Backpacking through Europe in 1994

Day 55 • October 31, 1994
Halloween in Lund, Sweden

The Day Kearney Stopped Being the Enemy

Looking back, this day contained one of the most important realizations of the entire trip.

For months I had been running — from the pain of my suicide attempt, from the feeling that everyone else was moving forward with their lives while I was stuck, and from Kearney itself. I had planned this whole adventure with one dominant thought: Get out. No matter what.

But on this day, something shifted.

I was homesick. I missed my friends. I was thinking about going camping and skiing with the Dome guys. And for the first time since I had come up with this crazy idea to leave, I actually saw Kearney’s positive qualities instead of just its flaws. I even allowed myself to imagine being happy there.

It wasn’t that I suddenly wanted to stay in Kearney forever. But something important had changed. The desperate need to escape had softened. I was starting to understand that I could live there happily without it meaning I had failed at life.

So from the negative emotional mess and suicidal state I was in six months earlier — when I came up with this crazy idea to get out of Kearney, Nebraska, no matter what — to arriving at this positive, introspective state where I realized home wasn’t so bad after all… I would say this backpacking adventure had been fantastic therapy for me.

**Phone Home**
When I was a kid, my all-time favorite movie was *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial*. There’s a scene where E.T. sees a telephone and says he wants to “phone home.” I’ve never forgotten that line.
Throughout this trip, every time I saw a payphone, I felt the same pull. I wanted to call home. I wanted to hear a familiar voice — a friend from the Dome Crew, someone in my family, anyone. This photo was taken on the train platform in Lund, and it became part of a running series I took across Europe of all the different phone booths I came across. They all represented the same thing: the growing homesickness and the quiet desire to connect with the people and place I had worked so hard to leave behind.

My Photographs from today in Lund

Swedish Pay Phone

This booth had a very different feel than the ones I’d seen in other countries. Clean, minimalist, and functional — very Swedish in its design. It wasn’t artistic, but it was straightforward and practical.

Reflections on the Höje River

The lights from Lund Central Station reflected beautifully across the calm surface of the Höje River. Standing there in the quiet evening, I watched the platform, tracks, and overhead structures shimmer on the water. It was a peaceful moment after the chaos of the night before — just me, the river, and the glowing reflection of the station.

Swedish Mailboxes

These two mailboxes outside the post office in Lund showed the Swedish postal system. The one on the left was for Brev (letters), while the one on the right was for Lokalbrev (local letters) — mail that stayed within the local area and was typically delivered faster.

An Evening of Music

This was a really nice moment. One of Joe’s roommates grabbed his guitar and started playing for us. After the chaos of the night before, it was a calm, almost peaceful way to spend the evening — just sitting around, listening to music, and hanging out. I really liked these quiet moments in between all the partying.

DAY 55 / 10-31-94
Lund, Sweden

Halloween. Today has been kind of hard for me. I am definitely homesick. But I think one of the good things is I can admit it, and I’m not fighting it. But it’s weird. At the same time that I’m sad I’m not home, I’m also sad that I’m leaving joe, and I’m also happy to be seeing Pernille tomorrow.

I had a feeling today though that was a little scary. For the first time, I actually thought Kearney was a cool place to live. For the first time, I saw its positive features instead of its negative ones. And I actually could picture myself being happy there. Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to live my whole life there, and I know there are greater things for me than Kearney Nebraska. But I also know that I can stay there a while longer, and I won’t be chomping on the bit to get out.

Anyway, the calmest Halloween I’ve EVER had went something like this: I didn’t do much of anything from the time I woke up at 11 until Joe got home from school at 1. But after that, we took the train to Malmo. Joe does a lot of rock climbing, and a few months ago he got his pack stolen. He just got his insurance check so it was like a shopping spree for him.

It was during this time that I did a lot of thinking about home, especially how much fun it would be to go camping or skiing or stuff like that with the Dome guys.

After that we walked around town a little, including going back by the Slaughterhouse. It helped to make me remember more of the night, including an escapade in the back rooms and storerooms and the 2nd and 3rd floors of the club.

We caught the train back, and I’ve spent the rest of the night writing in this and watching TV, the highlights of which were Cheers, Beavis & Butthead & Rocky 4. Now it’s almost 2 am, and I’m going to try to sleep.

My train tickets to Malmo and back to Lund

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