Wednesday, October 15, 2008

An Ending

So I assume that no one looks at this blog anymore, which is appropriate because it's been a while since I have posted anything. I just wanted to write once last post, I know I ended abruptly.

I was pretty sick when I was in Budapest. It's not that I wanted to end on a dramatic note. The reason I stopped posting was that, by the time I was feeling better, I had forgotten some of the great things I had done in Hungary. Also, I had forgotten some of the names of the people I wanted to thank for their hospitality. It seemed somehow better to avoid a social faux pas by feigning an unending illness. Anyway, thanks especially to Balázs and his family in Kaposvar, András and his family at Lake Baloton and in Budapest, and Anita, András' girlfriend. Anita deserves special thanks: she offered me her flat in Csepel for nearly two weeks as she was away. As I was really sick, it was incredibly generous for her to allow me to flop down there until I felt better.

It is starting to seem like a very long time since my bike journey. I sold some of my touring gear, fell out of shape relatively quickly, and got re-acquainted to constantly being in motor vehicles. I still have my bike in my parents' garage, and I still have my masquerade mask from Venice. I feel a little uneasy when I see them- that I should still be riding, that I don't have enough time to reflect on the trip because I am always getting ahead of myself.

Since I have returned, I have been drifting between Connecticut, Providence, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh and Ithaca. I have been working on handing in the last of my work for my Masters degree (done!), showing my New Orleans photography project at Carnegie Mellon, taking photos and preparing for a new exhibition with my friend Adam Ryder, chilling, and getting ready to move to Mexico City for a bit. I will be doing research on the history of parks and public space in the political history of Mexico. I leave this Sunday.

Some day I may add pictures of this blog to go along with the written posts. It will probably only happen if people let me know that they actually still look at it. So, in essence, I am requesting that you, dear reader, bug me.

3 comments:

Weirdobrooktrout said...

Brian- This is the only post I will leave on this blog. I have to say that that was easily the best 1.0169% (3 months) of my short 24 yr existence and I thank you. I suppose I, too, have failed to give fair time and consideration for reflection, though, who really can in these fast times? So, for this I think you will find others to join you in your inability to truly grasp any moment or series of them in full. I feel like I can't really get into the discussion about the trip with anyone because I know I have to leave some much out and, really, only one person will be able to comprehend the breadth, depth, and intensity of our journey. So, in that regard, you are forever bound to me. I, too, feel post-partem after having lost a piece of my life which was the trip and I am now still trying to understand staying in a single location for a long period of time. Its not easy. I watch a lot of internet TV and youtube. I post pictures. I try to communicate. I have isolated myself relatively on top of it all. And I have become much less active. Here we sit on our computers yet again- a reality I cared not to return to. Anyway. These are thoughts for another blog and another time. I intended to just thank you and say "Hey- you remember the time...." Yea- it'll be like that for a long time to come.

Rock Mexico. Rock London. I can't wait to run you down and find the road again. Bon chance.

K

Unknown said...

I'm still reading it! I miss you and I look at all the things that you have done online!
Mom

sbiomo said...

I can't help but feel that in some sense I travelled with you for the most part of your journey; though for me, (and certainly with regards to any embodied sense of being in that space), it was only ever via an act of the imagination. Photographic documentations and descriptive accounts only ever served to assist what my mind would frequently strive (and ultimately fail) to grasp completely.

I know you have been quite the itinerant, but I hope that you will find comfort in settling somewhere, someday soon. Wherever that place is, I remain optimistic that I will no longer have to persist as an absent presence, nor rely on those imagined spaces to bring me somehow closer to where you are.

Love.