The Aftertrip Begins

This fuzzy little picture is what I snapped from my night tonight in Seattle. This is how I want to spend more nights: listening to a Jazz-Funk band from Mali while I alternate between dancing with childhood friends and chatting up visiting Spaniards.

So, yeah, I'd say my life's pretty good right now. Even if I haven't written here.

It's not a coincidence. This is a travel blog. It's been a long time since I've been on the road. But you're going to start seeing more posts here again soon. I'm going back to traveling for a little while.

This won't be the massive round-the-world trip like last time. This is just for a couple of weeks. They say that travel writing teaches you more about the writer's home than their destination. I guess this little trip is a way to do that a little more explicitly. This time, instead of reaching outward, I'm going to reach in.

This means my land, my history, and my family. Anyone who knows me well knows how much my family means to me. I am starting in the city I was born in, going to the cattle ranch where my mom grew up, then next to my father's childhood and my college days in Chicago. From there it's off to North Carolina with My father's sister and my cousins. Then up to Virginia where the most famous of my ancestors called home. A pit stop in my homeland's capital city, then back up to its biggest hub and the place I've decided will be my new home: New York City.

It will feel good to dust off the backpack and hit the road again. I've been reasonably busy here in Seattle, among other things, breaking into the theater scene with my first professional gig as an actor (good part, too).

But it's a weird feeling. It's almost as if I'm not entirely here sometimes. For me, it feels like I've been here ages. For everyone around me, old friends, family, I guess it feels like I basically just dropped in to say hello before I left again. When it takes you a week to plan having coffee with someone, you perceive time differently than when you spend that same amount of time visiting four or five Japanese cities, exploring the most famous Edo-style style castle, and summiting the island's tallest mountain. Everything happens so much more slowly when you're home.

Too slowly for me, now. It's time to get out and roam again.