to Jacob was the hardest. His denials that I was leaving are my only clue that he kind of understands. My attempts to illustrate how long a year is by browsing through a calander were a bit futile in retrospect. "You'll be five when I come back home," didn't seem to sink either; "but I'm four..."

Last night I was feeling really selfish. I'm missing some of the best years of Jacob's life before he turns into a rotten brat like the others. I'm flying out while Carson undergoes chemo in Wolfson's. I really can't convince myself this is anything other than some elaborate scheme to get someone else to subsidize a prolonged vacation. I'll get over it though.

I told Izak there was a signficant amount of good in us closing things out, this chapter anyway, on our own terms instead of letting things just fade away with benign neglect. Every moment I've spent with family and friends over the past few weeks has been held in the highest esteem in my mind, not a moment wasted, not a word left unsaid that needed to come out. I'm going to miss everyone like hell and I needed that. Maybe we all needed it. You don't recognize what things mean till they're gone.

I leave you with two pictures. The first is my last view of Jacksonville. The second is my view out the window of the Manhatten skyline as I type this.

Much love.

Going Away Parties

Some pictures are upside down, but whatever. I'll write more later.

Flickr photoset of Going Away Parties.

Much love guys, really. I'll see you on the other side.

Going Away Parties

The parties were awesome. Really. Everything worked out as perfectly as I could have ever hoped. It was a farewell I'll never forget. Both Izak and my parents rock for hosting us. For those who had to turn around from the Green Cove party because T-Mobile shut my phone off early after charging me $200 for not being able to provide Chinese land deeds... please express profane thoughts about corporate America and send the negative energy there way every time you drive buy. Those guys are bastards.



MC Seth












Flickr photoset of the Going Away Parties.

Much love guys, really. I'll see you on the other side.

Tags: Treyopia going away parties Jacksonville photography

Last Dispatch from Riverside

T minus two days.

It's getting weird. Last night was weirdest of all. It's one thing buying tickets and running around town preparing for my grand exit... but throwing away most of the accumulated "stuff" I've gathered over the years was tough. Weirdest of all was tossing clothes. Anybody who knows me knows that I am not a fashionable man. I'm as anti-trend as they come and I buy for durability and minimalism. But, man... throwing clothes away was hard. I have a giant yardwork garbage bag of the old band t-shirts and whatnot that I couldn't give away. It's going in the attic. Diane is letting me stay downstairs now that someone else has moved upstairs. I was up till 6:30 last night finishing up clearing the flat out then woke up again at 11:30 to help her move in.

A lot of people want to know how I feel... well, here are some thoughts:

First I feel like I'm about to slam into a brick wall. Not in a bad way... it's just I'm moving very fast towards something large and beyond my knowledge. I have no idea what China is or what the Chinese are like. It's just a big one-dimensional block that is directly in front of me that encompasses all of my peripheral vision.

Second, I feel like I'm committing some ritualistic suicide. This is harder to explain and there's no reason to freak out, it's not as macabre as it sounds. It has a lot to do with Nick and Richard's deaths and my justification thereof... but I'm more or less killing the life I've spent a decade building in Jacksonville. I'm fully aware of the realities that I'll never hear from most of the people I hung with in my years here ever again. That's fine, that's life anyway... it just exacerbates when you move overseas. It's suicide in that I'm killing off that part of my life where I have to at least try to fit in, where I have to get the 9-5, where I'm supposed to be looking for a breeding partner, buy house, talk mutual funds, watch American Idol... all that stuff. It's not me.

I don't fit into the mainstream of American culture and the corruption and commodification of the counter-culture ideal is more repulsive every day. Out here in Riverside, even bikes become trendy. People sing songs about them, where shirts with them, name bands after them.... and hey, I love bicycles and deplore what cars have done to the sub/urban landscape... but at some point it looses any real meaning and becomes a fashionable trend like rolling the legs on your jeans up.

It sounds more dark than it really is, but this life I know is dead. Once I step foot on that plane, it's gone... and I'm doing it to myself.