a windy place - Chicago

It is Sunday. you wake up, disappear into the sky, and then come down.
I just happened to come down in Chicago this time.


O’Hare was difficult. but it is worth it, if only for the fact its concourses make you feel like you are traveling through some wrinkle in the fabric of space.



It had been two years since in this city, when I was visiting both Seb and Ehab. but they’ve moved on since. From that time I remember how cold it was. I remember the yellow seahorses at the Aquarium, and also that Seb sang in the choir on Sunday, but I couldn’t see him because they were standing up by the big organ.

That time I took the bus everywhere. This time E. picked me up from the airport, as she was in the city for the weekend. It is Chicago, so I assume this is a function the luck of the quarter Irish in me. Also just the generosity of friends you don’t see often.

I had bubble tea the night before this day. But that tea couldn’t compare to the purple concoction my Sunday companion was now was drinking, which exactly matched her sweater in every nuance of color & hue. that simply doesn’t happen by accident, no, it simply can’t. “It is like drinking a flower!” E. said. and I could tell. it was very fragrant. like a bee, I could smell it from across the table.



…
As E. drove me around the city and various old haunts of hers, it became clear that to get to the bottom of a place, it is often good to view from the top.



Why pay 9 bucks to go to the observation deck of the Hancock Building when on the floor below you can buy a martini for the same price and sit for free? This logic seemed impeccably sound to me, and better still on the 95th floor with vermouth massaging my veins.


wonderful.

peering down, things looked simply manifold.


Cities are expansive, the experiences folded in each inch of space like tangled thread. Sometimes you can see where the stitch lifts from the fabric a bit, as in the case of this flyer posted in a mailbox in Boystown.



The flyer said a lot, but read in part:

Lost, looking for an old friend named Desiree.

I don’t know her last name. I was last with her 1982-1984 at bus stop of Clark and Belmont. It was 3:00 or 4:00.…. She looked at me as I got my arm stuck in the C.T.A. bus door, as I hung on for life! And late for work. Now thinking about it now, I would have stayed right there, talked, and got info and stayed connected. that was a big mistake….

brian@yahoo.com

When you are lost, it seems to me looking for a friend is very natural. That the friend is named Desiree makes me suspicious of whose short-story narrative I happen to be stuck in at this Mailbox Moment. But either way, we see how the time between 1982 and 1984 is in the same ballpark as three or four o’clock; Experience makes a mess of time and simply mashes it up like raspberries in jam --- She looked at me, my arm stuck in the door, I hung on for life (and late for work). Now thinking about it Now, I would have stayed there, talked…

And I wanted to stay there in that Place. and talk. I wanted to reconsider all my recent small mistakes as possibly big ones. and vice versa. And how can I get my arm out of this damn door? the driver sees me through the glass, but doesn’t stop. hang on for Dear Life. brian@nowbut-I-wishItwerethen.org

I all can think is that I hope she gets in touch.


…
The next day found me in a suit and tie, talking to people about the possibility of work, and exchanging pleasantries concerning what constitutes “spring weather” in a place like this. It snowed all day, like “TV snow.” You know, the kind the falls slowly and finely enough, but in thick flakes. that makes you think maybe you are in fact in some one else’s head, and they are dreaming of snow, and you are in their dream. it was that kind. by evening though, the air was cooler it would stay on the ground enough to slide around in.



And I did exactly this with S. What is good about having even one friend is that they have friends, which means you can meet perfectly charming strangers like S. in an unfamiliar place and enjoy the slippery character of snowfall with them. as well as the simple pleasure of trespassing in the Hilton on Michigan Ave. You see, it has these massive ballrooms, and they aren’t good about locking all the doors of them (yes!) We felt grand, and stupefied. maybe this was in fact also the architecture of someone’s sleeping dream? nothing else could explain that behind one ballroom was only another twice the size of the first, with as many lightbulbs in number as a mathematician might posit in sport.

All On. Everything Empty. a place for lying on a Versace-esque carpet, and wondering how S.’s thrift store umbrella might do a lot for self-conscious décor that seems still a little insecure about its proper degree of pretension.


It is so perfect to have a perfect evening, when everyone and thing around is unknown and new, but you feel more comfortable than you typically do in your own rented house. am I right here, or am I right?
You know I am right.

…
And at the end of formal Chicago responsibilities, Tuesday afternoon meant that the Free Weekday at the Art Institute was dessert. I saw so much that to try to say much would be to say nothing. But it makes a strong impression to walk into a room of famous paintings only to overwhelmed by the smell of fresh paint. Was I experiencing them somehow quite differently and more immediately for once? Was Magritte touching up a part he wasn’t satisfied with right there on the spot? Looking to the floor explained the smell piling off the walls.


Ah, Exhibit preparation. I wonder though if Picasso also used Thybony paint, even just once? then I thought, maybe it is just a contemporary installation piece, and I was so completely missing it. or getting it.


I ran into Gauguin again, and I think I have a thing for his painting I never realized before. They are beautiful.



This one was titled “Why Are You Angry?” to which I wonder, why was Gauguin so nosey? I mean that is a question of such intimacy, constancy, and everydayness that you could have titled the painting, ”What it’s like to be breathing.” Because why are you angry anyway. and so often? why am I? I don’t know, and neither do you, and isn’t that just a fine pickle.

Moving onto Chagall’s blue windows meant only being asked the same question, but more gently.



the heart of the mattering matter. Why are you so angry. As far as our human drama goes, I think it is the answer you could give to any Jeopardy question, and always be correct. I’m thinking free art on Tuesday means swallowing a spoon of medicine, and that’s just the way it is. Beautiful, color sculpted spoons of knowing, of some Adam’s apple that tastes so good that it leaves a lump in your throat. and, damn, what a lucky thing that is. lucky. most difficult. lucky.

…
Flying back to North Carolina found me in seat 14D. In this same seat arriving a few days earlier I had seen a first: a young girl using an airsickness bag on an airplane across the aisle. she was so discreet that it was only amazing chance I noticed. she couldn’t have been more graceful and quiet about it than if an invisible magnet was directing the incident. I was floored.



Now heading back a dark man with a thick brown hand-woven cap sat next to me. I thought he looked like pictures of people I had seen who come from Bhutan or there around, his features framing the space around is face without any sort of hesitation. He carried a bag that said "RDU" in blue marker followed by a series of numbers, and "OIMI" in big block letters.

Google tells me OIMI is an organization for resettling immigrants, and the large number of people waiting for him past the security gate seemed to confirm some new home was being made, that arrival was happening. I can’t even imagine what that transition must feel like. I’m Chicago to Durham, and oh-the-drama. This fellow next to me is essentially landing on Mars.

It is Tuesday. you wake up, disappear into the sky, and then come down. This time it happens to be here. and what a place that might be.



...

p.s.

I was told Chicago is welcoming and the kind of place that makes you feel like you belong there. The CTA buses were clearly doing their part.