The hoboes

The kids talk to me before I talk to them.
"Her name is Jazz," says the one in a faded purple shirt, right after the white puppy trots after me. She's got a bandana around her neck and a brown spot over her left eye, and when she hears her name, her forehead wrinkles into a story of puppy love and recognition of the boy's voice.
He is slouched against an old building in Uptown, the one right around the corner from the Lawrence stop, and without shoes, his feet are cut and dirty, blackened like tar on the bottom. I saw them as I came around the corner onto Broadway, noticing the sign before the sprawl of legs and cardboard cushions.
"Hungry, Hungry Hobos," drawls the back of a notebook, black sharpie on creased yellow paper.
I pause, look at it, but without cash or snacks, I walk on. What can I do?
"She just loves people," the boy adds as I walk away, and that's all it takes.
Matt tells me his story as I sit, folding my legs underneath me. He's a carpenter, he and his woman split a while back, and he misses his tools, god how he misses coming home from work and working the rough grain of knotty wood into the curved lines of chairs and other art.
At 25, Matt is the oldest of the group, but he has the boyish good looks of Huck Finn, a real-life story in front of me. Hair curled and messy from a week on the road, he is cute, but looks so young, especially when pairing the curls with the rolled up jean bottoms and bare feet.
I talk with Matt about his travels, warming the sidewalk opposite the Green Mill, and for a couple of hours, I watch the world pass by with these dirty children of the road.
They are going to California, going to work in the "fields," take part in the grand harvest that approaches.
"We're going to make 20 bucks an hour, make some money, man," says the other boy around a mouthful of bottle.
At 22, Chris has already been out to Cali for the harvest once before, and this adventure isn't the first one taking him cross-country on the free ticket found in the back of a freight train.
"I don't have any work lined up, not yet," he tells me, pulling thoughtfully on the cigarette his girlfriend rolled moments before. "But I've been out there in the past, and I hope to get some carpentry work too, get in with the locals, you know."
Jillian nods her head at this idea, nubby brown pigtails bouncing in agreement. She has been silent, plucking absently at a small guitar, but once she joins the conversation, her quick chirp clips along with youthful enthusiasm.
"Have you been out there before?" she asks me, eager to hear my take on it. "I hear it's supposed to be really great."
I tell her that I haven't, but yes, have heard good things. At 20, Jill is the youngest member on this adventure, and I can see why she's drawn to Chris.
He wears his scruff in a way that becomes him: a shadow of the road spreading across his face whether he intends it to or not. He's tall and lanky, and as she leans into him, his arms wrap around her, white and bare against the gray fabric of her sweater. I know exactly how it is that she feels, a short little girl taken care of by her tall hippie boy, but I can't say that I really miss that feeling. Not tonight, not anymore.
But it's more than this outward physical thing that draws her to him. This too, I know. It's his life.
Chris has lived. He's hopped trains before, he's harvested crops and stories with others in Cali, and because he is all the things that a career in dental hygiene is not, she is enamored and brought to life by this.
I can see it in her face as she calls a friend on her phone and squeals out the story of the day in Chicago. She is young and in love, and I remember what that's like at 20, how my own tall lanky boy made me feel back then, and earlier. I like Jill because her sense of adventure runs deep, and I imagine that's what Chris likes about her too. He's teaching her about the world, his world, and she's eager to hear it all. When I tell her about my recent trip to Thailand, her eyes open as wide as her mouth, perfect circles of awe and excitement, and I hope that she is as eager to embrace calamity as she sounds, should it befall her on this trip. She has considered this possibility, and is afraid of what will happen if the cops take Chris away. They almost did that at Union Station today, but when I ask her if they've discussed a strategy for that, I see disbelief and fear color her face more than the streetlight illumination from above.
"God, what would I do? We haven't even talked about it, no."
She stares down at Jazz for a minute, and then snuggles into Chris' side, feeling the emptiness of a life on the road without her man. What would she do? I would like to think she'd figure it out, maybe late, but better then than never. That's what I did.
Up until Monday, I had planned on going to California, too. Not so much to take part in the harvest, exactly, but to be part of that culture of people who pass the seasons waiting for it like my family waits for the first spring-time sprout of life to color the fields.
A mess since my return to the states from Thailand, I was unhappy in Chicago, ill-at-ease among the skyscrapers and dull sheen of life in the US. Thailand had been too much, too much fun, too much happiness, too much… everything, and life in Chicago had been boring and flat, a watercolor wash of grey day after grey day.
