City: 5; Me: 2
Sunday, April 1st, 2007I’ve lived here nearly two years; the longest I’ve lived in any one place since I left my parents’ house in the small rural town I grew up in…a place where Victorian mansions line the brick streets, bison roam a mere five minutes outside of town, and the owner of a car dealership is considered royalty.
It took me a number of years, but I managed to make my way here to Chicago. This place I now call home, this apartment; it isn’t perfect, isn’t even the nicest I could find probably, but it’s grown on me. Who wouldn’t want the bathroom off their bedroom and the closet in their living room?
But as the end of my second lease approaches and I wait to see if and how much my rent will jump, I’m finding again that I don’t want to move. From the windowside table where I write, I can practically throw a rock into the lake and can hear the whisper of the crowds at Wrigley wafting on a warm afternoon breeze. I feel like my place is hidden away- like someone forgot about or overlooked it- because it’s amazing that I can live where I do and pay so little. This has become my neighborhood, my home. In two years, it has both embraced me and knocked me on my ass.
I’ve come to anticipate the friendly overweight man who sits at the end of the block with his white fluffy dog when the weather is nice(r). I’ve learned that the Broadway bus comes in threes…if you see one, make a run for it to catch the second or third which can be counted on to be only a stop away. I’ve learned to go to the Jewel for everything except produce. I’ve found my favorite soup place, where I get an extra piece of bread with my Lobster Bisque in the winter. Found my favorite ice cream place and cheese shop and bookstore and nail salon. And I know to look for the two chocolate labs hanging half-way out their second story window in the summer…crowds actually mass when they see the spectacle, and their owners taped a sign in the window last year explaining that they know their dogs do this and that they won’t fall or jump out–that they just like to watch the people.
All of those things and so many others have given me a bit of community- a bit of home- that offers comfort to me while I live out my days alone in this city so far from the only other home I’ve ever known.
And then there are things- so simple really- that break me. Sometimes it’s waiting 35 minutes for the bus. Other times it’s getting another parking ticket or being towed. It’s been a flat tire, then another. It’s been falling down a flight of marble stairs with a full McDonald’s OJ in Union Station during rush hour. Or last year (which should really be its own entry) having my wallet stolen and identity stolen twice- TWICE. Sometimes it’s just having a bus or cab splash water on me on the sidewalk. Or having ice literally fall from a skyscraper onto my head.
Today, I found myself in tears at a bus stop as I gave up and called my friend to tell her I wasn’t going to make it to see Blades of Glory with her and her roommate. After a long day of errand running, during which the rain seemed only to fall when I stepped outside, it took me 40 minutes to park my car on a street that’s a healthy 10 minute walk from my place. As I sat waiting for the express bus, I knew by the time I’d join them, the movie would already be half over.
Dejected, I had slunk home feeling that today, the mighty city had reminded me that no matter how much I may think I have it figured out, it really has a mind of its own. And that’s when I saw this. A plain sign in a car on the street where I live that made me feel I’m not so very alone after all…
Leave a Reply