Showing posts with label Chicago. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Past and Present

 


I was at a City Council meeting—our City Council—last night for the first time in years.

Years.

I went with Warren because Council was talking about a long-delayed reboot of its flag and banner policy. The Symphony has banners for Concert Week that have not been flown in months as the City has been slowly reviewing its policies in light of the Supreme Court ruling in Shurtleff v. Boston. (Note: Not much progress was made last night either.)

I had a small sense of Old Home Week when I walked into Council chambers. I used to serve on our Civil Service Commission, so there was a joke with our Police Chief (who'd been a captain back in those days) and I was able to congratulate our interim Fire Chief, someone I had gotten to know well from those years. (The firefighters union, to my delight, was ever-present at our meetings; our interim Chief was in that bunch back then.) The head of HR, also someone I had known forever, came in behind me, tapping me on the shoulder and leaning in to tell me she was glad to see me. And I sat right next to the young person who I will be voting for in the next Ward elections.

I do not know most of our Council members at all anymore, although I still know the City Manager and, of course, the City Planning Director. ("Of course" because I also sat on our Historic Preservation Commission for several years. Plus I was a zoning lawyer , so even thought the current planner and I did not overlap extensively in that era, I still worked with him and his department before I hung it up.)

I found myself thinking back, way way back, to myself as a college student, to the year I was in between schools, and all the hours I spent at council and school board meetings during that time.

When I withdrew from Chicago at the end of my freshman year, I retreated to Delaware,  moving in with my Aunt Ginger and my Grandma Skatzes. It was a long period of putting myself back together — in every way imaginable. I did not work those months. I volunteered at my high school, teaching classes with the greatest English teacher I ever had. And I started attending council and school board meetings.

I had met a newly elected council member on Election Night that fall, and he encouraged me to see what city government was all about. As I was thinking of staying in Delaware, I started thinking maybe I should get a better idea of how the school board operated as well.

It ended up being a fascinating time – I made friends I still have, I felt at home at council meetings (never school board, interestingly enough), and I began to learn how this city functioned. I knew the insider jokes and side comments at Council. I change my career goal to law school, realizing that, if I was going to stay in Delaware, as I was strongly thinking I would, I wanted to make a difference and have a say in how the community operated. I started to have plans to run for Council at the next election cycle.

That was in late 1975, early 1976. By that summer, I was back in Chicago, eventually on my way to living out west for several years. I did not return to Delaware permanently until the fall of 1990.

I did become a lawyer. And when I moved back, I ended up practicing in the office of that Council member. I had met so many years earlier.

I never ran for City Council. That was not a goal by 1990 and thereafter. I almost ran for school board, but had a conflict, so did not. My service on the two city commissions was enough.

I did not sit there last night full of  nostalgia or wondering "What if...?" Maybe I had a sense of relief that I had not ventured into politics. But maybe not even that. Maybe just a sense of being there, listening to Warren make his public comments, and then heading home.

And that was more than enough. 

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Small Moment: Grateful For The Small Moments

To say that Life (with a capital "L") has been demanding as of late is an understatement.

Maybe "understatement" should be capitalized too.

An Understatement.

That's better.

On the Dad front, he is finally home from the skilled nursing center and regaining strength and balance and independence. It will be a long but steady (we hope) haul. He got home just before Warren and I headed off to Mayo and Chicago (and points in between) so it is only recently that I got a good look at Dad in his home environment. Massive improvements.

On the myeloma front, my labs continue to be flat line steady. Yes. that is good news. With an asterisk: the cancer continues to progress, albeit slowly, and my body is wearing down. For now, though, we (Warren, my two oncology teams, and I) are staying the course.

The individual whom I mentioned in my last post of 2019 as being homeless and having premature twins and mental health issues? We (the team) hope that tomorrow she will sign a 9 month lease and at least get that sliver of her life stable. For now. After that piece is secured, I will write more because this is a situation that will take more than a village.

