My day starts with the sound of the coffee being poured from the coffee machine. I am sure it is one of the residents, either David or Mia pouring it, eager to get their dirty bean fuel in them to kick-start  their gears.

While I toss and turn on my bed in the RV, hearing the coffee sounds through my window. At last, I give up on trying to fall asleep again and wash up in the sink. Then, I walk out; still pyjama-clad wearing a vest.

That is how a day starts in Nowhere. For me, at least.

For others it’s different. For instance, Madeline does not have anyone drinking coffee by her window as she lives on the west end. Her little makeshift garden stretches out in front of her pastel RV . She starts her day when the Sun peeks through her blinds and when the birds start chirping on her Giant Oak tree where she has made this birdhouse. She gets out of bed and makes some green tea.

She starts the day by watering her plants and eating breakfast. After that, she usually takes her painting supplied to the hills of the mountains or to the forest or just disappears into some place unknown in her car.

She stays out for most of the day and comes back at noon with a finished or half-finished painting or some days with nothing but a smile on her  face. She places the supplies back and then talks to the people around town.

She makes lunch for herself and old Miss. Ellis who insists she can cook for herself but Madeline knows she can't so she insists she take it on the pretence of trying out her new dish.

At night, she sits by the fire with others as they tell stories. She tells her own stories and listens patiently to others'. She talks about travelling and art, but her talk about travelling is synonymous with her talk of art.

She wants to reflect the brilliance of the world as seen through her eyes and understood by her mind onto the page, just to see if someone else sees the world like she does.

That is the life she lives in Nowhere.

For Jacob, it's different. Jacob is in his late-fifties and awfully good at carpentry. His day starts with him waking up at dawn to make breakfast with his wife. They cook together in the little house he has made.

They sing as they cook and if you pass by their house you can hear them. None of them sings very well but together their singing is more beautiful than the most trained singers'.

After that, they set out for the day. Jacob’s wife, aptly named Dawn likes to paint the wooden sculptures Jacob makes. They make these sculptures and sell them online for pretty high earnings as they are pretty good at woodwork.

Jacob sits on his workbench and Dawn sits by his side with her brush. An old 80s country song plays in the background as they work together. They talk about each other, about their kids who now have houses of their own and come  to visit them every two weeks and their days. They enjoy each other's company for many hours until they go in and cook together again.

They eat dinner with the others and one could tell they were deeply in love with another just by the way they looked at each other. They not only love each other but also like each other and love each other's company which is a rare thing to find in this world.

Then, there’s Miss Ellis. She is in her late-eighties and is as fit as a horse but cannot stand the fire and the fumes. She is a widow, her husband passed away in her thirties.

She is perfectly content with her life. She plays the piano and teaches young pianists how to play it in the afternoon. Even in Nowhere, people come to learn. She is a great teacher, she used to be one in the local school in Indiana until she retired and moved here.

She has this little pink house , covered with hanging pots with little flowers. She takes morning walks to the hills and soaks in the sunshine there as the Sun rises. Every sunrise seems different, she says. It’s like you are watching it for the first time.

She had no kids other than thousands of pupils she has taught who visit her with gifts and daily correspond with her. She has taught and influenced many famous pianists through the years who loved her like their own mother. She is content with her life and wants to spend her remaining days filling many lives with the sound of music.

She spends the nights talking with everyone and imparting her wisdom upon the young. Her advice ranges from “Never wear matched socks, you always waste your time finding them” to “Follow your heart  or you are going to regret it when you are 80. I am glad I followed mine." to “You are allowed to grieve”.

David and Mia are father and daughter. Both of them are photographers. Both are also caffeine junkies. Despite living together , they have distinct styles.

David captures the life in motion, he believes that being alive is to be constantly moving. The caffeine for him defines the high in life, the will to keep going onto the next thing to the next thing. For Mia, life is still. Life is in the silences, the place where people dissolve into forests and animals, the place where you take a few moments to appreciate the beauty of every little thing. For her sipping coffee slowly is to savour the taste and appreciate it.

Despite their differences, they get along very well.

They both go to places together to capture pictures and then come back together. They show each other their work. Both of their works seem distinctly different even though they might be taking pictures of the same place. They both like each other’s work. They share the memories of Mia's late mother with a melancholy happiness. They laugh and share jokes and live life with everyone else.

And then there is me. My RV is quite plain from the outside unlike the mahogany wooden interior. I walk out in my pyjamas and sit with David and Mia and laugh along with them, pouring myself a cup of espresso. I observe the way they talk with each other and I like how people who are so different can also get along very well.

I make breakfast and eat it with Miss Ellis. We share my home cooked bacon and eggs. She tells me funny stories of school, asks me about her day, asks me whether I have a boyfriend yet and when I tell her there is someone, she smiles and tells me she wants to meet him, I call Ernest right in front of her to ask him to come that day.

She talks about her lovers with a fondness that I like. There is no longing or regret in her voice, she is happy with the way she has lived. I want that for me in life someday.

Then, I walk off to Madeline’s who is back from her ventures and has a new piece to show me. We talk over tea and biscuits. She is the only girl besides Mia my age here and she is sort of my best friend. I love her work and how self-sufficient she is.

We talk as we work in her garden, as she prunes roses and I pick up fresh oranges. She tells me that she is seeing John and that she likes him. Talking about boys wit her is different, her experiences are recent and she has dealt with similar situations. Talking with Miss Ellis was like talking to a mother, talking to Madeleine is like talking to a sister.

I like the drive Madeline has, the dreams she keeps in her back pocket, working towards them inch by inch. How she adapts to places and makes them her own, getting absorbed in a routine that somehow never becomes mundane. I like how sheltered she is even though she dreams of travelling.

It’s like building a home in every place you go and the world becomes your house.

I walk back to my RV then and get to my own work. I grab my laptop and set off to a corner.

Sometimes it's in the middle of Nowhere, sometimes its in the forests or the hills or the town or the coffee shop or the playground of a school. I write. I write about all I know and all I don't. About what I see and what I don’t. I write for hours, absorbed in my work.

Then, I grab some lunch and walk over to Dawn and Jacob's.

Sometimes their kids are also over and we all talk about love and life and kids and sometimes it’s just them and they say I remind then of their kids. They do love me like their own kids so does Mrs. Ellis. They make me eat lunch no matter what, telling me that whatever junk food I just ingested will not make my skinny ass any healthier so I needed to eat solid food and I eat, thinking of them as the parents I never had and slimming.

They are in love, the love which involves seeing the world together and journeying through it together. I want that in life someday.

It is evening and I walk over to Miss Ellis. She teaches me and other kids how to play the piano. I learn, marvelling at how great a teacher she is. Sometimes Mia and Madeline drop by, they aren't regulars but Miss Ellis likes seeing them.

Then, after the kids are gone, I walk with Miss Ellis to the fire where we all sit on chairs round the fire and eat dinner cooked by collective effort of everyone, since Miss Ellis insists on helping, so we ask her for recipes and to cut the veggies. Then, we eat and laugh and talk and enjoy well into the night.

Everyone walks Miss Ellis over to her house and Jacob and Dawn go their way. Mia and Davis go too.

Madeline and I talk a bit more and then we part ways.

I go to sleep thinking that there are some families you are born into and sometimes they stay with you forever and you love them,  sometimes you don't. But the kind of families you make find for yourself, the kind of families you are welcomed into for the person you are and out of love are the families that truly stat with you forever. In the middle of Nowhere, I had acquired one such family. A family which would help each other through the hardships no matter what.

I had found my family.

Next day, I wake up to the sound of the coffee again. I smile.