The novelty has worn off.

This gypsy’s lifestyle, this vagabond’s escapade, this carpet bagging, train jumping, bohemian’s romance of freedom has changed season. Gone from hitching a first class ride across America (accepting Cruiser Limo, preferring VW Campers) to carelessly sticking out my thumb and having a driver there already with the door. I don’t pay attention to what kind of car. I am unaware of the name of the city I am on stage in. I have vertigo almost constantly, waking up from sleep several times a nite confused as to which side of the bed I should rise from to use the bathroom.

Yes, after ten months of being on tour, this party story has turned into my life. I feel strange in a home. I get a kick out of riding in cars. I never interact with animals. I don’t know if I could go back right now in fact, accumulation and domestication like lost cousins I played with as a toddler, but wouldn’t know what to say to at a funeral.

In October, life on the road sets in. Thinking I heard my father’s voice in my dressing room today. So homesick, like an adult missing her family (something I rarely entertain, this missing thing) but today wondering constantly is poppy at work, is he in the front yard, how do the Michigan leaves smell freshly fallen? You see, I am a master at social acclimation now, I can assess people and places almost instantly. Like an art, I can spot golden souls across the darkest bar room, I can have immediate connections at the health food store, I can even be swept away in brilliant conversation with a little effort. And I can do it with the grace of the changing wind, all in three days. But that comes with the trade now doesn’t it? Like street smarts in Manhattan. Like predicting the weather on the farm.

Today I am fed up. I am fed up with digital photos of my best Chicago girlfriend’s newborn daughter. I am fed up with small talk and everyone looking like strangers. I am fed up with answering “never” when a special someone asks “when will I see you again?” And meaning it painfully honestly. They always ask.

Today my best friend, whom I call more than any other human besides my parents, said he thought we had grown apart. Then my cell phone battery died.

So today I “miss”. Today I sunbathe on a beach in Sarasota, but it isn’t a vacation. And I know this homesickness is a just phase to be waited out, frustrating nonetheless with waiting taking so long like it does. Next week I’m sure will find me jigging and giggling belligerently again, thumb waving at the highway, counting my blessings and shouting them on high. Yes, as sure as the hotel, the state, the faces all will change, this “missing” too will disappear – trust in instability: another trick of the trade. But for now I draw scalding water into my ever-spotless bath tub, tear up linens on my ever-made bed, peel the plastic off the ever-sterile cups and wonder what I would possibly do without Noah on tour with me. It takes just one person, when it’s the right person, to make you feel like a part of something. Recharging our cell phone batteries together.

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