telegraphs5

04.10.2026

I found my voice at the Paw Paw Festival

The International Paw Paw Fruit Festival was tonight at the Ecumenical Ministries Building. I visited with Martha and my mom.
Discussions with strangers over spray painting beet portraiture. Well they used to be strangers, and they would be, if i gave up my roots.
Tonight was a reconfirmation that I wasn’t born nowhere. I have this COMMUNITY I was raised in, and it has not gone away nor have I lost it.
Referencing addresses and people: i viewed this as my way of showing ID, proving that I had lived there, amongst them. And the way that those menial but incredibly specific and local references did not merit a batting of an eye tells me that your home is never lost on you.
I left the hall this evening with the feeling of “you still belong here, you know.”

We cycled over, the three of us. sitting down at a table with people we seemingly did not know, I picked up their conversation right away. I recognized the man to the further right as lowenstein, the muralist. the man next to him, bob.

Martha and I eating fish soup, chickpea salad, roasted vegetables. Miles above the pancakes and cinnamon rolls of the church gathering this morning we were at. Bob, tell us the story of the man whose face lowenstein put into a beetroot and spray-painted onto the wall of the lawrence art center loading dock.
“well, he grew hemp on an island in the kaw-
“oh, this is a great story- yeah go on-”
“…. the helicopters were circling him, and he stripped down and slipped into the current… house off the grid… lived between 10th and 11th on new york… died alone”
Now i have a text from Bob asking me to come help him burn cedar trees in a few weekends. Must read ‘ Cows Are Freaky When They Look At You’ before then.

I don’t know this man, but I do know him because of our town. I can perfectly imagine where he lived when he tells me the cross streets. His garden and the color of his gable. I know all the folk he refers to. Pete with electro-shock therapy. I don’t need to prove myself to him here. I belong in this small sea of people who bring Paw Paw Creme Brulee and dried Jujubee fruit to a potluck. Even though I have been away from this for that amount of years. We start to sing a song.
“Oh my Paw Paw” is supposed to be to the tune of “Oh my Pa-Pa,” which I don’t know. But the man who just sat down next to be with the ruddy pink nose and greasy straw hair to his chin tells me that “Oh my Pa-Pa’ was popular on the radio back when he was a kid, “right around when the big asteroid came and the dinosaurs decided to go away.”

First verse, second verse, applause, Martha, Me, and the rest of the small sea still don’t comprehend the tune. We yell at the Accordion player and ukelele-ist to run it again. First verse, second verse, two women get up and waltz. We clap, I whoop. I actually catch my whoop at the right spot in my vocal cords.
I’ve been thinking and having to tell an inordinate amount of people recently about how I can’t whoop or cheer. My voice has always caught the break point and I can’t get any high-pitched tone out. Cycling down hills and music concerts are just soundtracked by whistles and silent screams. Its like a part of puberty that I never passed.

But today, at the end of the Paw Paw song, with the waltzers coming out of their embrace, surrounded by people who live where I lived, I found the whoop.

26.09.2026

Diner Folly

Today, from a breakfast diner in chicago.
Waltzing down old down, northbound. looking for a place to eat and someone else’s dollar. Pass a pair of paunchy overly-crisp men getting out of an immaculate new SUV. Want to tell them how crisp they are, but decide against it. Lucky choice: I walk into the breakfast diner across the street and they happen to be in the c-suite of this chicago chain. Its only me and them in the restaurant at 08:30.
Observations: these men are not very human. I walk in to the diner just behind them, and the second man fails to hold the door for me. Then the first man says “Ope, let us get that for ya buddy!” and while i’m already halfway in the door, the second man slides his arm past me to hold the door, and then proceeds to hold it 5 seconds after i enter (there was nobody behind me). The server wants to guide me to a booth, but these two men, who have met three more men inside, are standing in the entryway getting riled up for the new product meeting they about to have. I plow through them with general disinterest. the last guy in my way is truly blocking me though.
“I’m gonna squeeze by-” I say, and he moves 5 inches to the side, slowly, without any acknowledgement. I still cant fit between him and the table, because I am not 5 inches wide. So I do just squeeze by, rubbing hips with him. He still doesn’t move.
I sit back in my booth, happy to be dining in a somewhat above-my-paygrade diner in chicago. But these dudes are funny. So they finally decide to sit down with a
“So should we go sit down?”
“Yeah, haha, lets go sit down!”
“Yeah.”

Awkward.
Another thing about today is I’ve decided I hate the weak eye contact game in american cities. So today I am maintaining eye contact with random people.

They walk by me now. And I guess they do acknowledge me this time, seemingly through some haze.
“Hello..!” one of them says to me, after noticing I am watching him somewhat intently. I’m grinning.
“Hey!” I pop back.
They go on to meet at the back table and I make sure to give them a show by displaying to them that I am listening to them overconfidently and dramatically discuss pumpkin spice options in the way that only high-level professionals do.

Reminded me of Mike Sito. Although Sito never made it to this level; he had to settle for his obscure cafe in Prague. Writing this reminds me Sito lives here, in Chicago. How funny would that be to call him up today.

As more rich patrons wander in, our server seats us all facing the window, in rank. Its quite disturbing. Is this what third places have devolved into? I am staring at the back of three people’s heads currently, and the woman behind me is looking at four. What a shame this is. There is a woman in her wealthy fitness outfit fifties at the bar who thinks she is best friends with the hispanic server, although it is clear the server does not love her so much. She is now telling him about how her “first” cooking class today. She has that laugh where they swallow before they laugh and then stop suddenly with an inhale. She’s humming the eighties song on the radio. Are these people she calls her friends? Is she more proud of these friendships than her friends at her pilates class? I wonder. She is proud of her status; someone who sits at the bar. I wish her luck. She may be married to a man like the ones who sat at the meeting earlier. This may be her daily belonging. I ended up paying $5 for breakfast, tip included.