a trip to the windy* city

*windy rainy

Going into this post, I had intended to write a recap of the past couple weeks, while hopefully adding a few little tangents that were completely unrelated to the little adventures I have taken. But as I sat down and wrote nearly a thousand words, I realized something pretty major: I have no voice. This was a problem that I knew I would inevitably face, I just thought it would come after a few posts. Not when I am just starting out.

A lack of voice is something I have struggled with for as long as I have been writing. Whether it was attempts at short stories when I was 11, book reviews in middle school, or long academic papers in college, I find myself writing like I am a little mindless robot. And for that, the quality of my writing suffers. Even writing this right now, I feel like I am struggling to even say what I want to, I am just writing to write. But then that begs the question–do I have to know what I want to write? Of course, I want to when I am writing a 7-page paper on a Henry James novel, but as for a blog that I started on a whim? Am I looking for a specific direction? Or is there something just as valuable in writing blindly, as there is in writing with structure?

In my last post, I felt like I was moving towards the right direction, in the way that I was communicating with my audience more intimately, but reading it back again feels juvenile to me. It doesn’t feel like me. But what does? I have no idea where I am going with this, and on an even bigger scale, with anything.

Something that I have begun to realize is that I will not find my voice until two things happen. One, I need to practice. Practice makes perfect, after all. I mean, I know practice. 6 AMs, dead hour, late night, I can do it. And still get to class on time (maybe with a little sheen of sweat). But no, this is a different kind of practice. It involves working the little muscles of my mind and writing until my fingers cramp up, and maybe even the development of a little bit of carpal tunnel syndrome. That is something that I am not used to.

And that’s not the scary part for me. It’s not only practicing the actual writing, but having to practice writing with no constraints. I have no text to write about, or amount of time in which my work needs to be finished. I think that is the most challenging part. Yes, I have to think for myself at school and always be prepared to bring a new perspective to the table. But here? My only goal is to work on my writing. I have nothing else guiding my fingertips on the keyboard. How do I do that with no tools other than my mind to direct me? That brings me to the second thing that needs to happen…

I need to find myself. Not physically. That would be easy. I am sitting at a table in Coffee Roasters, drinking my iced chai and dodging the people that I no longer know. No, I need to find myself mentally. Emotionally. I have been avoidant of a lot in the past, which has made it that much harder for me to sit down and evaluate who I was, who I am, and who I want to be. Journaling will only get me so far when I don’t know which questions to ask. It seems like the only question I can ask is: what do I ask?

So I think that my next step in free writing, in order to find out who I am and what my voice is, is to write about things that I do. Hobbies, friends, interests. All of the basic things that I would not really jump to write about because it seems a little mundane for me to put that out there.

At the start of this post, I mentioned that it had been my intention to write about my life over the last couple of weeks. So I will. At the beginning of this month, I took a trip up to Chicago to spend the weekend with two of my friends from school (plus a new friend). I met my friend Liv and her friend Krista (now a friend of mine, thank you Liv) in Indianapolis then we drove up to Jamie’s house together. My drive to Indy was in less than ideal conditions. 15 minutes into my drive, it started pouring down rain and lightning lit up the dark gray sky. My chin was hovering over the steering wheel, which I gripped so hard that my knuckles turned white. Finally, after 45(ish) minutes, it lightened up so that I could turn the windshield wipers from their fastest setting to a pretty moderate pace. I settled back into my seat and comfortably sipped my cold brew and sang along to my Liked Songs. After another hour of driving in drizzle, I pulled into E68 and got to see Liv for the first time in two months. Solid excitement filled my body, replacing the happy anticipation that had been building. The plans had made it out of the groupchat, and for that I was ecstatic.

After stopping at a gas station, or two, we hit the road. The weather cleared, and we crossed state lines, making our way through Illinois as Maps took us to Wheaton. We ate at a place called 302 Wheaton, then made it to Jamie’s. To stand in a school friend’s home is a special thing. Seeing the steps they climb every day and the chair they sit in to play the guitar is something else entirely. We settled in, then made our way back into Downtown Wheaton to refuel at Blackberry Market (they should advertise their lattes way more… super good), then walk around Cantigny Park, a magical looking place. Our time there was marked by somersaults, war tanks, and bearing witness to a wedding and quinceñera (separate parties, not to be confused). Once we had sweat through our shirts at the park, we got ice cream and rested until eating dinner at this Vietnamese restaurant called Luong-Loi. I think this trip made me realize that a) I don’t eat out enough, and b) eating with friends makes the food that much better. With full stomachs, we drove back to Jamie’s and watched Midsommar. That was my second Ari Aster film, and as a non-movie critic, I can safely say that his movies are just not my cup of tea. The best part of the movie, aside from Florence Pugh, was unpacking it the next day as we rode the train to Chicago.

