Tilt Your Head Back and Laugh

It was the best kind of Sunday in Chicago. Sunny, clear skies, and for the first time all year, warm enough to step outside without a coat.

The people-watching on Sundays in Logan Square is almost never a disappointment, but it's even better on an almost-spring day like this one. Today, on my way to the coffee shop, I watched a young couple cross the street, his arm across her shoulders, and her hand reaching up, their fingers intertwined. He leaned in and whispered something in her ear, and she tilted her head back and laughed. He grinned.

It was a tilt your head back and laugh kind of day. It was a good day to take a walk.

From the Red Line at Rush Hour

This evening as I left the office, it was still light outside. I noticed this first on Monday, with a bit of shock—the sun is shining! Holy crap. Along with the sun, it’s been so windy I feel at times during my walk that I’m actually getting carried across the street, but it’s not a cold wind, so I’ll take it. When the wind is whipping my hair all over my face, the sun is glistening off the river and the buildings, and this song is playing on my iPod, it all feels quite romantic and wonderful, my little walk to the train. That is, until I catch a glimpse of myself in a window’s reflection and see the state of my bangs. Yeesh. But, whatever: All in the sake of my love affair with the city.

It’s amazing the way a little sunlight at the end of the day changes everything—from the look of the buildings to the people walking on the streets. Although at this point in the winter I just feel fed up and long for spring with such fierceness it’s as if spring was something I experienced in another lifetime, I do love the way Chicagoans hustle up and down the streets when it’s bitterly cold and windy out—it’s like we’re all fighting the same war. And then, the sun shines again, the temperatures rise, and it’s like everyone just lost his or her virginity. We abstained all winter, and damn it, now we are getting LAID. (Yeah! The weather as a metaphor for sex! It happened. Deal with it.)

I was feeling this general warmth for my city as I crossed over to State Street and passed the news station and the beautiful Chicago Theatre. Protesters were outside, holding up signs. One woman held up a sign: “End the WAR ON WOMEN!” I beamed at her. She stared back at me, expressionless.

I was still smiling as I started bouncing down the stairs to the Red line. I must not have had Youth Lagoon playing too loudly, though, because I could hear the man hobbling down the stairs next to me muttering under his breath: “All you motherfuckers. You never fucking listen to me! I’m talking. All you motherfuckers.”

When I made it safely down the platform, I could hear a woman singing. She had quite possibly, and I swear I do not exaggerate, the most beautiful voice I have ever heard singing live. Live, from the Red line at rush hour.

I didn’t even pause my iPod. I just pulled the earbuds out and listened. I stopped directly across from her to watch as she sang. She was singing some gospel song, what, I don’t know, but she was certainly taking us all to church. Except for the fact that no one seemed to be paying attention.

For a moment, I considered digging through my bag to see if I had a couple bucks. But that didn’t seem good enough. So I just watched and listened. The woman looked back at me, and even though she had on heavy fake eyelashes, I could see her eyes smiling back at me. I grinned at her, and she kept on singing. She finished right as I could hear my train barreling through the tunnel. “Thank you,” she said, to no one in particular. I clapped. It was a sad little sound. But she smiled back at me, and I felt like she'd given me a gift—it was as good as the feeling I get on the way to work, when I say “Morning” to the man on the milk crate and he returns my greeting.

I placed my earbuds back in my ears and stepped on the train. The person in front of me started to head left toward some empty seats, then said, “Ugh!” and turned back around. One of the seats was covered in vomit. I found a vomit-free seat and pulled my book out of my bag. When I looked up a few minutes later, a woman had sat down on the seat closest to the mess. I saw her look over at it for only a second, and then without skipping a beat, went right back to writing her text.

At rush hour in Chicago, we only really see the things we want to notice.

A Change is Gonna Come

Winters in Chicago are long, and they’re rough. By the time spring finally starts to roll around, it’s like Chicago explodes. Where the hell did all these people come from, I ask myself each year. Were they hibernating for the last five months? Even if it’s just a tease, like today, when the sun is shining and bars start opening their patios—although really it’s only 54 degrees and not warm, exactly—I feel my spirits start to lift.

The sun is shining. Warm weather is coming! Longer days and music festivals and flip flops and sundresses and vodka lemonades!

These are the kind of wild ideas that torment and tease us all until it really warms up for good. You know, in June. But there’s something about that anticipation, that wait for spring and summer, that I think makes Chicago summers feel, well, just fucking magical. Believe me, I know. Last summer was during my brief stint back in Indiana, and having to stick out a winter in Chi without the gift of summer was akin to getting grounded the week before spring break, and sitting at your grandmother’s house while all your friends went to the beach and partied without you.

I was thinking about this as I sat in my favorite coffee shop working today. The door was propped open and the sun shone bright into the doorway, the breeze blowing in almost warmly, but not quite. It felt like spring. It almost looked like spring. But across the street, the trees and plants were still bare and brown.

Sometimes it feels like winter is never going to come to an end. Every year, I have to question: Okay, when exactly will there be green leaves on the trees again? When can I finally not be bundled up every time I step out of my apartment? But then, like magic, one day I walk outside and they’ve just appeared. And suddenly, it’s spring.

It’s hard to keep faith that change is coming sometimes. Last year at this time, I was about to start packing up my apartment to move back in with my dad. I’d been waiting tables, interning, and job searching for two years, and nothing had happened. I felt like I was driving repeatedly into a brick wall, then getting out of the car, and banging my head into the wall for good measure. I felt defeated. I was broke, and knew I had to go home. While I tried to put up a brave face, and I reminded myself over and over that not all people were fortunate enough to have a parent who would invite them to move back in, rent free, at the age of 26, I still felt like a big, fat, fucking failure. The first week back in my childhood bedroom, I laid awake in bed each night, my heart racing, wondering if I’d still be sleeping there in a year. In five years? IN TEN?

In Blossom.

temperature’s rising, but the buds still refuse to grow
“he loves me, he loves me not,” played out on broken twigs
with no petals to be found

if I wanted to play that game I’d be sitting on a heap
of sticks by now
can’t just sit and wait for that shit to grow

before I might kick it, paw at the dirt
trying to force something there that is not

the difference is now, I know
just cause the bloom ain’t out don’t mean it’s not there
you feel it, you’re at the root
maybe the trees are still bare, but come spring,
and the green returns

so maybe I water it, ease the growth on its way
like a house plant
but even that’s still got to grow on its own

why stress over it anyway?
the beauty is, it’s coming, it’s growing
a little faith is all you really need
the seasons continue to change

quit playing with sticks
there’s beauty in dirt
without it, where would the flowers bloom

no need to force it
one day you’ll look up
and realize you’re covered in petals

Spring Fever

It's at the point of the Chicago winter where I forget that sometime, relatively soon (I hope), it might look like this again:

 (I took these photos at the Chicago Botanic Garden last year.)