Hello, everyone! Welcome to this space. Thanks for being here. Seriously. Anyway, I’m home. I miss home every damn day I’m away. Exile is weird, and homesickness is a real thing. I love coming home to my old books and guitars and the places where I became the person I was before I moved to Austin in 2008. I know they say you can’t go back home, and that’s true—nothing is the same, your friends have moved away, the country is different and so are you—but whenever I’m here, I walk into the ocean and stay there, looking at the wide blue sky and feeling the sun on my face, and I’m home. I have a life elsewhere and couldn’t make a living as a writer here, but when I’m home, my soul is happy. That brings me to…
The beach
I love the mountains, but I was born close to the ocean, grew up skipping school to go to the beach, and spent countless summers camping and being a beach bum with my friends. The beach is a magical place. This time around, I went there and took the usual photos, which I always come back to when it’s 30 degrees and raining or whenever I start to feel landlocked in Austin and way too far from the ocean. However, this time around I was walking along the shore in Piñones, looking at the rocks and dead trees, and decided to see what some of those things would look in black and white…and the beach boil series was born. Here are the first three. Hope you dig.
Anger
I know the previous paragraph makes it sound like everything is perfect, but things never are, are they? Between work, falling behind on things, feeling like I don’t have enough time, insecurity about the next novel, some financial hits, the craziness of going to North Carolina, coming back and flying to Puerto Rico, and the fact that I’ll come back to Austin on the 14th at night and then fly to Pittsburgh for StokerCon early on the 15th…yeah, I have anger issues, and dealing with them is something I’ve been working on for years. I don’t have much to offer here, but I will say this: music, books, and going for walks are amazing ways to fight anger when it threatens to ruin your day and make you an asshole to everyone around you.
Some books I’m digging
I’m home and I’m sharing a lot of old/beloved/early influential stuff from my shelves. Check out my Twitter feed for that (and more photos): @gabino_iglesias. Anyway, this also means I’m rereading some old Mario Benedetti favorites. He has some great novels and short stories, but it’s his poetry I keep coming back to again and again. He’s one of my favorite poets and an author I read obssessively when I started paying for my BA tutoring folks in English. I was also reading mostly in English at the time and felt I was being pulled away from my native language, so I turned to Benedetti to give me the beauty of it every day. I’m also loving Danielle Trussoni’s The Puzzle Master and CJ Leede’s Maeve Fly.
I’m on the road again today because there are more places I want to see, walk, and photograph, so that’s it for now. Stay cool. Thanks for reading.
The photos are fantastic. I can smell those PR beaches while looking at them. Your comments about life away from the ocean resonate with me. I spent my entire life on or near the ocean. My trips to the US interior always remind me of how attached I am to the ocean. I spent 8 years at sea while I was in the service and... it changes you. My travels around the world reminded me of how precious home is and how leaving home changes our perspective on life. So much to unpack here.
I’ll see you at StokerCon. Save travels this week!