“You will not know anyone there anymore,” I said to myself in the terminal at Los Angeles International Airport. This place is not even familiar. I had no delusions of where I was traveling. I left this place over fifteen years ago and I have only returned once -- that was over fourteen years and six months ago. I have not returned since. There was only one reason to return at all, and I missed my window for the occasion repeatedly. There was never any other reason to return. It was obvious that my initial move was at the cusp of something significant in my life. I left the Chicago-land area when I was a teenager; I graduated high school and did all my real growing in sunny southern California. I never knew Chicago beyond the boundaries confined to a minor and I never celebrated any milestones outside of birthdays, family nights out and middle school events. The early signs of who I was to become were evident in my youthful obsession with becoming the fastest typist when home computers became commonplace; when my heart would only beat and my work ethic awakened in English class. Knocking out my teen years and then spending the entirety of my twenties and early thirties in the city of Burbank, California is the result of my Facebook hometown status. My family and I left the lackluster Midwest suburbs for the media capital of the world and my eyes opened to the artistic possibilities that I once dreamed about in those English classes. I find it enthralling that fate decided to pull me back towards the snowdrifts for holiday after years of clueless failure on the sun-blinded side streets of Southern California -- just when things were starting to get interesting.
The snow cascades gracefully in the luminescence generated by a city designed to turn the gray melancholy into sparkling winter romance, and evoke big city dreams beyond the casting calls and palm trees. There is no need to be concerned for my footprints here; the snow is actively at work covering them. My passing presence will dissolve with the crunchy sidewalk salt and winter will deepen in the windy city after I trade back my scarf for Converse low tops. A campaign for growth in a slide of decline forged the tracks in the snow and the anxieties of the unknown coming chapters permeate the ideals of the movement. The stark vacuum of answers worsens the lasting question of what comes next.
Watching a world completely opposite of my own from a café window, it is seven degrees with snow and fog, and a slight dancing wind. A tiny town far outside of Chicago named Geneva, the flurries swirl and mesmerize. Sidewalks and branches of the bare oak trees blanket with fresh powder under a vivid white sky and my anxiety joins them under the blanket. The snow quickly covers the tire tracks of those passing through the portrait of small town serenity, leaving a fresh sheet of blank wonder for the next. Occasional wind gusts blow large blasts of snow from the roofs of shops like fireworks in the park, making confetti of powder in the flurries. The small town post-eggnog chatter among neighbors and their children unconsciously rises and falls around the grinding of the espresso machines and I temporarily lose myself in the white noise of various topics of conversation. The café empties and my disquiet sleeps peacefully under the blanket. The incessant question of what comes next is pushing towards the nonsensical; the furlough still contains more travel. The answers wait for me quietly in the baggage claim in Ontario, California.
It was never important to find familiarity in my return to Chicago; I was actually hoping not to. Chicago is a world unknown to me -- as though I was never here at all, and my true intentions were that of love. The decline was a dying of my voice, and this was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not only to reclaim my voice, but also to increase its volume and finally deal with matters of the heart with unabated optimism -- ensuring that regret would have no chance of survival. My throat is still a little scratchy, but my voice is returning and I am leaving the historic stomping grounds of Elliot Ness an unavailable man -- my heart is now the property of another. I got what I came for and after fifteen years of a buried personal haunting, time and geography, the mocking duo of my evocative sorrow, are finally dead and buried. There will be no memorial service for the duo, only the exhausted exhale of bittersweet grief and joy that comes from the death of a cruel and tormenting relative you always believed was going to be in your life forever.
Every time I see a pair of headlights appear and grow in the distance, I look through the frosted window, through the glistening snow and hold my breath. The piano music plays in the dim lighting and the sun has long set. The crooner captures my ear and holds my attention every time he tells an unknown woman that he loves her and that he always will -- ever since he put her picture in a frame. The flat, empty, pseudo-rural Illinois lands stretch desolately for miles with lifeless trees and a shimmering whiteness. My departure is imminent and the unknown afterwards is affecting. I avoided this column sporadically throughout the furlough. Revisiting the emotions of it has proven difficult. The Vagabond Furlough lived up to expectations in the windy city. I escaped, I thought, I found ulterior consciousness.
