Kitty Hawk

This is Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It's on the Outer Banks. My grandparents lived here in the 70s and 80s, and my parents lived here on and off before I was born. From 1985-1990, my family vacationed in a small cottage on the ocean at the site where most of these pictures were taken. It was condemned in the early 90s and washed away sometime between 1999 and 2003 (along with most of the other houses on the ocean in Kitty Hawk).

My grandmother lived near here from 1992 until she died in 1995, and we kept her house until 1999. I returned in 2001, 2003, and 2004. My family spent a Thanksgiving here once.

This is the longest I've been away from it -- the last seven years. I felt that I had to bring my wife here to see the place, since I am rooted here in strange ways that can't be explained verbally. It lurks in my mind. Some of my earliest, clearest, and most beautiful memories are here. It hurts to see so many of the old buildings gone, washed into the ocean. Despite some over-development in the intervening years, I still think it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been (and I've been to a few).

Explanation of absence

I never wrote about China like I said I would. It was too much. The end result was that I felt somehow grafted into a new family. Ambivalence permeated our time there -- China is an utterly fantastic place, full of kind and honorable people, choking in smog, oppression, and corruption.

Ten days after we came home, I left again for a 40-day tour of Europe with Rosetta. I made a conscious choice not to take a camera on that tour, because I wanted to see what it was like just to look and remember, instead of feeling an imperative to record everything visually. It was freeing and I am glad I did it. We played 36 shows in 16 countries and traveled through 47 cities in 41 days. Coming home was a nightmare because of missed flights and lost luggage, which caused 7 cancellations in the US and Canada. That colored the memories in a bad way, but I hope that they will become more "accurate" with time.

I have never been away from home so much in my life. It's October. Since the beginning of the year, I have been gone for 110 days in total. There are tradeoffs involved in that level of mobility, tradeoffs which I increasingly think are not worthwhile.

Anyway, that's why I seemingly never write anything here anymore. It might change, who knows.