Ten years ago, I did not ring this doorbell.

I was already late for my first band practice with the eccentric stranger who’d answered my “New in Town, Looking to Jam!” ad on Craiglist. I could already hear her playing inside, so instead of interrupting, I decided to just march into her house without announcing myself.

That eccentric stranger turned out to be a badass musician, artist, and luthier named Ellie, and it was to be the first of many times I would barge into her house unannounced over the years. Typically, I would be met on these occasions with offerings of food and an invitation to see the guitar she was building in her workshop — or the oak log she was chain-sawing into a Tiki head, or the surreal sculpture she’d assembled out of abandoned toys.

I ended up living with Ellie and her wife, Kori — a writer and engineer who served as tech sorceress for the many bands Ellie played in — for two and a half years during college. First, I was crashing in a broken-down RV in their driveway (the first of many vehicles I would live in, it turned out); then, when the Wisconsin winter set in, I moved to the spare bedroom.

Though densely populated with mannequins, skulls, creepy dolls, and alarmingly realistic rubber masks, Ellie and Kori’s house always felt safe and homey to me. I liked to call it “The Baldwin Street Home for Wayward Girls,” because, in addition to myself, there seemed to be an endless flow of friends and friends-of-friends occupying the spare bedrooms and empty couches.

When Sean and I decided to stay in Wisconsin for a while to pick up some work, I wasn’t surprised to find that Ellie and Kori had a vacancy; the house has a mind of its own at times, seeming to direct its own flow depending on who needs what.

We’re still not entirely sure what the next step is, but at least we’ve got a soft place to land. I’m doing full-time farm work for a former employer of mine, and Sean’s picked up a modeling gig.

OK, he’s working at a restaurant. And, as usual, making the world a more colorful and beautiful place.

In a couple weeks we’ll head towards North Carolina to close our great cross-continental loop and reunite with our poor abandoned cat. (Apparently my mom’s been feeding her fresh salmon and tuna, so she may or may not be in a hurry to take us back.)

It’s been a crazy and miraculous trip. Soon it’ll be time for the next adventure: figuring out where home is.