Monica Multer

My final full day in Chicago was a blur of car horns, books, helicopter noise, cracks in the pavement, and good food. I dedicated my day to simply walking everywhere in the city. The only way to know the heart of a city is to walk the streets that pulse with people like the lifeblood pumping through the veins of this vast entity. Before putting my feet to the pavement and letting the sole of my shoes meld with the soul of this city I visited a place that brings my heart great joy, a library. The day was long and the journey longer to get to the center of the city. ...

On the hunt for a new home, seeking graduate school with great coffee, better books, astounding architecture and a cohort of inspiring academics. I am touring graduate schools across the nation while I drive, and had to stop at Northwestern in Evanston, IL. So I took a whole day off by myself to drive up there and tour around the campus. But first, I grabbed coffee at Caffe Streets on Division to prepare myself for the adventure to come. Honestly, it has been really hard on me visiting graduate schools when my heart still belongs in Berkeley. I miss my academic home dearly and all of my friends who are still there. Nothing makes the sting of nostalgia more painful than the constant reminder of what you left behind by where you are going next. Trying to find a new home when I don’t want to give up the last is a brutal conditioning towards the constant change of my future. Despite my deep desire for everything to remain exactly the same, the world is shifting underneath my feet and I can either get off the crumbling rock or let my fear paralyze me. ...

Getting to visit family is priceless, especially family that I haven’t seen for some time. Long talks over drawn out meals or nights spent laughing next to warm fireplaces together are the foundations of memories for years to come. I have loved being with my family here in Chicago, we have had a lot to catch up on and what better place to do it than this beautiful city. Yesterday we explored the Pilsen district in the rainy Halloween weather, and ate delicious food (I got chicken and waffles for the first time) while talking for a long time. Today we went into Downtown Chicago since the sun was out in force and there was so much to see. We got Dim Sum and then meandered around Millennium Park together. ...

I have exchanged my endless forests with city streets and skyscrapers; swapped Lake Superior with Lake Michigan, and found more family along the way. If there is one thing that I have learned on this journey thus far, it is that even on a solo road trip, I am never truly alone. The are so many people who take part in this journey with me, friends, family members, and strangers that become friends. Even when I think I am truly alone there is always someone on the end of a phone or at the end of a long day of driving. There is a peculiar feeling of desolation that I have grown familiar with, that clings to me like a shadow and sometimes eclipses my vision. However, the desolation is only as real as I make it. ...

Even though I have a home once more, I have found myself taking to the road. Not to get anywhere in particular, I have no grand destination at the end of a long road anymore, but I take to the road all the same. Somedays I drive just to feel normal again, the road has become my home in more than one way. But most days, I drive to watch the fall leaves twirl in the air of my car’s wake as I devour mile after mile of empty roadway. This is my now, after the colors turned, after the winter winds began, and after the leaves began to fall. But this isn’t where I want to begin, I want to go back when the trees were still green and the lake lay still. I want to tell you where I have been, how strange life has become, but in the best of ways. ...

I am caught somewhere between way to busy and being too tired to reflect to put my thoughts on the page, or, in this case, on the internet. I know I have neglected my blog the last couple of days, so here is the update: I made it. I had one last final day of driving after I finished my time in Madison. But I had to have one last breakfast in this wonderful city (which is somewhat of a foodie heaven, especially for the midwest!) and stopped just outside of the captial building grounds for a great chai latte and a dark chocolate, caramel sea salt crepe from Bradbury’s. ...

I woke up to the sound of rain against the window. It was the first time in a long time I had heard rain calling me outside. I lay in my bed listening and for the first time it became real. I knew I was very far from home; I knew that I was no longer in California and would not be returning for quite some time. In many ways this whole trip has been so surreal. A strange mixture between road trip and living in a bunch of different states. I bounce from one location to the next, usually with someone I know waiting at the end of my drive so it never feels like I am truly alone. But this morning I woke up and felt alone. I felt far from my friends, family, and all that was familiar to me. I felt it ringing in the rain drops like a vibrating siren and each drop sang out the sound of total strangeness. It was an odd moment, of finally letting it sink in that I wasn’t going home, at least not for a while. I had to make a home wherever I could find it now. ...

Kansas City, Missouri to Madison, Wisconsin; day two of my long days to come. To break up the monotony of corn I decided to make a quick stop in Wallace State Park, a small natural park about an hour outside of Kansas city, to take a hike and get out of the car. It was a great idea but also turned into somewhat of a nightmarish experience that I could never have predicted. ...

Literally. Yesterday I drove all the way across the width of Kansas from Colorado to Missouri. It was a long day of solo driving, just me, Mama the Llama, the Serial podcast, and corn. Lots and lots of corn. I drove away from Colorado with the Flatirons of Boulder in my rearview mirror and my heart in my stomach as I left behind the state I had grown to love over the last week or so. I traded in my grand majestic views for two lane interstates, the loss of beauty exchanged for ease and speed of transportation. Sometimes I think that places like Colorado have such wonderful single lane roads in order to force you to drive slower through all of the beautiful scenery, while places like Kansas and Nebraska offer speedy roadways so you can get the hell across them as fast as possible. ...

Even though it has only been three days since I set off on my own to take this journey across the country, I have already started to notice things about myself as a solo traveler as well as how it feels to travel alone. The main thing I have noticed is how exhausting it is to travel alone. However, it is more than just the obvious answer (since I am alone I do not have anyone to split the burden of effort/work put into travel like driving, purchasing things, making plans, etc) that is behind this exhaustion. It is the feeling of being in the world, but not of it; feeling like people are talking at you and not with you essentially, but it is the city, the places, and the people all figuratively talking at you while you have no in into the conversation to allow you to actually take part. When you have someone to do things with it feels like no matter what happens in the day, at least you have one another for entertainment/enjoyment. However, when you are alone it is just you confronting the world so even normal everyday things like getting a cup of coffee at a cafe becomes a battle to engage with strangers, act friendly, and act as if everything is normal when everything is new, different, and strange. At least for an introvert like myself, it is hard for me to deal with small talk and polite smiles, which results in me wanting to have as little contact with people around me as possible despite the fact that I am lonely and really do want to be around people and make friends. Every day events become exhausting because I no longer have the buffer or the comfort of my friends or family to ease my interactions with the world around me, it is just me and the rest of humanity clamouring towards me with an overload of information and sensory input that I just do not have the current capacity to handle. As a result, I have found that when I travel alone I wind up avoiding people and try to remain alone rather than branch out and make new friends. ...