What's next

This weekend, in between some thoroughly killer social outings, I clicked into high gear on my packing, and as my apartment stands about 90% packed-up, it's time to look ahead to the next chapter. Here goes!

THE OPEN ROAD! Well, the road inside a walled city, I guess technically that's not really an "open" road, but guess what, don't be a jerk, c'mon.

Almost a year ago, I set my wedding band down on a bench at an MBTA station and stepped onto a train to New York to start my overseas journey. I was just a pile of limbs moving automatically in a direction that my brain accepted as "correct" without really knowing why, or what I was doing. I feel miles and ages removed from that departure, thanks to friends who reflected me to myself while I tried to pull myself back together (just about there, gang), and this departure feels qualitatively different. Because, well, it is!

A view from Spello. Gates! Doorways! Something something allegory!

Last summer's trip was about putting myself back together - as a human being first, and then as a grad student who'd gone into freefall at a pretty key point in my academic career. This summer's trip is about making some deliberate, decisive moves at the career level and being mindful-grateful of the flexible-schedule-and-geography blessing that grad school has been. I'm (obviously) happier than I was at last year's departure, but also more purposeful, and with a clear sense of what I'm heading into, notwithstanding life's ability to throw everything up in the air Just For Fun.

Where last year's trip was built around a month of research and then a flurry of movement around the continent, doing a bit of writing and a lot of exploring, this summer's trip is built around three dedicated longer-term writing stops, with a bit of fun between each one. As I've discussed before, it's sort of a time equivalent of economies of scale: monthlong stays end up being as cheap or cheaper than an apartment in Chicago. (Catching an $80 flight overseas helps with all of this substantially, as you can imagine.)

"Let's go do something over there!" says the horse man, like an idiot. You're gonna fall off the building if you go that way, man, get it together.

The idea behind this summer's shape was to get as much dissertation drafting done as humanly possible before returning to Chicago, as I know I'll want to work a full-time job there, get back into the theatre scene, spend time with friends, etc. Knowing that getting back to Chicago in May would throw a lot of temptations in my path to scuttle the writing, I decided that long stays abroad, with six or seven hours of work each morning before my Stateside friends woke up, in idyllic environs, sounded like a killer plan. The trick was (a) to make the stays long enough that I wouldn't be in tourist mode, and (b) to pick cities where the appeal was cultural/lifestyle in nature and not a density of attractions to take in. Ideally, I'd be in places where I could pull full writing days, go for head-clearing walks, and take my pleasure from the simple joys of markets, music and theatre, all without feeling I was not making the most of my time either as a writer or as a traveller.

The site of my writing center in Vienna last summer. Ah, Cafe Goldegg, how I miss ya.

So ultimately my three stays will be places I've been before and just wanted more time to soak up, not itinerary-packed destinations, though they're all world-class cities: in May I'll be in Florence, in June in Vienna, and in July in Berlin. My first month will be the gentlest and least-packed, all the better for writing and acclimation; my second will give me a chance to do any last-stage research that needs doing while also taking in some international theatre festival action and some superb operas on the cheap; and my third will keep me in German-speaking culture in a city with a crazy-deep theatre scene.

Odds of returning to a Heuriger in June: extremely solidly promising.

There will be a couple of connective detours between each stop - about a week through the Balkans after Florence, a few days in Slovenia after Vienna, and after Berlin a quick stop in Belgium on my way to visit friends in the UK in August, giving me little bursts of newness and mental breaks, and balancing the summer nicely between [excessively enjoyable and ideally situated] work and [kinda straight-up unnecessary] touring around.

Reichstag self-portraiture from last summer's Berlin week.

And when this summer is done, I know I'll be home. I'm ready. I found it deeply nourishing to nest in Boston this year (more reflections coming on that soon), and the prospect of putting down roots in Chicago again on my return is tremendously hope-generating. This past year has been so packed of so much discovery and movement, and I'm grateful for all of that. But most of all, I'm glad that I'll be rejoining a lot of the friends who were there for me through the tumult of the year that got me from last spring to this, to be able to more actively be present for them, and to start exploring an uncertain, unknown, but thrillingly wide-open future from a place that gives me much joy.

Bristol with a stunning sunset, July 2016

And that, well, that's quite a lovely finish line to be heading for.