Febuary 3, 2008 - Newark, NJ - 2:27 AM

I wanted this blog to be about issues of race on my college campus, but I always dreaded making the first post. At first it was going to be about things that recently occured on campus, then I decided to write a response to the Obama Inauguration, but I didn 't feel strongly enough about those things at the time to write something I felt good about.

So instead, I'll make this first entry about this feeling of nostalgia that's crept into my bones.

I guess it's all the photos of me that set it off. They have a way of mingling in the head the same way dust or pollen does in the nose; at first it's a tickling of the senses, then a rush of something comes. With a the dust, it's a sneeze. With photos, I feel a sudden realization of where I am now. And then the nostalgia comes.

I've looked at all the people I laughed with or worked with, and where I was when that laugh got preserved through the wonders of electricity, magnets, and light on a memory card or the internet, and I get this feeling in my chest--like I'm missing a peice of me maybe? Or maybe it's pride? Or maybe a combination of both. Either way it feels like I've left some of myself somewhere else and I can only recover it in the photo.

Some thought in the corner of my head is telling me it's because I've changed.

But I haven't changed in some profound way. I still have the same thoughts and goals, I'm just a bit more liberal, and a little more tolerant of people who find reasons to devalue everything. I haven't accomplished a major goal yet.

What I think is, maybe it's not me who's changed, but where I've been that's changed. Everything has gone by so fast it's been like the changing of set peices during a scene in a play. It happens so fast for me. One week I'm here, another week I'm there. Or in the case of school, I get so accustomed to work sleep and play that I don't notice I'm there or the changes in that environment stop getting recorded in my head.

I've never had a moment to sit back and look at all the places I've been. I've never paid attention to the scenery and the way it's changed. I've never paid much attention to all the actors who've walked off the stage either. I look back on these changes of scenery and I'm amazed by how much I've missed. I appreciated everything I've experienced alot more now. This moment's made me appreciate recording things so much more.

Right now, I wonder, if I'd never taken those pictures, how long would it take for that memory to fade? Or how would I prove it even occured to someone? Or to myself for that matter?

These last few days I've been in New Jersey and New York City, two places I never expected to have any personal realizations like the one I'm experiencing. It's like I've been in a river my whole life and finally found where the delta meets the ocean. And now I'm finding just how big a place there's left for me to explore. And how many fish I've swam with or swam past or will see somewhere in this great sea. If that makes sense.

It'll make sense sometime.


I miss all the people I've swam with. I miss all the bends of the river I've seen. I haven't forgotten any of you. I'll continue to swim.