11/18/2025
In the summer of 2007, about two weeks after I got out of the military, I drove a big loop around the United States in my old Ford Ranger. I had a canopy on the back and converted it into a little bed—just me, my truck, and whatever came next.
Somewhere in Philadelphia, I picked up a girl from Craigslist who needed a ride to Detroit. She had a guitar and a plan: she was going to stay at a commune and play music at their little theater out back. I had no plan except “keep driving,” so I took her.
The commune turned out to be two old houses and a makeshift theater in the middle of downtown Detroit. People drifted in and out. Some were passing through, some clearly lived there, a lot of them were on… something. I’d just left the military, so I was still very sober, very straight-edge, very “what is my life right now?”
I ended up sleeping on a big old couch in the front room with a fireplace and tall windows. That night, two anarchist clowns from Canada rolled in—yes, actual clowns—and we stayed up until two or three in the morning talking politics and life.
They were paying their way across the country by selling or trading handmade patches—little silkscreened scraps of fabric with slogans and art on them. I had my own odd currency: homemade wine from 40-year-old grapevines in Utah that a stranger had given me earlier in the trip. Thirteen bottles had ridden around in the back of my truck, and I was slowly handing them out across the country like communion.
By the time I left Detroit, they’d given me a couple of their patches, and I’d given them a bottle of that Utah wine. No contracts, no receipts. Just a quiet exchange at the edge of two worlds: the girl who had just taken off her uniform and the clowns who refused to wear one in the first place.
By the time the sun came up, nothing dramatic had happened. No riots, no police, no big cinematic moment. Just a long night of talking politics and possibility with a pair of anarchist clowns from Canada in a messy old house in Detroit.
The funny part is: before that trip, I had already signed papers to go into the National Guard when I got out of active duty. I was supposed to stay in the system, just… part-time.
After that night at the commune, I picked up my phone, called the recruiter, and said, “I’ve changed my mind. Cancel the contract. I’m staying a civilian.”
It didn’t feel like rebellion in the moment. It felt like telling the truth.
Looking back, that was one of many times I chose my own path over the one that was handed to me. The girl who traded wine for anarchist patches in Detroit is the same woman who later built witchy markets, covens, and blueprints instead of climbing someone else’s ladder. This was the day I learned that sometimes, you don’t know you’re done with an old life until you stand inside a completely different one and feel your whole body say, ‘Nope, I’m not going back.’