So when I started fucking a friend in California and he suggested I move out there, first I thought "no, what a terrible idea." And then as the weeks passed each other with the slow monotony of spring in the Midwest, it sounded better and better, almost perfect. Not because I anticipated any sort of real life out there, but because it wasn't Chicago, which wasn't Thailand.
I looked at apartments here, evaded the real world and sought refuge from it in my books and my writing, and the night before I signed a lease on the most boho apartment I could find, my friend said that yes, if I went to California, everything would work out. For a few days I even believed it, and then, after posting my few possessions on craigslist and ending my lease, the reality of the situation came to pass, taking with it the charm and illusion of sandy shores and a life of stoned simplicity in the sun.
What is it about going West that reaches for the American spirit like stalks to the sky? How was this story started, and who perpetuates it to this day? These kids grew up together, friends in Baltimore, east coast elites gone organic, escaping the hum of existence by hopping trains and sleeping on sidewalks. I wanted to do that once, around the same time I thought living like a broke writer would be so bohemian and 1950s.
"How very 'beat' I'd be" I cleverly thought to myself, imagining all of the scenes from a Ginsberg or Kerouac epic in my own bedroom. "How very perfect for the storyteller in me, all of those bodies and lives and sorrows crashing against the stable shoreline of my being. It would be the life to end all lives, the adventure and chaos of a life lived to its fullest that I've always sought.
And then as quickly and randomly as the idea of attempting a life in California was proposed, the allure of it rubbed off like some dollar-store trinket gone brassy in the western sun. The dream, or the illusion of the dream imagined by someone else, someone I'm not, fell from the sky. And like a candle holder chipped and shattered against the cold tile of my floor, I swept it up and threw it away.
By 1 am Jill was needing sleep, and I could see a fight in her shoulders, if they didn't get to going where ever it was that they could sleep tonight soon.
"If my doorman isn't around, you can stay at my place," I offered, sparking a flame in her eyes and a glance upward from Matt, who was buried in his journal, Sharpie in hand. Chris smiled, busy chatting with the homeless and probably schizophrenic man laughing crazily at our feet.
"But with Jazz, the lobby has to be empty or else it won't work," I continued, hoping the man would go away before we headed to my place. The idea of showers and food had garnered their attention, and I felt bad for bringing it up, knowing that the doorman was probably around.
"I'll go home and check, then call you if it'll work."
My block came up quickly, lit up and alive, even at 1 am. The neighborhood has gentrified, and instead of my own neighborhood schizophrenic, it is my maintenance man and his wife, out with their baby, I run into at this late hour. We wave, cross paths, and I enter the lobby. How different our lives are, all of them.
This small family of three, neat and tidy at 1 am; me, sweaty and dirty in running gear and puppy tracks offering my home to another family of sorts. Am I crazier than the man laughing outside?
I think of the kids I've just met as I pack crackers and fruit and granola bars into a plastic bag. I can't get them in, not tonight, but if I make it back there before they seek shelter, maybe I can feed them. Maybe I can take care of them in the only way in have at this hour.
My train rattles along up the track, past Argyle, past Berwyn, back into Bryn Mawr. I get off slowly, letting the drunks stagger warm, boozy circles around me. The night has cooled down, and I wonder where the hobos will sleep tonight, how far their train will take them tomorrow; if Chris will get caught and separated from his mamma," and what Jill will do if he does.
"I didn't get much sleep last night," Jill said as we parted ways. "So I've got to get some tonight. Sleeping on the train is hard, and with Jazz, if I have to hold her… my arms…oh, it's just hard."
I nod my head in agreement, imagining that it is indeed, a challenge. But what do I know of hopping trains and holding sleeping puppies and chasing someone across the country because "that's what you do?" That's not what I do.
What do I know of trains and harvests and feet as black as the midnight tar on the street outside?
What I know is Chicago, and my own sense of adventure, my own heart and the things that I love: words and stories, not people. I know the way the right ones seem to find me, the stories that make whole my life in a way that the living of it never does.
What I know is that in another lifetime, I might have hopped a train and rattled off to Cali to chase some dream and some adventure. But not now. Not tonight. Not anymore. Instead, I will return to my apartment, sit on my couch, legs once again folded and firm beneath me, and capture the essence of this life lived in a night in my own words. And for me, for now, in this lifetime, that is good enough

