Just before I left 907B, I thought it would be cute to tell people that I’m homeless when they ask where I’m currently living. Strangers and friends alike began to inquire and I would give them the joke, although I can’t say it without my voice quivering, smiling to hide the inevitable tears that pop up. It’s hard to go from living alone for so long, existing and learning in my solitary space, to nothing. I am, of course, not without a structural home. I have depended on the kindness and mercy of friends to give me a place to rest, warm up, and recharge. It’s the continued conceptual idea of home that becomes unsettled and uncertain, muffled by the miles spent on interstate and country roads, idle hours across airport gates, and the unwavering question of what’s to come next.
CHATTANOOGA
It’s my first of several drives on I-24. Moving fluidly between Nashville and Chattanooga, I have all the rest areas memorized, but I get lost in time when I cross the time border. This is the kind of drive that makes me feel like an adult- wrinkling my nice clothes and adjusting eye make-up while driving for job interviews. I practice my question and answers out loud over the sounds of NPR. Once I get into East Tennessee, my mind sways to thoughts of being nostalgic for the state; it’s like I’ve gotten to know the mountains over the past 5 years and then my internal conversation turns to deciding on whether to stay or to leave. I surprise myself as every interview goes well, but I feel so bleakly disparaged afterwards. I swiftly get into my car, find my way back onto I-24, circling around the Tennessee River. I picture a home in those hills, but the image quickly dissipates as I drive back West, only to be back where I started.
NEW YORK
The only familiar face on this is train in my own. A blank stare as I look at my reflection in the dark window, gently rocking back and forth, music sweetly playing in my ears. I wonder about the rest of these people on the train, the fleeting faces that I will never see again. I’ve been back to New York City countless times over the years, but every time I return, something feels unfamiliar and unknown. I get off the train and wander up and down the streets. I used to know where I’m going. I checked the map. But I keep getting lost. I slug my duffle bag back and forth with my shoulder in searing pain, angry that I can’t find my way as I stomp across mid-town.
And over the course of time, one by one, familiar characters come back into my story. Jovial Susan in a Cafe Europa, chatting away about tour plans and then tells me that I’m doing the right thing. Brett, with his squinty smile, greets me at the World Trade Center. Laura, with mini-van and kids in tow, finds me at a train station in Long Island. We amble across Sagamore Hill, with Teddy Roosevelt’s face plastered on all the walls. Laughing wildly in a bar with Kristen. And throughout my days in the city, everything becomes more and more known, a prominent landscape within my internal memoir.
WEST VIRGINIA
It’s a soggy trip to Appalachia. The rain brought heavy fog into the mountains and the visitors to this airshow are a little heartbroken. I spend my time in the cantina, surrounded by men clad in their bomber jackets and flight suits adorned with patches from their time in various wars. Despite their older age, they’re a fun group of people to be around. They all regale each other with anecdotes of their time in the air force and navy, flying through Germany, England, or Korea. I sit at the next table overhearing stories, sipping on Swiss Miss, nostalgic for a time long before I was ever born.
CHICAGO
Northbound Red Line. I stare out the opposite window, each scene so perfectly framed by a 2x4 window. Balconies of residents, with Christmas lights delicately draped amongst the rails. Power lines that criss cross the city. Crumbling brick buildings, and long forgotten advertisements for closed businesses. All they leave behind is a relic of tattered paint. Memories flash by, and it seems it’s all coming back to me now. Fullerton, Armitage, Wellington. Did I live off of Wellington? No. I must’ve lived off of… Southport. That sounds right. Didn’t I know someone who lived off of Wellington?
I look to my left as the following train car bounces behind. The skyline disappears behind yellow brick and slowly changing leaves. I moved to Chicago in the fall. It was always my favorite time of year. The air feels fresh and the lake calmly blows cold wind into the city. It feels like I’m home again. Except that I’m not.
NEW ORLEANS
It’s 2am and I’m in Cafe du Monde. I have to drive back to Nashville tomorrow and realized I didn’t do anything I wanted to do. But as I sit, drunkenly munching on beignets with a group of friends who at the beginning of the weekend were strangers, I’ve come to realize maybe that’s what New Orleans is about.
FLORIDA
Yeah, it’s Florida, but it’s also November. It’s quasi-warm across the white sand beaches, and I sit and dig my hands in the sand as I watch my niece and nephew “accidentally” find themselves fully clothed, frolicking within the ocean. There was a time that would’ve been me, so excited by the grandeur and excitement of the sea. But today I’m cold, curled up in a sweatshirt realizing I’m just old now.
PHILADELPHIA
Wandering the halls of an ancient prison, staring at a chair where Al Capone once got his appendix removed. It was then I got the email. A generic “thank you applicant” email of the position I tried so hard to have. The tears came pouring out, hoping that the other visitors didn’t think I was getting too emotional about Al Capone’s appendix. I run outside to the crumbling brick walls, trying to recompose.
It’s hard to dig myself out of this hole. I attempt to mask it as I tell Charlotte later that I didn’t get it. “It’s fine!” I proclaim. It’s not really all that fine, and I wonder if Charlotte knows that. It’s not until later, with Charlotte, Sandro, and I encircled around the table, drinking beer and wine after wandering the frigid streets of Philly and rousing trips to Delaware and Maryland, that I realize: it’s okay. It is okay. Now it’s time to keep moving, keep on the journey, keep going forward.
