I am telling my story. Think about it. Everything I went through, for some reason, really took place in the South, at least the worst of it all. Key West, Georgia, Alabama, those are the places where I fought my worst physical wars. I’m okay now. I have control, I have my self. So I am going back, like an antebellum. I am the Carpetbagger. I am a yankee going back down to the South to see where the War took place and what it looks like now.

Along the way I will see friends I haven’t seen since I was little, or friends that were with my during the most pivotal battles of my life. I’ll see places where I spent my childhood from the view of an adult. I’ll stop in New York, where I was born. I’ll stop in Baltimore, where my last suicidal ideation took place. I’ll stop in Virginia at David’s. David who saw me in the middle of my battle, who couldn’t bear to see me losing, and became someone else for awhile, but is a good friend now. David who has become a student of conservation biology. I will take a photo series of him doing his fieldwork, out in the marsh in the amazing early morning light, all geared up in his field outfit. Then I’ll travel an hour south and visit my friend Sara, whom I’ve never met in person. I’ll meet and photograph her amazingly quirky family in all of its craziness, Sara and her dancing, and her scary boyfriend Dane. Sara has heard all of my struggles, and despite being far away, has been there as a true friend. Then I’ll cotinue South, hitting Georgia, where most things took place. I’ll see Leanne, who has become and EMT and I’ll be a third ride on her bus (ambulance), documenting that. I’ll visit Chris who has become a cabinetmaker, loving every moment of this trade with his father. I’ll photograph that. I’ll go to fields that I saw when I was little that reminded me of battlefields. I’ll go to real battlefields, both those from the civil war and those from my childhood: the place and neighborhood where we lived in Georgia, the elementary school, the middle school, the high school. I’ll find old tornado pictures from when the tornado hit. From Georgia I’ll fan out down to Key West, where I spent the tenth year of my life. The canal, the old house, the elementary school and the playground of my first and only fight in a schoolyard. If I can find people I know, I will photograph them. I will see the Sunset Festival at Mallory Square as an adult. (legal, mind you). I’ll go back to Georgia, then hit Alabama, visit two friends who have stood beside me, and been like aunts to me, Adrian and Anne Kate. I will photograph Adrian’s family, Anne Kate and her cats, the couch where I collapsed after my last and hardest battle. Then back to Georgia, back up the coast, taking Route 1 and seeing all the things I missed as a kid, because my parents would never stop.

Then I’ll be back in New Hampshire. I’ll put together my story, the present interlaced with the past, so I can understand what has happened and what I grew into. Yeah, I know. Profound. We’ll see. I’ll develop the pictures, the studies and documentaries, random artistic photos, the ones that help tell my story. Then I’ll put them together, the book and the photos. That will be Carpetbagger.

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