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South Carolina day seven, going home

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It’s actually kind of a combination of day seven and eight. I made the long travel day yesterday of checking out of my Airbnb driving through the country for one last visit with my dad. I spent a couple hours there and then drove another two and some change back to Steph sister‘s house. It felt like coming back from the absolute wilderness back into civilization. It’s strange when you spend so much time in a very rural community for any length of time it feels jarring at first, but then as you still get used to the pace and the people the spaces, the quiet the country, and you come back to the craziness and the energy in the bus on the traffic that alone is bittersweet. I am thankful to be going home today. I am super thankful that I get to fly home with Steph since the travel day feels a lot less stressful and it will be shorter. I am not looking forward to the jet lag when I get home. I don’t feel like I ever got used to the time change here really I’ve been getting up super early. A...
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South Carolina Day Six - Jamming with my Dad

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 Today was a literal dream come true. I think for as long as I have wanted to meet my dad, I have wanted to make music with him. I didn’t have an idea of what that would look like or how it would transpire. But today, it finally happened. And it almost didn’t. You may remember at the beginning of the trip my dad injured himself somehow, he was in a lot of pain and could, quite literally, barely move. I thought that the chances of us jamming together would be long gone. And when he brought my to his studio room, that thought seemed to be justified as he had taken out all of his music gear. (Except his drum kit) and loaded it into trailers. I thought there was no way we would be able to play together. I had asked him yesterday and told him it was something I really had wanted to do, and we went out to the barn/quansat hut of a studio and he began unloading all the gear. I was helping, and honestly, even that in itself felt like a right of passage with my dad. I was his little girl, w...
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South Carolina Day Five — Complicated Story

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 Today I felt sad.  I had a dream directly before I awoke. It was about my dad, and in the dream he (my dad) was holding his dad ( who looked either asleep or dead) in his arms, like you would hold someone you are comforting. I just remember the two, and I had the thought “we still always are holding onto our dads”. I don’t think the dream was for him, rather, I think it’s for me. I am still holding my dad. I am trying to get to know him, but I still have him placed on a pedestal.  I cried multiple times today. The tears came on suddenly, and felt uncontrollable and then seemed to vanish as soon as they came. I found myself trying to figure out why I am grieving. This grief is so strange, it’s’ so buried, it sneaks out when it has the chance.  One of the things I’ve most wanted to do here is play music with my dad. He hurt himself somehow on the first day and still seems to be in a considerable amount of pain. He has told me he wants to give me a guitar, although I d...
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South Carolina Day Four — Dad’s Birthday

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 It was my dad’s Seventieth birthday today and I got to spend it with him. It’s a surreal moment. I am immensely grateful.  It’s bittersweet because I know he is complicated, and broken, and hard to deal with. And prob. A liar. AND he is also funny. He is peaceful. He is meek.  He was not a dad to me, and yet, now he is trying to be. And I find myself being a daughter to my father. The stretch hurts, and yet, when you get through, what is waiting on the other side is joy. Today I felt joy.  Love, a.
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South Carolina Day three — Strangers

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 Today was a mixed bag.  I was awoken to a text from my dad first thing, “in a lot of pain, I think I may be dying, please pray” … I didn’t get it till way later, but prayed and then waited to hear from him. Breakfast was cancelled but I ended up driving over for 9 a.m. My dad was laying out on the couch in his pajamas, hunker over in pain, unable to move very well … I felt completely helpless … and also I was there. I kept him company and was baffled at how he still tries to get up and get around and do things while he is so ill. I often wonder how sick he really is, or if he just thinks he is sick.  After a couple of hours he began to move about and we did end up going out to get lunch to bring back to the house. The food here is pretty shitty. The bread tastes like cardboard. I took no photos today … well, actually I did take a couple. When we drove into town for lunch my dad took me to this little barber shop, that looked like it was in a building that was abandoned. ...
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South Carolina Day 2 — My Dad

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I am almost deliriously tired, so this will be a short post. But I made it to my dad’s, and am currently ready to sleep in my airbnb, my little home for the week that I am here. It’s beautiful. WAY better than the last place. It’s small, but has all I need (except a laundry machine, if it had that it would be gold). But honestly it’s good enough. There is a beautiful garden outside my door, with Sunflowers that’s look seven feet high, and tomatoe plants, huge and heavy with fruit. Corn and some other veggies I cannot identify. And there are colored birds here, yellow and red and they fly and eat from the flowers and it seems like an English garden. The air here is heavy. It’s hot and humid and if you stand out for more than a couple moments you feel the drain. But the people are nice, thick with Southern accents and charm and I suppose I stick out like a sore thumb, or maybe a Californian. I drove from Fort Mill around 1 p.m. through rolling hills and green and trees that stretched so ...
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South Carolina 2026 - Day One - Getting there

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wow, it's been a while. I thought I might try writing at this "address" for this trip. I need somewhere to journal and write down experiences and feelings and all the things. What is this trip you may ask? Well, a lot has changed in my life since my last post, feels like life-times really. Lots of therapy, lots of self discovery, lots of praying and journeying and finding myself ... all of this has brought me here. I am currently tucked away in a bed at my friend Stephs' sisters' home in South Carolina. Tomorrow I drive my rental car (a new jeep) west to spend a week wtih my dad (yes). It's his birthday on July 8th. I decided in October of 2025 to finally make the trip to come visit him. It was an incredibly hard, but also an incredibly amazing trip. Lots of healing, lots of crying, it was everything I could have hoped for. Deeply moving, deeply life-changing. And when I was leaving, I knew in my heart, I would be back. So, here I am, less than one year later,...
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