fuck-it-all forays to detroit (a term coined by joseph kirk scott)

visiting home feels to me like a giant portal from the other side of the world. you step into this huge flying machine and after one and a half 'vegetarian' meals, three ginger ales and some lightly salted pretzels you find yourself at those heroic gates exiting the airport to be greeted into the arms of someone you once knew; i'm lucky because my mom comes to pick me up and her hugs are always the same.

coming home is naturally weird but for short visits i have learned to adapt to differences and actually it gets only weirder the longer i have been gone. everyone seems to think that the increasing number of babies hanging out in my tribe are responsible for my culture shock but i think its absolutely amazing. its actually the babies who have made my visit very joyful and proud moreover. i've got some really amazing friends and i've watched them turn into amazing fathers and mothers. its quite a blessing and they are almost as lucky as their children are.



so as the first day closes to an end i grab a glass bottle of unsweetened lipton ice tea and a can of pringles and i comfortably drift off to sleep on my parents blue couch where i've rested my traveling head so many times before. but its the next morning when the fun begins.

you never know where the hell you are when you wake up that morning. in fact, if it weren't for the looming painting of a lighthouse keeper hung above my parents couch i would really need some time for morning adjustment. i think this is when it actually begins to hit me that i'm home. i've spent the evening with my family and a few aunts and uncles and cousins and now its time to bridge that last gap between my past and future in all of its beautiful oblivion: my friends.

seeing your friends is fucking amazing. its so amazing that you lose appropriate adjectives to describe how amazing it is. you run through your head the thousands of stories you want to share but instead you dont care so much, you'd rather make new stories in that short week that you are together. thats exactly what happened this week and its funny to me when my parents ask me about my friends and whats going on in their lives and really i dont know, i just know that its great to spend some time with them and howl at the moon together for a while. morning coffee is the time to catch up on each others' lives, nighttime is when we simply celebrate our togetherness.

and here i am again.. widdled down to my final day and final night in detroit and its expectedly introspective. its days like this that i begin to wonder about what to do next. this glorious year 2012 is going to take me almost farther than i've ever gone in this world (samoa doesn't count.. thats really really far). i'm off to see the end of this world and 2012 is a perfectly appropriate year to do so.



there it is.. patagonia, argentina - the end of the world as we know it. this story is about to get really really interesting.