Day 95 – July 8, 2014

Time to go. I spent the month of June with my parents, reconnected with Boston friends at the Firefly Festival, built the five Platonic Solids, and ran around New York City for three weekends. I’m ready to return west.

I try to prune my childhood belongings but both parents prefer to hoard. I cannot haul away unwanted debris as my California auto needs a town permit to visit the local dump. I sadly leave my childhood on the shelves, wondering when I will next attend to the old books, clothes, and baseball cards. I separate out drinking glasses for brother John and take an overcoat for brother Ray. My father’s collecting inspires me to reduce, reuse, and refuse.

I pack luggage with my clothes and pieces. I stuff the luggage into my car. Almost everything fits as it did on my way east. I’m sad to leave this indolent, east-coast summer, but I need to push onwards.

San Francisco friends have already started Burning Man projects in earnest. The longer I stay away from the Bay Area, the more I will be forgotten there.

Four of us–Mom, Dad, Rob, myself –will dine out tonight to celebrate my brother’s 46^th birthday and my departure. Rob picks the restaurant. I hope he chooses fancy pizza.

I spend my last night at home flipping through massive scrapbooks that I made with 1990-2000 travel photographs. In my pictures, few people are featured, just cathedrals, city squares, and art. I admire how much I saw and the narrative I report. I want to return to Prague.