too much to process

As ever, I am struggling to begin to take in and to reflect on everything that is happening around me, alongside me, and within me. I am not very able to step back and reflect critically on any of it as yet. It has been, and continues to be, an in-the-moment experience of interaction, of withdrawal to nurse my bruised and battered ribs and elbow (following a fall in Chicago), of connection with old friends and new, of hanging out, of worrying, (so no change there!), and so on. I'm still hearing, in my head, Tami's bluesy soulful, powerful voice and presence, as she gave one of the most powerful, political, personal autoethnographic performances I have seen. She reminds me of the power of autoethnography to represent the complex, to blur the personal and political, to challenge and to move hearts and minds and souls.

The congress closes this evening with an 'old-fashioned Midwest Cookout' and music from 'Big Grove Zydeco' before some last minute packing, an early night, and an early morning to climb aboard the train from Champaign to Chicago Union Station. I am so excited by the name of the train -the City Of New Orleans - as the song, by Arlo Guthrie, is one of my favourite train songs! So what other train songs can you think of?!