i'm in love with people.

This shouldn't sound surprising, I suppose.

I mean, there is the obvious statement of "I'm in love." I've been making the statement to myself for months now and anyone with even the vaguest knowledge of my current life understands how much I mean it and at whom such a statement is aimed.

But lately I've realized how in love with people I am.

I had a moment last week. I was in Duluth, driving around with a friend, and I realized what makes that city so beautiful for me. Sure, I love the drive down the hill toward Lake Superior, and I love the way the smoke rolls out of the manhole covers, and I love how nothing is too commercialized just yet. There is Pizza Lucé, there is Amazing Grace, there are The Electric Fetus and The Last Place on Earth. There are colleges and paper mills and everything in-between. There is the fact that my allergies don't bother me in the amazing air there.

But we were driving down toward Superior Street to go to lunch and I realized just what it is that gets me excited to go to Duluth: its people. No other population in the country has stricken me as much as that of Duluth. I was watching a group of people pass another group of people and had a moment in which I realized that it's almost as if everyone is in the city by a wonderful accident. They all seem like they've migrated there for some cosmic purpose that may never actually come to light.

I remember last year sitting in a circle listening to a gargantuan homeless man named Geo tell us stories about hospital visits, sleeping in gutters, and arguing with police. I know that there are homeless people everywhere and this is an utter tragedy, but looking past that I realized that Geo has influenced my life forever. I know this for a fact and I don't know of anywhere else that I've met someone like that that can do such a thing for me.

There are a lot of stories like that. The boy I met in the mall that turned up a year later, opening for a band I went to see. The boy in the red shirt from my hometown that listens to the same accordion player I do. This boy that boy these men and women and so on and so forth; I don't have all the words for it.

And where does this come from suddenly?

A woman has sat down next to me at this coffee shop. I realized that when she left I pulled out the headphone closest to her, hoping she would want to talk to me while she was here. I know it's not because she's attractive -- because she is, but I have prided myself on being committed before and this won't sway me one bit -- but because she is new and strangely intriguing and willing to trust me sitting next to her.

And yet, I know I am done with this place.

And the why has just hit me:

These people, these beautiful strangers that I feel a connection to for no good reason at all, are my addiction, and in a place like this, the supply can only last so long. It may take me a long time to weigh the pros and cons of the situation, but I think the realization just is.