Did someone say Carl Sandburg? 
But here it is Sunday morning. In the last week, I have spent time with family and good friends in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Chicago. I have seen effigy mounds that I was unaware of before (not that I am any expert on them), including one we were directed to by a local metal artist at whose shop we discovered while turning the corner in a tiny Wisconsin town a week ago today. (The metal artist is Tom Nelson—no relation to my knowledge, the shop is Dark Metal Artworks, his works are amazing, and yes, we bought one.)

And this morning, despite the concerns and issues hanging overhead, I have had a most excellent day so far sharing breakfast and good talk with Warren, a Facebook exchange about Carl Sandburg with my friend and boon companion Judy, a discussion about the above referenced individual with Kelsey (a key member of the team), and the poem "Kindness" by Naomi Shibab Nye with my friends on Facebook.

Even folding the laundry hanging on the basement line was a quiet small moment.

I'm not sure it gets any better than that.

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Acquiring a Teacher

Vijay Gupta, from his website 
When we were in Chicago in June at the national conference of the League of American Orchestras, the keynote opening speaker was Vijay Gupta, an extraordinary individual by any measurement. His topic was social justice in the music world, and he spoke at length about his ideas of what that means and what it looks like and about Street Symphony, an organization he helped found that works alongside and with the Los Angeles Skid Row community.

I was blown away by Gupta. (So were  a lot of others in attendance, judging by the faces around me and the comments afterwards, including those from Warren.) I was so rapt that I didn't take notes, just listened. I was so impressed that I jettisoned one interesting sounding breakout session the next day to attend one with him. (And was blown away again.) And I was so moved by what he had to say that, when walking to a session following the opening keynote address, I saw Gupta and League CEO Jesse Rosen exit a side room, I cut Rosen off mid-sentence, saying "I'm sorry, but this is more important," and thanked Gupta for what he said. (He was wonderfully gracious, thanked me for my kind words, and, the next day, when I walked into the breakout session, smiled broadly and said "Hello again!")

In short, Gupta's vision and philosophy and engagement in the world outside the concert hall made a huge impression on me. Warren and I have talked about it at length in relationship to the Symphony and the community engagement work he does with and through the orchestra. I have thought about Gupta's comments in relationship to the Legal Clinic and our community of clients.

Gupta's vision has caused me to reflect on the population we serve at Legal Clinic: not only who we serve but also how we serve them. When we come together each month, we are engaging in what Gupta calls "radical mutuality" and "radical intimacy." I think of not only the clients we serve, but other members of our community who come not for legal advice but for a warm meal and some social contact. We strive to treat everyone who comes through our door with dignity and respect, knowing that for many clients just opening that door is a huge and often intimidating leap of trust. Gupta understands—deeply and passionately—that those "others," those denizens of Skid Row in his case, those clients we work with in ours, are us. They. Are. Us. It is not about Gupta "dissipating" his considerable musical talent on the "musical equivalent of a soup kitchen or legal clinic," as someone said to me. It is not about our volunteers squandering their time and talent on "those people." It is about creating safe space—a sanctuary—and all coming together in that space.

The Talmud directs me to acquire a teacher, and if at age 62, I have acquired a 30-year-old wunderkind as my teacher, well, isn't that great?

Friday, February 10, 2017

Inch One Hundred Fifty-Seven: Bonds


"And what about Sam B____?" I asked.

"Oh, Sam retired a few years ago," said Dick.

Sam retired! There are photos of him holding Ben as a baby. Sam retired! But Ben is 31 now, so that is not improbable.

We—Dick, his wife Milly, Warren, and I—were sitting around a table in Chicago having this conversation. I have known Dick and Milly for almost 30 years; they are friends from long ago when I lived in Stockton, California.

Way back then, Dick worked in the county Public Defender office with my then husband. Milly and I both had law degrees and very young children.  Paths diverged. We moved to Ohio. Dick became a judge. Milly continued her solo practice. I practiced law, got divorced, became ill. Our boys grew up. Life went on.

