Nic Narrates

Sometimes I find myself alone. And become achingly aware of it.

I realize that must sound incredibly lonely, but I assure you it isn’t. I live alone, eat alone (a skill I made myself learn while a freshman in college), sleep alone, and go about this city…alone. But in a city you’re never really alone. You can be alone, yes, but there’s people all around you. And you get lost in, and can remain unknown in, their sea of anonymity.

Homeward bound last night, I found myself in one of those aching moments. My train had been severely delayed into downtown, but I, unlike everyone around me it seemed, didn’t mind. I had no fantastic Friday night plans to race toward or someone holding off dinner.

When I arrived at Union Station at last; however, I was decidedly hungry, and it being a Friday during Lent, I took in a quick feast of fish fillet. Afterward, I wobbled in puffy down and snow boots and caught the brown line. Sure, it required me to tour the loop, but I enjoy the rare opportunity to simply observe the city and its denizens without the bustle of racing off somewhere.

I peered into office after office at what was inside all the concrete and glass of those buildings; what an office downtown actually looks like. I saw the daycare and the exotic plants and the designer light fixtures.

At Library, I picked up a seatmate who spoke only Chinese to the other two women joining her, and whose continual chatter and laughter led me to think of Babel and how none of us really understand each other anymore.

I gazed into the old Marshall Field’s building and joined in the collective sigh for yet another time that has passed and from which we choose to disconnect ourselves.

At State and Lake, I saw the pigeons huddled under the rotisserie lamps while all the people stood in darkness. And I smiled as I thought it kind of someone to push the button so they might keep warm.

As I crossed the river, I looked out and up at the Merchandise Mart lighted and reflecting, and thought it fitting that it merit its own zip code.

I passed through the familiar neighborhoods of Victorian walk-ups and barren parks and discount bookstores. Of bars filled with gatherings spilling out onto streets. Passed the jewelry store where once we held hands and looked at rings.

I was carried toward that solitary walk. When, from the sidewalk, I’d search Angelina’s for two penguins holding a window table, waiting for their reservation to arrive. When I’d pass the charred bricks and beams of someone else’s dream, left standing out in the snow. When the curtain would lower with those last silent steps. With that silent arrival home.

Filed under: i hate winter, public transportation by Nic