I used to be big-time on the pictures but something about it clicked off and taking them now makes me feel cheap and hollow. So I pressed the capture button on my little red (pink) camera precisely three times during my Chicago trip: one of the underside of my train upon my dad's request, one of Aya and me in the bean because that is what the bean is for, and one of the most depressing eternal flame of all time surrounded by ratty crazy pigeons (Aya: "chickens") to show Lisa.
Here are my Chicago pictures:
My nest on the train. A big white blanket, two pillows, two books, countless crosswords strewn about, a journal, the pen, mangoes (Lisa) apples (Juliette) cheddar cheese and chocolate covered raisins (Morgan) crackers (Tatyana) Cliff bars (Joe) little bread rolls (Pater), both seats fully reclined, a queen-sized square of property that has become my tiny kingdom.
The stretch of the Colorado River through Ruby Canyon that makes my whole self ache for something else. Pure desire.
The absolute blackness of flat Nebraska at some deep hour of night. I already feel like I'm crawling along the ocean floor when along side the train comes a massive truck, red and white lights surrounding its edges and wheels, the most beautiful gem I've ever seen, and I'm Zissou, right at home, swallowed, at rest.
Stepping out of the Amtrak station onto Adams Street and immediately being punched in the face by Chicago. Chicago, that somber city indeed, like a slug to the stomach or an anvil on your toe, like heavy, like brick.
Facing a tall concrete building after stepping out of the bus onto a dark street in Hyde Park, turning around a couple of times, lost and confidently waiting to be found. Out of the quiet comes that familiar clip of boots on the sidewalk and my full name called out, I whirl around and there's Aya, and the full weight of how much I've missed her wells up at the back of my eyes and I'm so glad to be just where I am just then.
Looking out of a third story window surrounded by green and reddening ivy onto trees, a park, a runner wearing long black leggins, the 6 bus, brick and beauty and seriousness. Saul Bellow lived here and I feel it.
A five-foot stretch of the Michigan Avenue bridge smells like bleu cheese, intensely like bleu cheese, like you are fighting your way through a massive round of bleu cheese, and ends abruptly, inexplicably.
Catching my first sight of Lake Michigan in the daylight and realizing I'm right in the middle of Ordinary People, and that what I thought was shoddy 80's camera work was actually an incredibly accurate portrayal of that steely, magnificent, ironed flat, terror-of-God lake. Later, seeing the el stop labeled Skokie and tasting pancakes at the back of my mouth.
Slouching down low on a bar couch in a neighborhood I like but don't know the name of, Aya on my left and Jon, meeting and exceeding all hyped up expectations, on my right. They talk over my head as I look across to the angry belligerents on the bench against the wall, watching them work themselves up, until one of them pounds one fist into the other and jumps to his feet, spits on the floor in a rage, and sits again, exhausted. I snap my attention back to the local conversation but I don't participate and I've had a bit too much and I'm so so content.
A shoddily handwritten sign on the doorway into the el, blue line temporarily closed, an arrow pointing vaguely westward. I never feel danger this late. My first experience in a cab. I am proud of our all-grown-up conversation and I wonder if he listens.
The glittering dining room of the Drake in the late afternoon, a harp, a fountain, all whiteness and brightness, lap it up. Another wedding party comes to rain on our bitter quasi-single parade; for a quiet moment with our tea and our freedom we are better than they are, smarter and better. I realize that I came to Chicago not for the sights or the bricks or the popcorn but to gripe and plot and hope over various liquids with Aya, and that this is what we do and I love it.
An inadequate goodbye in a doorway, a further goodbye note left in thin red pen on a napkin. We'll see each other at Christmas we've still got Christmas there's always Christmas.
Home home home home. Sitting up high on the back of a bench so he'll spot me, yellow backpack on my left, morphing the driver of every small grey car into him until I see them clearly enough to realize that they're a Chinese woman, a blond girl, an old man. Then finally in one car the vision holds and he's here he's getting out he's here and we're two grins and he's here and he's helping with my bags he's here and hello, perfect hello.