The bonds of friendship held. I last saw Dick and Milly (and their sons, then in their late teens) in 2006 in Cleveland. When Warren and I got married two years later, they sent us a hassock of camel leather that Milly had brought back from Egypt or Morocco. (Dick and Milly are world travelers.)

Over the decades, we exchanged Christmas cards and an occasional phone call. [Note: A Christmas card from Dick and Milly is a mini-travelogue. Seriously.] We'd talk of getting together but they were in California and we were in Ohio. "Get to Chicago," I'd urge, "and we'll drive up to see you."

And that's what finally happened. Last weekend they flew in and we drove up for a much anticipated reunion.

We had a long weekend of food and talk, of storytelling and catching up, of comparing life notes and telling jokes that even Warren, who'd just met them, soon joined in. After one final breakfast together Monday morning, we all hugged hard and went our separate ways. It was wonderful.

In my past life, I was frequently criticized for "hanging on" to old friends. Anyone qualified: friends from my childhood, friends from my college days, friends from anywhere. My ex-husband would accuse me of "always dragging along" people from my past, implying that I had some deep, unhealthy motive for keeping these relationships.

As we sat at breakfast Saturday. laughing and talking, I saw a table full of those I'd hung onto from my past. (That includes Warren, incidentally.) I didn't drag any of these friends along into my life. Instead, it was the bonds we'd made over the years that brought us together: bonds of friendship, bonds of laughter, bonds of love. And here we all were, making new bonds, strengthening old bonds, and celebrating all of the bonds, past, present, and into the future.




Monday, February 6, 2017

Inch One Hundred Fifty-Six: Inching Along

I did not post last week. I believe that is my first miss in over three years of posting weekly inches.

Last week was an intense week, full of much work (I am in the middle of school attendance mediations, always heavy on my schedule), doctor appointments (3!—Count 'em!—3!), aging family member issues, and a long weekend out of town meeting old friends in Chicago.

As I flashed through my to-do list Thursday evening, knowing that we were leaving very early Friday, I made an executive decision not to post something that night. I had neither the time nor the concentration.

My weekend was largely internet free. I did not want to spend time online that could be spent with Warren, with good friends during the day, with a good book at night, and all in a great city. When I started this post, it was in pen in my trusty notebook (think back to school paper sales), curled up on a couch in Oak Park.

We got back earlier today, pulling into our driveway about 5:00 p.m., having said goodbye to our friends after an early morning breakfast. Tomorrow both Warren and I will resume our regular routines of work, chemo (well, I will), and the routines that make up our days.

Life resumes. I'm back.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Inch One Hundred Fifty-Three: Stringent Monetary Controls

I have a large personal expenditure coming up in the next few months. I had a large personal expenditure last month, when I bought a new used car after five months of making do (walking, borrowing my dad's truck, borrowing Warren's car) when my old car died. That was $1900.00 cash, plus another $150.00 for title, plates transfer, and sales tax ($133.00). The car purchase knocked down what I call my "expense account" (a separate checking account I use as savings) considerably. The 3% COLA I received at work just about equaled the increase in my health insurance premiums. (I am not complaining; we have Cadillac coverage and only pay 10% of the overall premium.) And it being a brand new year, all of my health insurance deductible and out of pocket amounts have reset to zero, so I am looking at some sizable medical expenses early on in 2017. Oh, and did I note that my copay for oncology went up, as did the cost of my oral chemo?

In short, money is tight. In response, my overall goal for the next four months is to live as close to the bone as possible.

Fortunately, except for the medical costs, my needs are fairly small on a daily basis: food, gas, utilities. My wants tend to be things that don't cost money (or very little): books from the library, walks when our temperatures are not sub-arctic, time with friends. And I am fortunate beyond words to be married to a man who likewise takes pleasure in leftovers, making do, and coming up with inexpensive ways to spend time and life together. (Not only do I have someone on the same page as I am when it comes to being budget conscious, but Warren can sometimes underspend me!)

