Kenosha, Wisconsin is one of those cities people might reference to indicate “the middle of nowhere.” Sort of like when someone in Phoenix says, “It’s not like we’re in Kalamazoo” to mean, “At least we’re in a legit city.” I suspect that’s the case partly because the names of these kinds of towns have cartoonish phonetics. Ken–nohhhh–shaaaa. (Kalamazoo is obvious. Even Dr. Seuss thought so.)

Kenosha is home to about 100,000 people, but you wouldn’t know it driving in on I-94 West from Chicago. From that direction, Kenosha is dusty, hot and dry, at least on the first weekend in August. There’s farmland here and there. There’s a Peterbilt dealership. There are gas stations, many, and rest-stop fast food you’d see along any American highway. There’s an adult film store called “Select Video” right before you get back on I-94 to leave. (Although from my quick Google research, Select Video is technically in Zion, Illinois.)

Sometimes it’s easy for me to think, “God, who lives here?” about seemingly forsaken parts of this country. Cities and towns that fall under that category fascinate me. If someone handed me $5,000 to spend on a vacation, there are times I think I’d book a trip to the nooks and crannies of the United States before I’d plan some overseas extravaganza. To see how other people live, here, in terms that are equally transferable to my own experience on earth. Their lives would likely be quite different than mine, but in origin quite similar, and that’s the whole point.

Straight out of college, I spent two years in Gilroy, a small town about 80 miles southeast of San Francisco. Famed for being the “garlic capital of the world,” Gilroy qualifies as an American nook and cranny. It’s small, quaint, some might say forsaken (there were certainly days I thought so). But Gilroy had a sense of community, and as fucked up as some parts of it were (drugs, prostitution, typical inland California shit), it had a pulse just as real as that of a renowned city, albeit in a different way. No glitz. None. No glitter at all. Just real fucking people navigating the world. People with stories, secrets, problems, micro dramas, affairs, intense family issues, suspicions swept under the rug.

I love the energy and culture of a vibrant city. But driving through Kenosha today reminded me that we’re all just kinda trying to make it through, no matter where we are. Big cities mask real lives in their own ways, different from how small towns do. The lives are there, though, in each of these places. All somehow wanting to be heard.