kaet@rachacha.com
August 2, 2007

My good friend Tara came to the city, a few weeks ago, for a much needed vacation. She refused to check her email as it allowed her to remain plugged into her life back home outside Philly. When I returned home to Rochester, a few weeks ago, for a much needed vacation and my birthday, I, for the most part, adopted the same idea: I will not log on to the computer and plug into my life. I needed this break from the city; so much so that I considered a possibly stressful trip to the Hamptons. I flew home to Rochester on a Friday night, for a birthday weekend with my parents. Somewhere between my flights from LaGuardia, that night, to late Monday night from Rochester, I found my priorities in life.

My parents hadn't seen me in six months, and because I had a surplus of money in my bank account that I didn't know about (that eventually went toward clothes and random things I needed), I promised both that I would come home for the weekend. On Saturday, my parents and I drove down to their lake house on a very small lake outside Syracuse. My father recently bought a pontoon boat to replace his dying motorboat (a much better purchase). It was called "The Party Barge" (very fitting). He fishes off it while my stepmother lies out and reads on it. Sunday morning, my birthday, after breakfast we go out on calm waters before it begins to get choppy due to the summer boat traffic. He trolled while I caught up on my Sunday Times Sunday Styles (I didn't get far). I've missed the water while living in a sea of concrete.

Hours later, I swam around like the little fish I am (I'm a Cancer, a water sign) in the orange and pink polka dot bikini that I bought last year from Old Navy. Soon after, my father and I competed in fishing (I'm very competitive in sports that I'm relatively good at... I yell at pins to fall down when bowling). First, my father caught a fairly decent sized bass. "Eight more to go," he said. "That's ambitious," I replied. He's a subtle man, "if I get a little help, we can have lunch." I picked up my old pole "The Shakespeare," I was given years ago, probably on another birthday. I caught four; he caught four, including the ever-elusive seaweed dweller, the sunfish. I used to sail sunfishes (the boat, not the fish) when I was a child, when I was about nine or ten. The water was my life and I wish it still were.

On the water, my father and I talked about life; it had been awhile. I told him that I felt like once I was established in New York artistically (writing or with the polaroids) that maybe I would travel. A few weeks ago, I was on the phone with my sister, a Navy wife, and she told me of all the beauties of traveling between states, specifically Missouri. I told her, I had been through Missouri and it was all right. As the wife of someone who moves around a lot, Liz has lived in Florida (Miami and Key West), in the Northwest outside Seattle and now in the Midwest in Nebraska (not to mention her stay in Japan before she got married, where she met her now husband of ten years). I told her she should write a book about it, she's a smart girl and a good writer: she deserves to be heard. My father said to me that she didn't have time to do that with school and the kids, and maybe I should instead. I never realized until then but I think I want to hone this photography thing. My grandfather was a photographer and when I was younger, I did want to be a photographer (and a filmmaker; that's another story). My dream lately has been to be the next Miranda July, but reading Susan Sontag's "On Photography" I want to be Diane Arbus too, without all the sadness and suicidal tendencies, of course.

This need to travel, however, isn't new. Maybe I don't want to perform anymore, as I did when I executed and wrote about "The Open Mic Tour" but I still want to travel. And I'm still very interested in people and life, as I was when living in Rochester. Living away from the community I left is painful, to say the least, but I realize it's for the best. My mind has become clear and I'm finally feeling secure in the friends I have, both here in New York and dwelling in Rochester. However, that isn't my life. I think anyone who moves from their hometown, whether it's Rochester in my case, or a small town in Tennessee for my roommate, we come here for a reason, a very solid strong need to be something. Maybe it's not a move to the big city, maybe it's just as simple as buying a car, packing it up and traveling for a few months. Being something doesn't mean wanting to be an artist, but something in regards to finding out who you are and what you're capable of. I somehow found that something going back to the place I ran away from in the first place, that's all I needed.