Hitting the Road, But After Practicing Rudimentary and Stupid Photography

After dinner with Ma at Lulu's, where our waitress recognized me as a regular from my college days, and sorting through the client tasks that amassed while I was preoccupied with Life Itself, I began the drive back to NYC. 

Earlier in the day I got the idea I didn't really have to go back, that I could spend a day in Jersey or somewhere. I also got the idea I could and should embrace the cleansing cliche of a sunrise over the ocean.

At the hospital I told my parents about the first idea but not the second.

I didn't want my parents to think the idea of never again having a natural conversation with my father was getting to me, making me feel depressed and isolated, and how the move to a Bed-Stuy had already done enough to that end, and that I was still having trouble accepting from the death of my grandfather and was on the verge of schism and a complete reactor meltdown.

My dad brought all that up himself, scribbled it on his little dry erase board through the fog just after his surgery. Pa suggested I needed a break. I played it down, which seemed appropriate since he was the one tethered to a breathing machine. 

After dinner and the client work, I booked a cheap hotel a block from the beach in Seaside Heights, NJ. I know Seaside Heights is a central part of the infamous Jersey Shore now, but we spent a few summers there in the early 80's, when my dad was gigging nearby, and a little happy memory-triggering vacation may be just what I need, I thought. Two days of time off oughta do it, I thought. 

I stopped before getting on the Pennsylvania turnpike. I spent four minutes making this image in eight 30-second exposures, motivated by reasons I still don't understand. Earlier this week I read some tutorial in my inbox about composite nighttime landscapes. Maybe that's it? But I don't give a shit about nighttime landscape photography. And yet here I was. 

It was about 10:45pm when I wrapped this up. The Waze app predicted I'd be at the beach at 4:54am. Sunrise was at 5:56.