spechless

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Her knowledge of what it is to be in this world and of another is obvious, and the way she captures the ethereal in her writing has made me a new fan.
Capricorn lady, an ode to herself, is incredible. And ode to herself. I love it, of course: another woman with as much moxie and voice as I'd like to think I have.Go. NOW!!

Chaos theory

Being organized, for myself, is not one of my strong suits. I get easily distracted and off topic and sort of meander my way back to my task at my own pace. If organization is required for another person, I'm able to stick to it and get stuff done with relevance, because I have to. But for me, ha. That's mostly not possible.

So being in the middle of a massive chapter switch and revision is taxing me. Last week's project was outlining the chapters with enough certitude of their final place that i could complete the chapter outline part for the book proposal.
As I sat down with index cards and a green highlighter, I began to feel like there wasn't enough flow between some of the chapters, so I just redid the whole thing, the whole outline. I even threw out some chapters, finding once again, that they didn't belong in this book. Another one, at another time.
After a week of reading and researching, it was nice to take a day off, and in that day, I promised myself that I would work in three hour chunks, to avoid further burnout. This whole plan working. I'm now 60 pages into the new layout, loving the flow, feeling like things are moving forward. It's amazing how much a simple bit of reorganization is all that it took.

This got me thinking. "Organization," to me, has always been a bit of regulated, uptight planning. I'm finding that it is really a re-ordering of my life, or if not life, at least right now, the chapters of my book. I can't seem to get organized anywhere else, try as I might. What does that mean for me? What is organization, by definition?

"The act or process of organizing." Thank you dictionary.com. I need more though. What's organizing?

"To form as or into a whole consisting of interdependent or coordinated parts, esp. for united action" OK, that makes sense. Key here is the "coordinated parts."
My favorite description here, deals, of course, with the brain: "Informal. to put (oneself) in a state of mental competence to perform a task." And no wonder it's my fave! It's the "informal" definition. But that's the best, isn't it? That's how it all comes full circle.

Informal. That's how I usually think of my planning. I'm such a take-it-as-it-comes person, and with the book, my refusal to do any formal outline at first is what has bitten me in the ass over the last few weeks. Well, no more biting. I'm still going to be the mess of thoughts I always am, but this whole plan of action thing has proven itself to me. Now where else can it be applied?

Luke Kennard

"Is there a secret to writing?" she asks, poised on the edge of a bar stool. I imagine Veronica bangs, a smart, black dress (they all wear black in London, right?) and chic, thick framed glasses of some sort.

He leans back ever so slightly, tumbler resting just under his cupped palm, left arm resting on his leg, inviting. He pauses to think, but knows the answer immediately without the pause.
"Write every day. Be patient. If possible don't have an Internet connection in the house."

Luke Kennard is a gorgeous twenty-six year old author and poet. This much I know about him. This much I learn from the Q&A with Sarah Kenison running in today's Guardian. But the rest, the rest I make up, suiting my own writer's need to think and imagine. I know next to nothing about this stunning young man (think Johnny Depp and Robert Downey, Jr., but I see that he's a writer, he's a hottie, and best of all, he gives the kind of advice I like to hear. Later, when asked if writing gets easier after time, his answer, "It always feels like starting again - like I have to relearn everything I thought I'd got the hang of," is something that I can completely relate to. After a day spent reading the Columbia Journalism Review, the Believer and assorted other literary magazines and losing myself on the 7th floor of the Harold Washington Library (7 is Lit and Journalism), and thinking about my grad school decision, I'm walking home from the gym, clearing my head and prepping to come how and write some more.

What is it that I seek, as a writer? How do I live this life, as a writer? Everyone affirms my decision and proclamation that that is, indeed who I am, but what does that, exactly, make me? Hearing Kennard's thoughts on the subject are confirmation that at least, if nothing else, in my flounderings and shortcomings, I am, after all, at least writing. Trying. And if like him, I "Sometimes I just sit there screaming into my hands," well, at least I know I'm on the right track.

