I lie in bed with cool air blowing through the cracks of my windows. Blankets are on top of me, but, I am still cold. I hear the sounds of fire trucks and ambulances; wondering where they’re going. The sounds of the city are a constant. It is noise. It’s become white noise. A background to everything I do. It makes me feel at home.

The ten years I lived in the suburbs, I did not feel comfortable. It was too quiet. Too perfect. It was like a picture postcard. Complete with a waterfall in the center of town. People walking their dogs in the morning and evening hours through parks and on sidewalks; tying them up to a fire hydrant as they went inside Starbucks to order lattes. Those days are over.

Waiting for my water to steep, I take down a book by Baudrillard, America. I read what the French philosopher and social commentator has to say about our country. Was his experience of roaming around the U.S. the same as mine. All this bigness, this plasticity that is America, is anything authentic anymore?

Looking out of my window as I do every morning, I see the facade that is the new shopping center here in town. I also see the for sale signs in the front yards. The time is coming when all of us (renters) will be kicked out, looking for a new home in another bad part of town, or, another town completely.

The apartment in the house I live in is not for sale; yet. I hide inside like a soldier in a bunker. Waiting for the enemy to attack. Soon their armies of the night will come. They will take over and I’ll be forced to surrender. And, it will be time to hit the road again. And again. A never ending life of being a nomad.

“You can’t go on. I must go on. I will go on,” Beckett.