All the same, I find myself pondering how to keep the outflow of money as low and arid as possible. It is so easy to take out the debit card and buy the whatever. Although I am not buying high or even medium whatevers as a rule, even inexpensive ones add up. What to do?

What I have ended up doing is printing off my check stub on payday (every two weeks). I have long categorized my pays as "1st pay" and "2nd pay." (Twice a year there is an extra pay, as we get paid 26 times a year, but I keep my focus on 1st and 2nd.) By sheer repetition, I know which set bills and expenses (utilities and oncology copays, for example) come out of which pay. I take the printout and write out, deducting from my take home pay as I go, all the fixed expenses that have to come out of that paycheck. What is left over is my spending money for two weeks.

Groceries, coffee with friends, postage come out of spending money; gasoline, in contrast, is a fixed expense. After I did the above exercise for the first pay of 2017, I had $89.00 left over. With a week to go, I still have $30.00.

I can't remember when, if ever, I charted out my expenditures looking forward. While I always did that mental exercise in my head with each pay period, my actual tracking was usually with hindsight. (How much did I spend?) It's an interesting exercise, seeing visually my declining account balance before the spending occurs.

Some frugalists out there make January a no-spend month. Check out the Frugalwoods, who I just stumbled across thanks to Katy Wolk-Stanley,  the Non-Consumer Advocate. Katy is a member of the Compact. (Compact members are committed to not buying new things. That's a simplistic version; you can go over to Katy's website to get a better idea. While you're there, read any posts titled "Goodwill, Badwill, Questionable-will" just for sheer laughs.) Me? I'm somewhere in the middle, with strong tendencies towards being a member of the Compact.

We do have one bigger than typical expense coming up  in February. Old friends of mine are flying into Chicago February to rendezvous with us. I am not too worried because we have a joint travel account which will be pay for our trip and, even with that earmarked account, we tend to travel frugally. We have free lodgings (our sister-in-law's condo in Oak Park), we'll buy a CityPASS to see the sights (as our California friends have never been to Chicago, I imagine the Art Institute, the Field, and other places are all on the list) and so save on admissions when seeing those sights, and Warren and I eat cheap no matter where we are, usually splitting meals. (I know you are wondering who visits Chicago in February, right? We do. And the old friends are headed to the Antarctic in March, so Chicago should be a piece of cake. Unfortunately for three of the four of us, it will not be baseball season when we are there, but you can't have everything.)

I get paid next week. Because I have credits at both the oncologist's and primary physician's office, the money I set aside last week for copays for those appointments will go into my expense account next week after I get paid. That will inch me a little bit closer to meeting the large expenditure I mentioned when I opened this post.

I never took economics. I don't closely follow the financial world or even government (at any level) budget talks. But I know that by applying stringent budget controls, I should be able to meet my goal.

Stay tuned.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

The Train Trip


Chicago's Union Station
Because the space in which the Symphony performs is closed while OWU renovates the chapel organ, Warren did not start 2013 in the midst of rehearsals and executive preparations for a March concert. While it is never easy for him to slip the surly bonds of the Symphony, February represented as good a time to get away as he was ever likely to get. So we were extravagant with our time and took the train to Portland to meet Ramona.

If passenger rails still threaded this country, I would never fly again. It was that wonderful an experience.

We traveled by train from Toledo, Ohio (our nearest Amtrak station) to Chicago, where we boarded the Empire Builder to Oregon. As a nod to my health and energy levels, we bought a roomette. (More about it later.)

We have traveled by train before, but never so far for so long. We left Toledo in the early morning, after a very short night and a two hour drive from our home.  I thought briefly of napping on the five hour trip to Chicago. But as the train rolled through the dark, I caught a glimpse of someone standing in their kitchen, the yellow light of the room spilling out into the still, dark morning and I could not go back to sleep.

It is that intimacy—that quick glimpse into peoples' lives—that makes train travel so gripping. Train travel is travel at a personal level and rhythm. The train flashed through Indiana downtowns that mirrored our own, the Italianate structures so familiar that I felt I could walk down those strange streets and not feel disoriented. As we moved further west, we passed little towns pinned in place by the train tracks that split through them. The vaster the spaces became between communities, the more the train served as connecting thread and viable short-distance mass transit.

