You should stay in Frisco a while longer, she said. I can't, I said, I gotta go home. I have work to do, bills to pay. -What about your
crazy life of hopping trains and running away with the circus? I mumbled something like Well, I can't do that all the time, and then I
sat in silence the rest of the car ride back to C.'s place, peered out the windows as we rounded the curves of Twin Peaks, watched
the glowing city below me fade into fog thick as soup that billowed up from the bay. I almost cried, and I wished I were drunker
than I was, and I wondered to myself: But why can't I do that all the time? Why do I hafta go home? What the fuck home isn't really
my house, the whole world is my home, the road is my home, home I'll never be. . .
A couple weeks later, I wandered around Bayview on gallery night, stopped in a few shops to see the new art displays. At Paper
Boat, they had a display of photographs by Mike Brodie (aka the Polaroid Kid); he's this guy who takes all these amazing pictures
of trains and traveler kids and crazy treehouses out in the woods of nowhere, he was there and so were a couple of his friends
featured in the photos, guys with ratty pinstripes and hats of smoke & dreams, and I almost cried cos why can't I just give up all
pretenses of security and finally live my whole life that way - meaning rushing about, sleeping under the stars or in my car,
crashing on friends' couches or squatting buildings – instead of only doing it for a few weeks or months at a time? What am I so
afraid of?
Excuse #1: Oh, I am very much nomadic, but contrary to popular belief, nomads are not rootless drifters – they generally have
two to three fixed locations that they return to, again and again, over the years. No matter how wide they swing out into the
world, or how long they're gone, they will come back. And I have those three places, no matter where I roam, Chicago and
Philadelphia and Milwaukee are my home(s). Excuse #2: I am always leaving as it is, always running off whenever a new,
exciting thing comes along, and if I gave it all up and went with the wind all the time, none of my family or friends would ever
hear from me again, and I couldn't bear to do that to them. Excuse #3: I ask myself what I'm afraid of, what stops me from being
perpetually on the road, but wouldn't that be a different kind of fear? Lord knows I'm always running off, like I said, but it's
usually okay because I'm usually running to, not away. But if I didn't even have any fixed locations to return to, I would always
be running away – staying in a town only until something got fucked up, & then taking off again, never to return. Excuses,
excuses.
One of the main reasons I like having some semblance of a home to return to is that life is always upheaved by travel, and as a
writer, I need some place to come back to at the end of it all – whether that be days, weeks, or months after I started – and
process it, record it, tell its story. . .until days, weeks, or months later, when I get that itchy feeling – or I should say, until the
itchy feeling intensifies, I am restless restless, even when I'm already traveling – and I take off for the next crazy venture. See,
nothing is concluded. I feel like a sellout cos I don't live the full-time traveler kid lifestyle, but then on the other hand I'm not
sure I even want that lifestyle, and I can't possibly be a sellout for not choosing to live a life I'm not sure I want. I just hope that I
figure it out, eventually, figure out whether my current nomadic circuits and home bases to return to are the way for me, or
whether I do want to sell all but my accordion, some clothes, and writing utensils, and live forever riding the rails, sticking out
my thumb, staying in a town only as long as I please. And I pray that when I do figure out which way it is that I need to live,
when I decide what's in store for me in the direction I don't take, I can grab my choice by the handlebars and coast it too fast
down hills of life, letting every drop of joy and dangermagic stick to me on my way.