update from karl.... yea, i stayed back

Karl writes in an update from India:

while most of my bandmates have returned stateside, i was unable to tear myself away from this place just yet. its funny, i never thought i would feel so strongly about staying back, im still wrestling with the guilt of not returning to the grind and the work that has to be done back in the us, but at the same time i simply couldn't leave right after the tour was over. India has become of those things in my life that lives somewhere shoved deep into the cupboard, or hidden under my bed. Mostly because in the last few years India has become a painful reminder of how little physical contact I have with those i deeply love, whether its family or friends, and also a reminder of those who keep leaving my life as time pushes on.

when i was a kid growing up here, my grandparents and my parents were indistinguishable to me, i knew one was much older than the other, but they were all part of the village that raised me. my dad was at sea quite often (most of the year in fact) and so my grandfathers became just as influential to me as my father during those years. a few years back, i got the word that my moms dad passed away, and then my dads mom, and then my aunt, and the news registers only as much as you allow it to when you are thousands of miles away. there was always something else to place in between me and the news of their deaths; work, songs, shows, bandmates etc. then i get here and that distance is gone.

im wading through it all now, it overwhelms me at times. its like standing at the 6 foot marker in the pool and having just your nose above water, one tiny wave from a passerby and water rushes into your nasal passages, breath gone. im also trying to spend as much time with those that i likely wont see again, my grandmother, and my great aunt who never married, who nursed all her brothers and sisters as they left her. She remained the last one who could walk, who could travel to them as they were ailing. Now she is 93, still walks through the gardens around her home every day, but her once sharp mind is dulling as alzheimers sets in. She asks me in mid conversation who I am again. At the same time im watching the next generation of my family blossom. My cousin who is autistic and has great difficulty speaking is turning into an accomplished painter, another cousin a great photographer, and they are all becoming good men and women as far as i can tell.

I remain quiet most of the time around them, im not exactly here enough to tell them how to live their lives or to give sagely advice because im still figuring this shit out myself. But i enjoy their company immensely, and im just trying to soak everybody in as much as i can in these next few days that im still here. years will likely pass before i see them again, but they never act distant. we pick up where we left off last, and hopefully we all grow old together, in our own little corners of the earth.

- Karl