Montana 
There is a soliloquy about baseball in the movie "Field of Dreams," about the importance of baseball to this nation's history. I feel the same about railroads and train travel. As E.B. White noted more than 50 years ago, we did ourselves a great disservice when we turned our backs on passenger trains and took to the air. Now, as airlines disappear and airports contract back in upon themselves (St. Louis and Cincinnati, to name two), I wonder whether we will turn our eyes back to the rails as a viable way to travel.

As I mentioned, we bought a roomette for our travels. An adventure in micro-living if ever there was one, a roomette requires two adults to live in a space in which one youth might comfortably take up residence. It taught me a lot about packing light and being compact in how much space one takes up. Fortunately, Warren and I are highly compatible travelers (no surprise), so we made the roomette work with a great deal of laughter and love. While a roomette adds to the cost of travel, it includes hot showers (a wonderful luxury), linens, and all meals, which on Amtrak are substantial and excellent. (There is a full galley on a dining car, and the food is cooked right there on the train.) I don't think Warren and I stopped smiling from the time we got on the train in Chicago, we were so pleased.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, like E.B. White, also spent a lot of time on trains, even after she took to the air. In a letter to her younger sister, written while en route from the east to Mexico City (where her father was the US Ambassador), she wrote, "Tonight all through supper, having ordered baked apple with cream (I hesitated between that and cornflakes), I regretted the cornflakes. And it occurred to me later that life might so easily be that eternal "If only I'd ordered cornflakes—"

At breakfast, I contemplated the hot crab cakes versus the Amtrak french toast. I chose the french toast. It was magnificent.

I did not once regret the crab cakes.

Sunrise over the Columbia River Gorge 



Monday, January 28, 2013

A Chicago Story

I spent Saturday in Chicago, holed up in the downtown library writing and reading. At lunch, I went across the street and had a bagel at the corner Dunkin' Donuts. I sat in the storefront at a window counter, eating and watching the constantly changing street scene.

There was a young man across the street who was clearly asking passersby for change. I watched him try to engage people as they walked by, spinning around and trying another when the first one did not respond. He was big, with an engaging smile. Everyone appeared to walk by without handing him any money, but the smile never left his face.

The young man walked across the street and entered Dunkin' Donuts. He was known there; one of the sales clerks called him by name and asked him if he would like a hot chocolate. He was polite and thanked them carefully for the warm drink. Then he began to ask the patrons of the store, scattered at little tables throughout, if they had any change.

Admission: I am acutely uncomfortable when people on the street ask me for money. I don't care about their age, their story, their cleanliness, or whether they are mentally ill, chronically unemployed, or disabled. I tense up, feeling trapped between acknowledging their humanity and avoiding the whole uncomfortable encounter.

I was tucked away in a corner of the doughnut shop. I hoped Mr. Panhandler would overlook me.

He didn't, of course. He came right up to me and asked, "Excuse me, but can you help me out with some money to eat?"

I could have said no and he'd have left me alone, gone on out the door. I could have called his bluff, if he had one to call, and said, "No, but I will buy you a meal right here." I certainly did not have to turn and look him in the face while he asked me. But I did, and he looked right back at me.

He was a kid, really. In recounting the story to Warren, I said, "I'd be stunned if he was as old as Sam." And when we looked at one another, straight on, I felt a seismic shift.

I don't know who was more surprised—the kid or me—when I responded, "Yes, I can." Shock and amazement registered on his face.

"Really?"

I nodded and reached for my bag. I'd just stuffed my change, four dollars, into it. Now I took the bills out and handed them to him, saying, "it's hard to be hungry. Go get something."

"It sure is," he said. "God bless you."

With that benediction, the young man moved on. I watched him go. At the door, he turned back and looked my way, then smiled and waved when he saw I was watching him. I gave him a thumbs up.

