It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.     ~ Bilbo (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings)

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I think I was born with a wander lust. My family lived in tiny, five room apartment where I shared a bedroom with my brothers until I was almost eleven. We had a very nice globe and I would close my eyes, give it a firm spin, and lightly rest my index finger against the bumpy surface. When the globe stopped, I opened my eyes and discovered my new home. I was always overcome with joy when my finger rested on such faraway places like Australia and China.

I would read about these countries in my dad’s Encyclopedia from the 1960’s. The yellowed, thin pages held such wondrous knowledge. I would read about the climate and language of a foreign country, imagining what it would be like to live there.

Ohio is my home state. I grew up in small towns and, for a few years, just down the street from pig farms and cornfields. Amish buggies would rumble past our home once a week. I loved the steady changes of the seasons: the warm thunder storms of summer, the bright festiveness of autumn, the cold beauty of icicles in winter, and the fresh color of spring.

But it wasn’t enough for me. I had whole worlds that I wanted to explore. My family didn’t travel. I had only been outside of Ohio once (for a few hours in Pennsylvania) until that fateful spring just before I turned fifteen. I longed to see all of America, and the rest of the world.

I didn’t notice this wanderlust in any of my other family members, except in the oldest of my brothers. Everyone else seemed perfectly happy in his/her comfort zones. No one seemed to have the itch to go exploring, investigating, and discovering.

We moved to the Virginia Beach area at the end of my freshman year. I didn’t enjoy living in Suburbia. You couldn’t walk anywhere. You had to have a car to get anywhere, but there was nowhere to go except the mall and the movie theater. Even the boardwalk was boring. Virginia Beach was over-commercialized and I wasn’t interested in seeing hundreds of pasty white people in tiny swimsuits. No thank you.

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I ran from Suburbia as soon as I could. I’m still not sure why I ran to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Tulsa, known as the belt buckle of the Bible belt, is quite the experience. First, you’ve got the campus of Oral Roberts University with its white and gold buildings and the illustrious Prayer Tower. We students wondered if spaceships had landed there in the early 1960’s. Secondly, you’ve got megachurches. Lots of them. What’s a megachurch? According to Wikipedia, a megachurch is a church that has appr. 2,000 or more attendees for every service. Some of these churches had over 15,000 members. These churches are massive buildings with annoying, neon signs. Digital billboards are a big deal in Tulsa. Even the smaller churches have glowing signs.

During my senior year and the following summer, my roommate (later, my maid of honor) and I were like Gertrude and Alice in their Parisian home. Except we had a lovely, platonic relationship. Our home was open to anyone and everyone. We spent many nights up late talking, drinking, occasionally roasting marshmallows, (yes, my cheap apartment had a fireplace) and reading.

I was sad to leave my circle of friends, but I really didn’t fit in Tulsa. After one brief visit to San Francisco, I had fallen in love. I moved to the City of Lights with all of my belongings in two bags. (I left boxes of books with friends in Tulsa.) I only knew two people and one was to be my roommate. I didn’t have a job or any savings. I was totally broke. I was totally crazy. Crazy in love.

In that brilliant and mad city, I fell in love…again. This time with artist David DeRosa.

San Francisco was my home, but I was struggling. I was going through adolescence all over again, but this time I was actually experiencing it. I was letting myself feel emotion. I was letting myself be aware of everything. Sometimes it was overwhelming. Sometimes I thought I was losing my mind.

David and I lived off of a cable car stop, just two blocks down Grace Cathedral Hill. Every Saturday morning, a tourist bus would drive slowly past of apartment window. “And here we see the first love nest of artist David DeRosa and writer Gwendolyn Glover,” we dreamed that the tour guide was saying.

In my adolescense, I had read a lot about immigrants to New York City in the first few decades of the 1900's. It seemed so exciting to start over again from scratch. I imagined myself living with an artist or a writer in a tiny New York apartment. Sheets of newspaper print would cover holes in the walls and we'd sleep on an old flimpsy mattress while reading poetry to each other.

My dream nearly came true when I moved in with David. He had a used futon, two plates, and a jar of peanut butter. A true artist's pad.

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Writing was hard. I seemed to think that each sentence had to be pure gold in the first draft. I rewrote the first chapter to one story over and over again. I was trying to find my voice. Ask Maxine Hong Kingston. Trying to find one’s voice can be a brutal experience.

Then I noticed the itch. It was subtle at first. I mostly ignored it. But after three years of living in San Francisco, I was ready to move again. The road was calling my name.

David & I decided on Chicago for several reasons. It was a big city, but not as fast-paced as New York City. It had a good art and literary scene. It had good universities since both of us eventually wanted to go back to school. It was much more affordable than San Francisco. It was a lot closer to my growing family.

Chicago is a sprawling metropolis with unique neighborhoods and a rich history. Exploring it was intimidating for this small town girl. You couldn’t really walk anywhere. You couldn’t wander. You needed a destination.

I discovered delicious cuisine, wonderful literary events, and I’ve met remarkable, working writers. The literary scene is flourishing and vibrant. I feel at home at the independent bookstores and literary festivals.

We soon learned that there existed a great divide between the social economic classes. Chicago is also steeped in racism. We are lucky to live in the most eclectic neighborhood in Chicago. David and I are struggling, working class artists. We were actually tame in San Francisco and we fit nicely in Rogers Park, but we stand out in other areas of Chicagoland.

Chicago is amazing, but it isn’t home. We’ve found ourselves looking at the horizon and wondering what lies on the edge of the world. We want to return to the Old Countries across the sea and gain a new perspective. America, our homeland, is making us weary. We feel like we’ve been fighting the good fight for so long. We want to see what it’s like in places where consumerism isn’t everyone’s first priority.

Where will our fingertips take us next? We’ll soon find out.