Living in the city

I usually do a “year in review” with pics and music. That didn’t seem to be what I needed for this year. The end of 2023 ends my five year road trip and the start of something new. I’m ending this blog. I started it in December 2014 when I embarked on a cross-country train trip from Seattle to Chicago. Coast 2 Coast And Then Some has been a joy for me to write. I’m so glad that people followed along and enjoyed my adventures. Thank you for staying with me and reading my work. But this chapter is over and it’s time to start fresh. Chicago is great and I plan to stay.

I started my five year Airstream journey in July 2018. I retired from 30 years as a professor and even though I enjoyed my career, I felt something was missing from my life. My restlessness was acute and the only relief I could come up with was to move into an Airstream travel trailer and hit the road. “See America,” I said to everyone. “Find yourself,” I said to myself. Over these five years I accomplished both. Seeing America via road trip was not an easy feat and it was exquisite. Finding myself was even more challenging. I was humbled, scared, frustrated, grateful, and relieved when I unraveled my great mysteries of who I am. I found out I am the same person I was when I entered this world. However, as Proust says – the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. That is a paraphrase and a translation of the original French. Here is the translation from the book, The Prisoner, which is book 2 of the 7 volume set – Remembrance of Things Past :

The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is;

I see myself differently now because I see myself through the lens of different places and people. I was in motion for five years and it taught me that life is a prism and we constantly see ourselves newly if we allow ourselves to see that. My take on Proust:

I was looking for a fix. I found vision.

I’m working on my next book – The Five Year Road Trip which is an attempt to make sense of my journey. Maybe people will get something out of it for themselves. I hope so. I’ve changed how I see myself since that summer of 2018. We all have. We have survived a pandemic and an attempted coup. Fundamentally, though, I am the same person I was when I was born. What I have is a profound change in vision of myself, the world, and how to traverse through life. I learned a great deal by opening myself through writing and getting responses from people – some I’ve known for years, some I met on the road, and some I’ve never met. I wrote travel articles, this blog, and published three novels that were my cathartic expression of who I am. Writing allows me to see myself and to let others see me. I cultivated my ability to be vulnerable and to trust. I am the richer for it because i get to see myself differently through the eyes of my words and my characters, and through the eyes of others as they see me. My most profound vision was when I accepted that the way a good friend sees me. My friend’s view is a reflection of my own authentic self. That’s what I choose to interpret. It wasn’t until I recognized that reflection that everything changed for me. New eyes. It was a marvelous recognition of myself.

So, with this new sense of self, I am charting a new course for 2024. I’m staying in Chicago – a dream come true. I’m taking on a new life and I don’t know what that looks like yet. I am starting with giving tours at the Frederick C. Robie house here in Hyde Park, Chicago. Telling tales of the architectural master, Frank Lloyd Wright.

I am writing this book about the 5 Year Road Trip and hope to have that complete this year. The working title is The Coffee Shop.

I am actively working on self-improvement of my health to create an improved version of my body. That’s a fancy way of saying get fit and lose weight. I am challenging myself to make new friends and keep seeing myself newly. If nothing else, I will keep busy seeing newly this city I have loved my entire life. Old and new things to visit and experience including friends and family who are here.

Mainly, I want to live an expansive life – as vast as the landscapes I saw, as adventurous as the hikes and mountains I experienced, and as challenging as the jobs I took on as camp host, writer, novelist, and traveler.

Thanks for hanging out with me for all these years. When I start something new, I’ll post here to give your directions on where to find me.