No Matter Where You're Going, Home Is Where You Are.

I can almost picture it inside my head vividly: it's the last night of Phish Summer Tour 2000, and Fishman takes his seat at the drumset for what will be the last time - that is, of course, until September, when this harried cycle repeats simply because the momentum is too strong to stop it.

It's an encore; a bittersweet semblance of a musical mixture of sorts. It's probably not the greatest version of any such song chosen for that cherished slot. Yet, there I am, tears rolling down my cheeks, every tour buddy that I've been with all summer there with me doing their own version of the same. We look around us, staring into the eyes of many who used to be strangers, now dear friends, forgetting again where we really are and where we'll have to be tomorrow.

Everything is as it should be. The world seems much friendlier when you can successfully surround yourself with this childlike renaissance that lurks within the confines of a Phish tour. Those simple pleasures I almost took for granted hurry back into my mind with great speed. I remember the unfamiliar, yet so beautifully smooth path I tried to take after each night' s show across the lawn. I remember the faces; the ones belonging to quiet conductors, screaming teenagers, elated spinners, and even the handful of babies on the scene - sometimes raging as best they could to a song they'd probably been rocked to sleep to. I remember them all just then as they swirl into one singular meld. This was Phish tour, I'd whisper to myself, almost forgetting to notice that the last notes had been played only moments before, leaving us to find somewhere else to go to get our musical kicks.

Why is this night different from all other nights?

In a sense that Phish has hosted their fans to a month-long party in everybody's honor, it would be the first night in quite some time where the final destination is not just another party site. It is as if Phish just switches venues to make things interesting, but the core of summer tour is simply wherever everybody is when they've chosen to follow. Suddenly, thousands of us have lost our direction again, and we helplessly gaze at one another, making plans, hugging one last time, calling out our cellphone numbers in effort to just keep this going some more. Yet, the music stops, and soon we will have to, as well.

Upon returning to respective 'homes' - anything from the basement apartment you've set up for yourself in your parents' houses to the backseat of a friend's beat-up Subaru, life becomes more of a series of planned twists and turns; hardly ever surprising and not very stimulating in the long run. Things, once again, become questionable. The 'real world' throws you some punches. You're surviving, but it is not the same.

Is it possible to create that similar tour energy in everyday life? Perhaps the idea of houses in motion was a more useful one than I'd once mused about: your home is not a singular destination that is returned to day after day. Instead, it moves with you wherever you choose to go next. The life swarming around you is just what you've chosen it to be - and you have set yourself completely free.

It's a pretty difficult concept to fathom at times. I think so many people - no matter what their background or daily gripes may be - are scared of happiness, comfort, and freedom. Thus, they venture out into their utopian sub-worlds on an occasional basis, only to simply long for that feeling again and again when trapped in a less than thrilling routine that they've somehow set themselves up to follow. Yet, the defining sentiment waits just beneath the surface of the skin. The answer is there for the grabbing, yet it hangs loosely just above your reach.

And this is just what I envision taking place all at once come the very last night of tour. The mecca is suddenly out of immediate grasp, and fearful of the next step, we give in. Home seems different but it is not argued with. The open road is still in front of us, as breathtakingly accessible as it was before, yet we may not take it to the limit. We may not choose to take it at all.

Thus, the idea of home being wherever you want it to be at any given moment is tossed under the bedspread for another season or so, placing itself distinctly as an occasional wish and a fleeting happiness unmatched by anything else. It may be brought up for reconsideration sometime. It may quietly attach itself to what seems to be the harder bouts in life, lingering as a hidden treasure. It may never be spoken of, but it is there; as is the power embedded in your favorite music. One just needs to accept the controlling force.

Perhaps the last night of tour will be nothing as I've come to expect it to be; all this being a result of a great trickery of fantasia I've concocted inside my mind. Whichever turns out to ring true, the moment will speak for itself more than sufficiently when the time comes. And then, as is now, it will be all up to me to choose my own adventure.

Let's hope it's a good one.

Erica Lynn Gruenberg has lost her mind just a couple of times.