An Itinerary For A New Life

Morning Glow on the Lynn Canal from Haines, Alaska.

And so my journey commences, Alaska is behind me as I sit at the Juneau Airport having just suffered the serious indignities of the TSA, while watching an elderly woman so infirm she could barely move her wheelchair get patted down for five minutes as a threat to national security. It’s strange that Juneau, a place I seriously doubt anyone is going to ever use as an entrance for international skullduggery, usually has the worst security checks. Much worse than JFK, Heathrow or Charles De Gaulle. And since September 11^th 2001 it’s always been that way. The only thing I can think of is that being so far removed from any aspect of terrorism, being so completely unable to imagine real terrorism, having only experienced these things through television and the internet they have succumbed to a dread paranoia of whoever ‘they’ might be. My dear departed mother whose body had been regularly infused with replacement parts was usually detained for the same treatment that the woman in the wheelchair had been. Which must explain the severe irritation I feel at the guards invading the propriety of the aged or handicapped who couldn’t possibly have ill motives nor the wherewithal even use the restrooms, let alone carry out an attack. And if you point this out to them, you will be suspect yourself, and pulled over to the side. Thus we submit. This is life in 2018.

Figs and Fruit in Charleville-Mézières last October.

Okay. Sorry. I just had to get that off of my chest. What am I doing here? Oh yeah I’m waiting to board a plane to get to Europe to continue my Gravity From Above journey and to end up in my new life in Georgia. So I suppose what I need to do is let you know my itinerary. And if anyone wants to meet me along the way contact me.

So yes… though I am moving to Tbilisi Georgia, I won’t get there until December 15^th. So what will I be doing in the meantime?

Here is my itinerary.

October 6^th through October 20^th staying with friends in Paris and doing more puppetry and cultural research.

October 21^st through November 2nd L’Abri in Huémoz Switzerland

November 2^nd through November 4^th Back in Paris

November 5^th through November 30^th Residency at the International Institute of Puppetry in Charleville-Mézières France

December 1^st and 2^nd Luneberg Germany visiting friends

December 3^rd through December 9^th Prague Czechia (I liked the Czech Republic as name much much better. There just aren’t enough places you get to say ‘the’ before the name.)

December 10^th through December 14^th Paris one last time

December 15^th Tbilisi Georgia to live.

The Narikala Fortress from the 4th Century stands above Tbililsi.

And so I leave Alaska with too many mixed emotions to share here. Alaska will always be a part of me. Yet I know it is time to leave. The finger points east to Europe, even further east to Georgia. I will try to finish up this everlasting Gravity From Above documentary project as soon as I can. Editing will take time. Distribution longer. Yet Alaska will stay with me. Just as New York stays with me. California stays with me. The faces, the events, the ineffable.

I’ll be reporting more about my adventures through this Gravity From Above site, and of course I’ll keep writing my ideas over at The Anadromous Life. But eventually I’ll have to start a new site (I can’t bring myself to call what I do blogs. It is such a slobby sounding word.) about my Georgian life… but it’s certainly not going to be called My Georgian Life. I need to come up with a name.

Stick around. It’s sure to get interesting.

Byrne Power

Juneau Airport

10/5/2018

 

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