Instagram story viewer> @technicallygoats> Posts

Jason Whitacre

@technicallygoats

978

followers

4499

following

Oh, hey.
Current work:

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

𝓟𝓐𝓡𝓣 1

It's been two days since I came back from a weekend in San Francisco, where I left something that I had to go pick up. I've been putting together a new future, but I had to do a partial settlement with my past first.

Two and a half years ago, I left San Francisco with no plans of a permanent return. With no plans of any kind, really. We all knew I needed to get better, and as far as I could tell nobody wanted to see me dead. Leaving was the way that would happen. It was time to go.

Just a visit, just long enough see everything and everyone that I needed to and just short enough for my body to remind me that I'm not 23 anymore. I came back to the edge of the desert without a voice and with feet the size of yuletide fire logs.

What I saw wasn't as different as headlines may make it seem; the city still breathes the same life. It looks a little different, and change is scary. AI billboards abound, and there's an ominous presence over the future but for now it more or less looks and navigates the same as ever. I didn't want it to. I wanted it to feel foreign and awkward. I wanted it to feel like a place I no longer knew, but it didn't. It felt like home, the same as always. It felt like not a single day, or barely an afternoon, had gone by.

There's a beautiful reminder in there that no matter what happens to you, there are parts deep inside of you that are permanent and worth cherishing.

This isn't the whole carousel, there's another bit, and I'll be going back quicker and dirtier in two weeks. More on that later.

Pictures I used to take of San Francisco didn't look like this, or at least didn't feel like this. There are new eyes in these pictures and a new way of looking at San Francisco, at least for me. If they aren't like that for you, that's okay; they were made by and for me.

I had to go get something back from San Francisco, and I did.

I also had to leave something behind.

More on that in part 2.

#sanfrancisco #sf #otherwise #cityart #sfart #baybridge #embarcadero #northbeach #eastbay #california #bayarea taken in San Francisco, California by @technicallygoats

56

9

4 months ago

𝓟𝓐𝓡𝓣 2

I built so many parts of myself in San Francisco, and with those people. People I love, people I call family. People who have seen the core parts of me that will always shine through, and the parts that will always live inside those streets. Blood, tears, and burdens. Fifteen years of them.

We leave echoes of ourselves in the places that we care about. Small bright bits of our being in the places that we’ve filled with the people and the moments that we cherish. As simple as a strong laugh from a passing stranger, or as deep as the long embrace of an old friend. It’s important not to get stuck on the moments for very long.
It’s important to let yourself move with the ocean breeze. That’s why you leave your light there. Take the beauty, ingest it, learn what you can (whatever that looks like for you), and find the next one. I like the “stick and move” approach when I can manage it. It keeps things interesting.

Those who love us don’t always allow for the “move” part, though. They reach out as we drift to sea, grab us by the shirt collar, and pull us back onto dry land. It’s easy to slip into the ocean when you’ve surrounded yourself with it. You have to give yourself an escape route, a guiding light so you can clamor for the shore and dry out in the noon sun.

You need a lighthouse on the edge of the sea.

A collection of souls telling me, in their way, that the person I was falling into was starting to hurt them. Watching me break my body on the rocky shore was causing them to drown. That pretty soon they’d have to find their own way through the storm, without me.
I went back to show myself that I made it out of the storm alive and well, and that I was never alone. I took a symbol that could represent nearly 20 years of self-medicated abuse.

I tossed it into the sea, and with it an outdated sense of self.

I brought home a bit of buried treasure. I left an albatross behind. We stick and move.

Keep the pieces that matter, stick with the core bits. Learn what we can, grow and move on.

More to come.
.
.
.
.
.
.

#sanfrancisco #sf #northbeach #otherwise #monet #waterlillies #legionofhonor #sfart #Soma #hoteldesarts #eastbay #california #bayarea taken in San Francisco, California by @technicallygoats

36

4

4 months ago

𝓟𝓐𝓡𝓣 3

In the core of you.
That’s where they live, and I think I always knew the most important part lives with them.
Not in a city, not in a material place.
In the core of you.

It took leaving and it took coming back for the perfect reminder that no one place holds your light or your beauty.

Home doesn’t have a hearth, and it doesn’t have a feather pillow. Take away the skyscrapers, take away the Wal-Mart. In the end, all that you’re left with is an ever changing landscape. Glacial expanse one day, treacherous dark forests the next.

What stays are the people. What stays is the art and the beauty created by all of it. The beauty they put into you and your heart. Under the skin, into the deep tissue. They’ll make more art, they’ll laugh with other people, and you won’t be there, and that’s fine. There will be changes.

There are changes. Some stay. Some go.

I made a second trip, to celebrate the release of Sean Taylor’s truly excellent 3rd book, We Are Too Many Celebrations In The Confetti Factory. Pride weekend, though there was no time for much celebrating and plenty of time for confetti. What was found was an evening of old friends, beautiful art, surprising reunions, and surprisingly great sleep. A reminder of things that make life worth living through. A reminder of why we breathe and why light exists in the first place.

You should pick up that book. There’s magic inside of it.

Two and a half years ago I left San Francisco. I went back to get something and to leave something else behind. It was with me all along.

I know who I sit upon the mountain with, and I know who couldn’t make the climb. More than anything, I know how good the view is from up here.

Our future is frightening and full of splendor.
.
.
.
.
Photo 1 by Jonathan Siegel
Photos 6, 7, and 9 by Travis Klingleberg @tklingelberg

#sanfrancisco #sf #northbeach #otherwise #northbeach #poetry #art #sfart #sfarts #photo #photoessay by @technicallygoats

30

7

3 months ago

by @technicallygoats

17

0

10 days ago

Normal things. by @technicallygoats

9

0

13 days ago

by @technicallygoats

13

0

a month ago

by @technicallygoats

32

0

2 months ago

by @technicallygoats

10

0

2 months ago

Recent. Onward.

It hasn't been an exciting month. It wasn't supposed to be.

Not in terms of big events and fancy photos. Not in terms of a grand finale off a year of hard work, and then some. June was a little exciting. Full of old friends and grab n' go trips north.

July was set up, set up, no punchline. I called it an epilogue to that volume in the book of life.

You see, the thing about a continuous story is it requires continuous conflict, evolving drama, dynamic relationships. So July's epilogue came as a sort of cliffhanger. A rounding out of some plotlines and the beginning of a few more.

Take the lessons learned, apply them where you can, step off the ledge.

Stick and move.

Until next time.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
#July #sanfrancisco #Moon #Bones #Books by @technicallygoats

13

0

2 months ago

by @technicallygoats

15

5

3 months ago

by @technicallygoats

19

2

3 months ago

by @technicallygoats

12

0

3 months ago