I watched the young man walk south on State Street after he left the shop. He did not ask people for money as he walked along. He looked like he was walking a little lighter and a little taller.

Maybe he was just another panhandler.  Maybe he was a drug user or an alcoholic. Maybe he walked away laughing his head off at the middle-aged white lady that he just conned out of four dollars.

And maybe he was just a kid with a somewhat empty stomach and less than adequate skills at filling it.

"There is nothing in the world more beautiful and more wonderful in all its evolved forms than two souls who look at each other straight on," wrote Gary Schmidt in his Newbery Honor novel, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy.

It was only four dollars. It was all I had on me and Lord knows, I could have used it too. But not after looking him in the face and seeing the person. Not then.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

My Kind of Town

We were in Chicago briefly this weekend: a quick trip up Friday afternoon and then back home Saturday evening. Warren sits on the board of KV 265 and had an all-day board retreat to attend. I tagged along, making a beeline for the public library when the retreat started.

I had not looked forward to this trip. I am struggling with the treatment regimen for my myeloma, and all I could see was a large energy drain. As I confessed to Warren, admitting I was not eagerly anticipating a trip to Chicago was the closest thing I could think of to blasphemy. When have I ever not enjoyed, loved, and embraced Chicago?

We left behind a snow-blown Ohio and soon found ourselves on dry roads as we sliced across Indiana. Small glimpses along the road stick in my mind: the half dozen horses, Belgians by the looks of them, standing heads down, tails to the blowing snow; twenty or so deer pawing at a snow-laced field.

It has been years—decades—since I have come into Chicago at night, let alone in the winter. The Skyway loomed up in the dark, its fairy lights strung out in the dusk. We dropped down onto Stony Island, flashed past the Museum of Science and Industry, and were suddenly on Lake Shore Drive with the city opening up before us.

My heart lifted. How could it not? I spent two of my college years in this city, I made one of the most important friendships of my life here when Katrina and I were assigned to one another as roommates. That other self from that other time is also threaded through me.

It was Chicago and I was back.


We stayed in the downtown in the condo of another board member 34 floors above the city. I spent Friday evening drifting from one view through the wraparound windows to the next to watch the play of lights against the night. In the morning, I got out of bed early to watch the sun rise over an icy Lake Michigan.


I slipped away just as the retreat started and headed to the library. Down Randolph, through Millennium Park, past the Bean, down Michigan Avenue, and left on Jackson to the library.

Chicago is a wonderfully walkable city. It has great street fabric, it is full of superb architecture, and there are little details everywhere that catch the eye. Many of those details are architectural: a frieze two-thirds of the way up a facade, ornate terra cotta detailing topping a building.


Some of the details are human: the young teenage girl turning first one and then another pirouette in unselfconscious delight at the Bean, the young cellists rehearsing in the front room of the New Music School, oblivious to passersby on Michigan Avenue. There were skaters at Millennium Park, below the Bean; there were two Chicago police on bike patrol, despite the chill temperatures.



The El rumbled by in the Loop, adding to the sounds of the city.


I have a good friend, one with whom I have shared many design and architectural adventures over the years. He has often spoken with disdain for large cities. "Why would I want to go to one?" he will say, incredulous when he announces a vacation and I innocently ask, "oh, are you going to [name the city] when you're there?" My friend gives every indication that he would rather ingest shards of glass than visit a city. Other than a brief visit to Oak Park to see the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, I do not believe he has ever set foot in Chicago.

I don't try to persuade my friend or his wife (who will also raise her voice at least two octaves at the mention of a city) otherwise. But what one gives up by avoiding all cities, especially a city like Chicago! Yes, it is noisy and crowded. It can be expensive or dangerous if you are not paying attention. But it is rich in detail and exciting at every turn. Here is a medallion detail on rusticated stone, here are skaters in the heart of downtown, here is a girl turning pirouettes in the sunshine of a winter day.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

The Rest of Chicago


There was more to Chicago than the Alumni awards last weekend. How could there not be? Chicago is the city of my youth and it has never left my heart.