This is my job

I am incredibly lucky.
For the past eight months, I've worked in my pjs, on my couch, in bed; coffee shops have been my office outside my home and business meetings have been conducted on the phone, never in person with anyone.
I am incredibly lucky, and it took a soft beam of early California sunlight for me to see this.
I'm in Cali on a whim, f'chrissake. Working. At my leisure. I have taken advantage of this situation as fully as possible, yes, but I have Taken Advantage of it.
When I started this project, this book, this healing, I meant to work on it for at least 5 hours a day.
"Even if I delete everything I write today in six months, I told myself, "I've got to treat this as a job. Write something for this book every day."
And for a while, when it was new and glamorous and exciting, I did. I even put in a few eight-hour days at the beginning.
But then I got comfortable and six months of time between me and my goal felt like such a long time. So I dicked around with my goal, barely meeting it. And maybe not meeting it at all, if you count the fact that I still have interviews and such to do. But whatever.
The point is, I realized this morning that my next goal is quickly approaching, even if September feels like a long ways off.
I've promised myself that by September I will have the interviews transcribed, stored, analyzed and integrated into the content of my story. I have no idea how that will come together or the formatting for it, but I have the commitment to it.
I think.
And that's why, dressed (no, not in my pjs!) and still focused on the sunny day outside, I'm devoting this day to really knocking out some usable, revised content. If this is my job, and I've only got until September to do it, I better get after it, because who knows what kind of work I'll have to do then.

Epiphany

It came to me this afternoon, as I was finishing up my day of serious, dedicated writing at the coffeeshop.

On the day that I had my stroke, maybe even at the exact moment it began, I was reading my favorite book, "Swimming to Cambodia," by Spaulding Gray. He's a great monologist and actor who appears in Roland Joffe's film the Killing Fields, which is shot in Thailand but "takes place" in Cambodia during the Vietnam war and the rise of the Khmer Rouge. Watch it, it's excellent.
Anyway, he's in Thailand, searching for his "perfect moment" on a Thai beach, eating mushrooms and throwing up in the sand and thinking about life and why he can't get lost in the water and why he can't get married and why the Thais have so much fun and how Marilyn Monroe died. It is, as I said, my favorite book, stream of consciousness beautiful.
So now, I'm writing my book. People ask me all the time if Thailand has anything to do with it, and until today, until my epipany, I've said no, but it apparently, somehow, has had something to do with it.
The day of my stroke was the day the tsunami fucked up the beaches in Thailand. The beach that one mr. Gray had visited and tripped and puked on in STC. The second question my dad asked me when I woke up was if I could remember talking abou t the tsunami the morning we left the house. The first question was "how are you," and the answer to it was "what?" and the answer to the second question was also, "what?"
So the next part of all of this is that Gray died while I was in the hospital. He too suffered from brain trauma, a result of a car accident in the UK. He committed suicide and was found right round the time I got out of the hospital. His book, Thailand, my stroke... it sounds silly and fucked up and all sorts of crazy to make connections in this way, I know. I do. But somehow it feels like there's something there. Closure? On that part of my life, the life I had before the stroke? The life that ended that same morning for me and thousands of others? I got to go on living, but not as I once had. Finality? Kyle and I planned this trip sometime in the first year after I got out of the hospital (I think) and now it's finally happening. Closure in that, and what the past two years have meant in a connection sustained? I set a goal of completing my book by March first not because I knew for sure that I'd be leaving for Thailand, but because March felt right. I could have said "July," or "next September," and any other month. But this is working our perfectly.
Perfect. I'm always looking for a perfect moment in my life, without knowing what that perfect moment is or what perfection might even be, although it becomes in the weirdest of ways, and not always in what others see as perfect. Of course I've been hoping for a "perfect moment" of my own, on some beach while there, but it probably won't be his beach, becuse in an interview years later he said he went back and it was commercialized and fucked up, and I have no idea what it will be like. I don't know what I'm looking for.
Maybe that's the message I was supposed to get today. I don't have to know, it doesn't have to make any sense now, but at some point it will?

(click here to buy the book. DO it!! please)