This is a photo I took from an eL platform in Chicago IL. Although it appears to be late afternoon dusky, it was actually blindingly bright outside -I made the photo this way on purpose by overexposing & shooting 800 speed film with the camera set to 400 speed. Chicago always seemed like late afternoon to me. I spent 5 days there on a somewhat-impulsive punk rock roadtrip to meet my friend Jessica Disobedience & put things into perspective.

Travelling makes the soul feel small-I felt microscopic, alone on the Greyhound bus speeding across the country from Pittsburgh to Chicago in 12 hours, overnight. I travel overnight whenever possible because I don’t feel like I’ve wasted the entire day sitting on a bus. During the night I listened to a 3-disc mix CD that a boy made me specifically for this trip. My feelings for this boy tangle and wrap around my heart like vines, “little creeper in the shade,” as the Agents of Oblivion lyric goes.

At 6am the Sun rose on my right and the full Moon was setting to my left and there I was, as usual, caught in the middle. In Chicago I stayed with Jessica Disobedience, a fellow writer I’d only corresponded with online and through postal mail. We explored the city-Belmont is like my punk rock dream come true. We went to the art museum and I was awestruck that human beings can come so close to God, so very close, but not touching, not yet. We were inspired and created a zine in one night, scribbling and typing and gluesticking away. Every day we ate at a new seedy diner and every night we drank Irish whiskey and listened to music-punk rock (hers) and techno (mine).

We talked about the creative process, the heartstrain & burning & pain of being so superaware of beauty and terror in the world, the endless varieties of love in the universe, relationships, all those abstracts that defy the chains of the English language. On the second day, I got tattooed by Ben Wahhh at Deluxe Tattoo. He is an artistic visionary. When I commented on his choice of art hanging on the walls (ancient Japanese prints juxtaposed with H. R. Giger work) he told me, “Thanks. I like to have a bit of the past and the present...while giving you the future.” I swooned, as the needles bore into my flesh, realizing his utter beauty-but I’ve fallen in love with every person that’s tattooed me. He gave me a bloody ripped open heart held together with a safety-pin, because that’s how I felt-broken but salvageable, damaged but functional, healing, always healing and growing and learning.

I loved Chicago but I was still homesick for my dear old Iron City, for my brother, for that boy, for my own bed and the coffeeshop where I am a regular now and the diner we always go to for greasy cheeseburgers and writing on the backs of placemats. Coming home on the bus, I listened to the mix CD again, and I listened to Utah Saints, and I nearly cried with the stark truth ripping from Dax Riggs’s voice into my brain. “Don’t seem like no sun exists that could eclipse this...” Music is the best.

I watched the sun rise, falling in and out of consciousness, and when my beloved Iron City rose up on the horizon I had to choke back another sob, because this, here, was home. I just wanted to press my palms and face on the concrete and breathe it all in. I will forever have the desire to travel, to roam, to just get up and go and get lost...but I have a very strong sense of home, and I will always need to come back eventually. Always.

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