Good conversation carried us into the train station, where we quickly discovered the rain was attempting to flood us out of the city. After buying *overpriced* umbrellas, we ventured out into the torrential downpour and made our way to the Art Institute of Chicago. After two blocks our shoes and socks were thoroughly dampened but that did not stop us from laughing through the uncomfortableness. We walked (let's be honest, we ran) up those big stone steps and into the entrance, where the sound of the flood warning notification bounced off the walls of the hall, coming from over a dozen different phones–some of which did not make it out of the rain unquenched. The sound continued to go off sporadically as we made our way through miniatures, Japanese art, and our short sprint through Realism (to get to the café).

With various overpriced treats, the four of us sat down in said café, glad to be sitting after hours of walking and observing. There, at that small table, surrounded by other museum goers, we started talking. Something I love about Jamie is that he will always start a deep conversation–no small talk permitted. Liv will always jump in and impress us with some very intellectual and well-thought-out opinion on whatever matter Jamie decides. Krista and I chimed in often, but something I love doing when we’re having a big discussion is watching Liv and Jamie talk about things. It always seems like they have both spent time preparing for it, rather than just jumping in on a spur-of-the-moment topic.

We decided after more than a half an hour that we should probably move on and see the last exhibits we wanted to in our remaining hours there. We followed our little visitor’s guide map from room to room at the museum, running to the last couple just in time, made a small visit to the giftshop, and then left. Through the foggy city we went, seeing the Bean (Cloud Gate, for you pretentious readers), and then went across the river for dinner at Maggiano’s. We sat in a dimly lit booth, eating pasta and reliving stories from the past semester. We concluded with tiramisu and a walk back to the train station in what turned out to be perfect weather conditions. The train took us back to Wheaton, where we climbed those wooden stairs in Jamie’s house and got ready for bed. The day had shaped up to be one of those that puts you to sleep almost immediately; we all slept well that night.

Rising fairly early the next morning, we went to breakfast at Egg Harbor (Wheaton’s #1 breakfast spot). Our four full tummies got back into my car and we drove to Naperville for a stroll up and down the Riverwalk. We visited Anderson’s Bookshop, where I couldn’t stop myself from buying a book. We finished with frozen yogurt, then drove back to Jamie’s for the last little bit of our trip. He played his guitar for us as we sat in the backyard, sweaty but smiling in the Illinois sun. It was then that I think reality started to hit: we would be leaving soon, and we wouldn’t see each other until this fall.

Jamie played his last chord, and we all rose from our seats and made our way back inside for the last time. After double checking that we did not leave anything behind, we walked out the front door, saying our goodbyes and squeezing in those last farewell hugs. We girls climbed into my car and backed out of the driveway, waving as we started towards Indy.

Once we got back to E68, we once again said our goodbyes and squeezed in more hugs. We knew that we would see each other a couple days later at Kings Island so it didn't feel as difficult with that goodbye. I drove on out of the parking lot, blasting Taylor Swift and merging onto the highway.

As I made my way through corn and soybean fields, the sunset behind me created a deep glow throughout the crops. The dusk grew around me and it began to look like the ending scene to a period-piece (Pride and Prejudice, 2005, if you were wondering). The sky ahead of me was filled with rocketing fireworks as people began to celebrate the next day’s holiday. I continued on my way back home. Pulling into the driveway, I grabbed my bag and went inside to greet my dog. I went to bed almost immediately, still smiling from such a good weekend.

Well, it is two weeks in, and I am already slacking with this blog. I guess I never set any guidelines for myself regarding how frequently I would write, but I definitely didn’t think that it would be two weeks in between posts. Thank you for reading, of course, and thank you for sticking around to see what nonsense pours from my brain like the rain from those Chicago clouds. Maybe next time I will be able to sound out my voice a bit more concretely. If not, well, what can you do?