The furlough took me down the rabbit hole into a wonderland of surreal bliss. It was coming back to my world that I hid from the outside, locked in my room, forgetting how happy I am in the little city of mine -- comprehending how lucky I am. My little world here is a pleasant one; it was just so incredibly easy to dissolve into the world I toured.
I cherished my time in Chicago. In fact, it was quite easy to forget that the furlough required more tracks further south. I made those tracks further south by way of east. I had no idea then that while things were getting interesting in California, far more fascinating developments were occurring in the most unsuspecting of places…
Numerous delays in O’Hare Airport preceded the exhausted finale of the furlough. The delays were a blessing -- at first. One can only stretch a goodbye so long, sitting on the dirty floor just shy of security, before they drag you out of your shoes to wait for the long flight all alone. On the dark flight south, I appreciated what it means literally to be there for someone. When you walk with someone in their private world, never shorting a reassuring smile when they glance for one, and to listen to as well as encourage their thoughts and dreams you are walking the ultimate follow-through of supportive promises. I will always be there for you. That is the promise.
Huntsville, Alabama is where the furlough continued. Huntsville is a city put on the map by NASA. The Huntsville airport is characterless after midnight. The bags came quickly and I was shuttled to my brother’s apartment. Entry was available to me and his candle had already burned out for the night -- he was fast asleep and I made myself at home, obnoxiously, spreading my things about and latching my equipment to every available electrical outlet before rooting through the fridge and cupboards, turning on the television. The first night was one of solitude, exhales of emotional exhaustion and mystery television. I fell asleep on the couch and awoke in a lonely apartment in the middle of nowhere. The evening brought a dinner date with my brother and sister in one of two small sections of town that serves for social scene. We declined the mentioning of the time since our last dinner date together -- just the three of us. It is always a sad and difficult thing to acknowledge senseless amounts of dead space in between being together. The difficult mentioning was fortunately needless as the night carried on with a joyous pace that stood still in time, allowing only those in that gravity to reconcile the dead space. My sister joined the early-morning expedition to Tennessee leaving my brother and me behind for another two days. There would be two days of lone afternoon daydreaming followed by evenings of campy horror films with my brother, ending with solitary, stormy midnights. Both nights in Alabama were rain soaked with violent thunderstorms. Resurgence and freedom with fear were the themes of thought during the nightly storms. I clicked my alphabetic keys and slobbered over the marvel of new eras, the ideals of freedom, and the chances taken on ones self in order to attain a higher calling. I needed to fight back against a decline, and I was slowly discovering that in order to usher in a new renaissance and preserve what I cherish it is going to require daring and sudden acts of change. The winds of change were certainly scrambling my compass. I decided to finish my journey without it.
The storms behind us, Tennessee bound; my brother and I drove north for two hours discussing life in a way that holds as safe loose talk -- with no seriousness in the severity of big changes and choices. Our sister and parents were waiting for us in a small private apartment community on the outskirts of Nashville. Freedom was in its prime and teaching through example in the spirit of travel. A furlough of any kind is supposed to remind you that there is a bigger world going on outside of your own -- occupying the most surprising of avenues. Nothing ever has to be the same as it was. My final hobo days in Nashville centered on the mellow rainy days spent in our own company. The quiet calm was the result of happiness in being together again for no reason at all. My mind occasionally wanders back to Chicago, back to supportive promises. Forks in the road lay in place of answers. Detachment was necessary for a time. Detachment was easier than fearing the decline may have a looming aftershock.
The changes are imminent. If an aftershock waits, the renaissance must begin. It is time to compose lists for various buckets. The renewal of spring is suitable of occasions committing to the dreams you allowed to wither in the winter of your soul.
A vagabond furlough is a series of waves you can catch couch surfing the country. If done properly, you hardly slept, mailed postcards and did nothing familiar. If you caught the right corner of the right couch, transcended completely from the reality you know, you dared to wonder what-if questions without interrupting and calling yourself foolish. Before the flight home, I can only advise that you remember to pack the enthusiasm and hopefulness you picked up on the road. Coming home without it or misplacing it even for a moment can be quite devastating to the already-existing instability that caused you to pack in the first place. Travel safe in your next furlough. Be sure you embark for all the best irresponsible and reckless reasons, and be sure you claim a souvenir. Bring something back -- anything at all.
