What a Week That Was

It's been a pretty stellar, if exhausting week. And as I mentioned in my last post, good in a lot of future-oriented directions, along with some good time to reflect on the past year or so. Musings on all this stuff after the jump!

The major haps of the week involved a trip to Chicago. I've been home far less this year than in my earlier years in Boston - deliberately so, knowing this was strongly likely to be my last year here. Especially given the fall's scattered geography, taking me out of town more than every other weekend to attend weddings, conferences, festivals, etc., I have been doing my best to be here when I can, and this semester have tried to limit my travels. (Well, once a month is... less than I have been traveling, anyhow)

And actually, it's been really great to rediscover how good it feels to have a home, to have a nest that's comfortable and familiar and warm - to have thinned out my possessions so that what remains feels thoughtful and deliberate and, well, cozy. That, along with my good luck in finding a neighborhood in Boston that makes me really happy, has made it a solidly good year. And boy do I feel lucky to have had it...

I didn't want to come back this year, frankly. I'd started working on my application for my fellowship in December 2015 under the assumption that it would be in service of making a dual-income, shared-life existence far kinder to my partner, hoping that it would relieve financial pressures and make it easier to fully and freely enjoy the city together before we moved to L.A. I finished the application in a daze of panic while that relationship fell apart, and by the time I found out that I'd gotten the grant, all the reasons I had applied for it had gone away. It was a weird thing, having worked hard for something that I thought I no longer wanted. But I also knew that it was an honor and an opportunity, and that refusing it would in a big way be signaling an end to my career path, which had already taken a lot of damage in those transitional months. So I decided to stick it out for one more year.

I feel like most of my biggest life decisions are huge in ways that I don't understand/appreciate at the time that I make them, and this was absolutely the same. Had I gone back to Chicago to write my dissertation, I think Boston would have been a scar, a kind of emotional blind spot and a deeply unhappy place in my memory. I would have been on the run from things - which is not generally how I like to live my life. Now, almost a year after making the decision to return, that history hasn't vanished, but it's layered - heyyyy palimpsested, semicoloned - with new experiences, history, sense memory, awareness. Getting to know and love a neighborhood packed with creative people and local-economy energy, without a heavy a student population treating it disposably; having a dedicated office space to devote to my work; meeting/dating/befriending new people; getting involved in social and work environments outside of my grad program... There was just a lot to love about this year, for all the complications and frustrations that will always crop up with any given city's flaws.

All that has been great, meaningful, and gratitude-generating. And still: being in Chicago for just less than a week to perform in a short play festival reminded me of all the reasons that I'm well-suited to that city on a number of intuitive, tempermental levels. The connective network that makes it easy to hop between neighborhoods; the gloriously reasonable cost of living; the degree to which most people seem to care, to be living inventively and thoughtfully in their businesses, their lives, their art, no matter what they're working at - these things obviously can be true to varying degrees in a lot of cities, but at a minimum I'm aware of them in a heightened way back home. And getting to play creatively and collaboratively was magnificent - a good reminder that collaboration is an enormous need of mine that needs to be fed for me to feel really connected and happy. Grad school can be pretty isolating work, and I have missed the regular chance to be a part of a team.

Of course, a huge reason that Chicago remains appealing is that I have a deep, rich network of friends there - people I love a lot, who made room to see me and help me talk through this moment of transition as they have the many transitions of the past few years. Stepping into a city that's the-same-but-different, reconnecting with friends who are growing-yet-familiar, I feel ready to see what a second chapter there will feel like. Not the same (you never step in the same river twice, as the fellow says) but with resonance and echoes of my past experiences there to help me discover what it, and I, want to be this time.

I had a few conversations in Chicago about job prospects, and while nothing is firmly ironed out (and some opportunities feel more in line with what I want to do long-term than others), there's a solid enough sense of possibility there that I know I'm headed back.

But first...

I'm a decent piece down the road with my dissertation; not halfway done, but with one chapter in and another on the way, nearing the halfway point of the meat of the thing. And I'd like to return to Chicago with as much of this under my belt as possible, so that full-time employment and theatre work can coexist with the finishing touches rather than jousting for space with more-exhausting first-draft writing. And so, having saved all year to cover a possibly-income-free summer in Boston, I'm planning instead to take one more sojourn to Europe, built (I think) around a trio of monthlong stays in cities whose structures and energies suit me best for balancing a rigorous writing schedule with daily relaxation, breathing, exploration. A kind of cultural tourism rather than frenetic sightseeing (though I'm hoping to sneak a little active travel in between each writing stop), it's a chance to really iron out the last pieces of this fragment of life, take advantage of the last-for-now window of geographic and scheduling flexibility, and hit the ground ready to focus on the immediate future when I return to the states.

So, at the end of April I'll be trucking my things into a storage unit somewhere in or near Chicago, flying back to close up the academic year here, and then zapping off on an $80 flight to London and off into the continent with a sense of mission, purpose, and openness that I couldn't have conceived a year ago. I'm really excited - and of course a little nervous - to see what these next two adventures will look like. But I feel like the past year and change has taught me a lot about accepting that we all live in a permanent state of change, that you can't control outcomes, and that mostly what you can do is strengthen the muscles of gratitude, openness, and curiosity as you keep finding new ways to exist, to connect, and to take joy where it can be found in the world.

OKAYYYYY if you made it this far you are probably my parents (Hi mom and dad! You're the best!) and even if not you deserve Treats for reading this far. So: here are photos of: a Swedish goat, my family dog, and Eilean Donan Castle. SEE IF YOU CAN GUESS WHICH IS WHICH, ENJOY.

CORRECT: This is probably a goat, though he's not staring at the camera creepily, which most goats are exceptionally skilled at doing. LITTLE KNOWN FACT: GOATS ARE MONSTERS AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Attentive readers will know this is a dog because goats are too creepy to let them cuddle with you. Also, it looks like Truman is cuddling but really it's just that he went deaf for a few weeks and took to arranging himself in positions where he would know for sure if anybody tried to leave the room without him noticing. He is a very good herding dog.

Did I ever explicitly mention how magical January 1 was, and how incredible it was to come across this place on such a clear day with only a handful of people up and about to see it? It was medium okay AT LEAST!