Strain of Consciousness

-I’m in Korea. There are flashes of consciousness that seem so familiar and there are moments when I couldn’t feel more alien. I feel like I’m looking through a kinetoscope and none of the images hold long enough to leave any impression on my eye. A whirlwind of familiarities and oddities. I still wake up weekdays with the heaviness of slumber on my shoulders and I’d prefer to keep the cover over me. Weekends bring some new experiences, like becoming an unsober zombie for a night, but I question if any of these, perhaps, if not all are to my […]

-The snow falls against my little apartment. It sounds like rain and rouses me from my sleep. There’s not much I want to do these days. Even my appetite waxes and wanes. I spent most of the day trudging through the snow to work, to the dentist here, then to work, then home and then home again. I drink too much here. I’m sure it has something to do with my dreams. They have a tendency to be more elaborate even while I wake several times a night. Freud would have said that my waking life was sexually lacking. I […]

-The city’s cold, my breath freezes before me as I walk to work, alone. There is something tranquil about walking by yourself, anywhere. I spent all day at work. Very basic these days, work eat sleep. The funny thing is, I don’t know which is worse, to be caught in a frenzy of emotion or to be as I am now, detached.

-The doors opens and we’re introduced to our new home, six thousand mile away from home. There’s a thick smell in the air, the kind you find when you go into a perpetually moist restroom on a cold morning, or any time of day for that matter. It permeates throughout the house, getting more faint, the closer you make your way to the windows. I wonder if this is the smell of this country also curious as to whether I’ll ever get used to it. We open up the windows and sleep with the cool breeze blowing the apartment dry. […]

-I’m here. Still trying to decide if that’s a good thing. I think it’s more a reticence toward the unknown, not to mention the insecurities of my being. Each manifestation of me I’m sure carries them within. There are moments when I feel as if I’ve been carried off into some greater state, but mostly I fly low and near the water, terrified I’ll fall. My mind spins as my eyes open each morning with the question:: Where am I? It maybe more than simply a question of where my body stands, but rather where my soul is. It makes […]

-I’m packing, I’m spending lots of time at the dentist, and trying to say goodbye to those I know as well as those I will not see in what seems an indeterminate amount of time. My suitcases fill and get rearanged. I’m trying to take with me, the twenty pound transformer I bought here, so that my computer will not blow up there. It is the cause of all the rearranging taking place in that small space between my cases. I squeeze in my blanket, I’ve heard it’ll be cold there. I’ve been trying to finish packing. I want to […]

-The past night as well as this day, bring me a certain peace about my voyage. There’s a calmness permeating my thought these last moments as I pack my bags, my belongings, the me that is crossing six thousand miles to foreign land. I don’t question the impetus of my leaving. It is not fleeing. I’ve convinced myself/come to the conclusion that I am attempting to open my eyes. Perspective. I am packing my shuttle case, my cameras, and all my jeans-I think this is closer to me than the work clothes I also take, khakis and chinos as well […]

-I received a call today, informing me about my departure. I am leaving on the 23rd at ten in the morning. I am leaving. It hit me. Leaving. We’re not talking about some short trip, a vacation, or anything near a visit. I am leaving for twelve months, a year of my life. Yes I have hopes of the things I’d like to accomplish in this time, but at the moment all that hid itself in the recesses of my mind and all I could think about was the unknown. It’s not an unexpected journey, but one that strikes me […]

-I woke up, got ready and went to a clinic today. I need several vaccinations before I leave. A friend of mine told me about the clinic, his mom works there. It was thanks to her I was able to get the shots. It was kind of nice when she walked in and told the person at the window, ‘es mi bebe,’ something to that effect. It goes back to the whole who would want to meet me debacle. I made calls to try to find a place where I could get the other shots, and learned that they’re pricey […]

-Do you think dead people trade experiences of dying? I’ve been stuck at home for days now, writing or feeling miserable, a little less of the first. I feel sick. It’s psychosommatic. I was sitting on the couch recently stuck in some goo, I could feel my consciousness writhing, trying to get out, or maybe crawling further into the unknown. Like I’m there but I’m really not. And I go to sleep praying, questioning my existence. If I received any response at all, then maybe my belief in something would be furthered. I believed in god, or at least believed […]