It’s been quite some time since I have posted here. There’s no point in apologizing or promising to be more dedicated in my postings because I’ve done that before, and these are only promises to myself. Truth of it, the reason I haven’t posted photos or poems or updates is because I haven’t had the desire. In the past two year’s I barely have even journaled. I hadn’t thought much about it or even missed it, but after I returned to the states and opened my boxes, that had been stored at a friends house  while I was gone, I found at least 50 to 75 journals. I had written in these journals over the course of the past 26 years, and it occurred to me that I actually did write. I imagine there was some reason inside me that I’ve decided to remain quiet. Perhaps it has to do with my mom’s death and absorbing all of those feelings, and existential crises that I still am unable to grasp to a level of applying words. No matter. They’ll come if they want to. I did get the writer bug back again. Thank god. I did miss it. I said I didn’t, but obviously, I was lying. I missed having a project and a drive. I don’t feel like sharing my ideas here because I find that it is just a form of procrastination that I have created. I talk about what I’m going to write, and then that’s where all of the energy goes. This time I’ll just keep it to the actual project.

As for a recap of 2013-2015 it goes a bit like this- in a timeline:

July 2013, leave Portland Oregon; visit mom in Chico, visit Paradise, then San Francisco for visa, and Fremont to see dad; August 25th, 2013: Arrive in Zhengzhou, China and become a literature teacher; Go to Shaolin Temple; Jan-Feb, 2014: holiday- it’s vacation time, Go to Vietnam, Go to Australia, return to Zhengzhou and four days letter get a message that my mother is dead. Mother’s time of death; Feb, 19, 2014 two weeks after her 64th birthday, six days before my 41st; fly to California: Chico, Paradise, Trinidad, Eureka, San Francisco-all to carry her ashes. Return to Zhengzhou for work. May, 2014 finally get the death certificate and report: mother died from a methamphetamine overdose. July: Kaifeng, Xi’an. August 25th 2014, leave China and spend one day in Seoul; August 26 arrive in Prague. Begin TEFL program in September; Trip to Switzerland. October; Ceske Budejovice, Cesky Krumluv, back to Prague to work for a visa; Berlin to apply, Berlin to pick up; work in Brno, Czech Republic, then to Warsaw for a day and volunteer in Zabuze, Poland; return to Prague; work in Malacky, Slovakia, work in Tercianske Stankovce, Slovakia, work in Surany, Slovakia, work in Bratislava, Slovakia, work in Bratislava again- all small country towns and small villages. Christmas in Poland. New Year’s in Prague. January 2015 work in Prague all over the city; work in Beroun, Czech Republic; visit to Jablonce, Czech Republic; back to Warsaw, to Zawidowice, Poland; Wisniew, Poland- all for volunteer; to Olomouce, Czech Republic, to Vyskov, Czech Republic (for work), and the visa is over and to Brno to begin travels. Robbed in Brno return to Prague; Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, one last weekend in the Czech mountains, Rokytnice; to Poland one last time: Warsaw, and Zabuze, and Ostrów Mazowiecka, then Krakow, and Auschwitz, then to Prague. September 22nd, fly to Germany, fly to Portland, Or. October 2nd, 2015 one week in California to pick up the last of my mother’s things. The last of her life in two small boxes. To Ashland, Redding, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, The Russian River, to Portland. Already a lifetime ago.

Here now, back in Portland, and it is a full month and 3 days that I have been in the states, and it all ready feels like forever, and it feels like forever since I’ve had a job, and Prague life seems year’s ago, and China feels as if it never happened, and I’m still waiting for my mom to call. We had always talked on Sundays.

And, that’s it for the past two years. I never went to Kunta Hora. Damn.