So yeah, I’m back in Chicago now. Got back yesterday evening, actually. Just didn’t feel like doing much of anything then, though. Going home was good, and I feel that in that regard, I have been well satiated and will likely not need another trip home for a little while. At this point, the main draw is the chance to get out in the woods and to squeeze the cats. Not that I have anything against my parents or sister, mind you, it’s just that once you leave, you can’t go back home. You just can’t go back home.
Oddly enough, though, all the thought and deliberation that filled my mind on this weekend home (something about being out in the country does help one’s thoughts flow out as they should) made me want to stay planted here in North America for a few more years. Yeah, I know, Japan has been a point of obsession for at least the last year. I still plan on going, just not yet. As great as it would be, it doesn’t help me move forward with the things I most need to work on right now.
And so I’m going to hang out here for a while. Maybe get an MFA. Maybe go on that big fat photographic road trip and find something amazing and spend a month throwing shitloads of 8×10″ film at it. I’ll buy an old truck to haul my gear around in and I’ll produce a totally new body of work (or bodies of work if things go well) that blows everything I’ve done to date out of the water. I will do this, or at very least I will try my damndest and go down with a fight.
I just wish I had an actual darkroom at my disposal. I can develop 35mm and 120 B&W film ok with things as they are, but 4×5 would be tricky and 8×10 essentially impossible without something more than a changing bag and developing tank. There is some rental darkroom space available here in Chicago, but for the going rate and given the way I go about my darkroom work (that is, slowly), I’d go broke before I could get much of anything done.
I could always go back to MO and build a darkroom in my parents’ basement, but I don’t have the financial means for that right now and as I already said, you can’t go home again.
For once I think I’ve actually stepped forward with things instead of just circling around again and again and again.