I first set foot in Chicago in September, 1974, as a freshman at the University. It is my singular good luck that I first saw the University of Chicago, in all its Gothic splendor, and met Katrina on the same day. They are forever melded in my mind. Even though she and I have traveled far from Hyde Park (the University's neighborhood) and the gauche eighteen year olds we were, I never see the campus without thinking of Katrina.

Which is why it was perfect that Katrina was in Hyde Park herself last weekend. As a member of the Alumni Board of Governors, she chaired the awards committee. (Truth be told, I knew months ago that Muriel was receiving the award.) Katrina had duties and obligations on Saturday, and Warren and I had a meeting with Muriel, but Katrina and I nonetheless found time for a meeting, a hug, and a walk across campus talking furiously the whole time.


The campus was beautiful and all three of us commented on that beauty as we walked. It holds memories―memories of Katrina and me dancing and singing our way across the quad ("The minute you walked in the room, I could tell you were a man of distinction, a real big spender. Hey, big spender, spend a little time with me..."), memories of exiting Cobb Hall after a movie into a misty spring night and being overwhelmed by thoughts of Warren (he will know why when he reads this post), memories of walking across the Midway on a silent, cold winter night and seeing the full moon rise up, terrible and large, and hang over the IC tracks at the far end of the Plaisance.

We met up with Katrina's husband, Ed, near Harper Tower, and Warren and I gave Ed and Katrina a ride to their downtown hotel. The talk never ended. It was too fast, I wanted more, and I was thrilled to see Katrina at all. There were more hugs on Michigan Avenue as they got out of the car; Warren, watching the traffic in the rearview mirror, said tersely, "get back in the car now!"

Warren and I spent the night in Oak Park, where a century plus ago a young architect by the name of Frank Lloyd Wright began to turn architecture upside down. As a freshman, I had lived across the street from the Robie House, one of Wright's masterpieces. The predecessor (and to me the handsomer house) is in Oak Park:


So is what is undoubtedly my favorite structure in all of Chicago, if not the world:


It is a ticket booth—an original!—from the 1892 Columbian Exposition. I find it simply incredible that someone has an original ticket booth in their side yard.

Sunday morning before leaving for Ohio we drove back into the city, to meet another friend for breakfast. John is the same age as my son Ben, and is one of "my kids" from when I used to coach Destination Imagination. He now lives and teaches in Chicago and we were meeting at Ann Sather's.

Well, that was the plan. And a good plan it was, too, except for the fact that John got assaulted after parking his car and before entering the restaurant and it was some 30 or 40 minutes before he could rush into the restaurant, disheveled and wild-eyed, announce he had been assaulted and was filing a police report, and run back out.

I was so distraught that I had to order a second serving of what are surely the most amazing cinnamon rolls in the world:

From the blog Lucky Taste Buds! 
We never met up with John. We had to head home long before he completed the reports, so we left him our good wishes and a gift certificate for the breakfast he never got. There will be other trips to Chicago and other times to sit with John and enjoy breakfast.

The drive from here to Chicago or Chicago to here is a bit under six hours. We took a little longer coming home on Sunday. We meandered deliberately to a small cemetery in a small Indiana town which my great-great-great grandfather helped settle in the 1830s. Henry is buried there and we found his grave fairly quickly.


And we meandered again to drive a portion of the Lincoln Highway, the original US 30.

In recent years, most of US 30 in Ohio has been "improved" into a four-lane freeway and routed around the small towns and cities it once fed. I understand the reasoning behind that: the "new" US 30 is able to carry far more traffic, especially semis, swiftly and more directly than the original roadway. The small towns are no longer congested with diesel fumes and rumbling trucks.

But, oh, what we gave up when that improvement occurred.

We drove the portion of the Lincoln Highway that went into Van Wert, on the western side of Ohio. We came into town through an old residential section, slowing our pace down to match the narrow street. We rolled through a portion of the downtown, much of it shuttered, we drove past the courthouse.

We were driving on what William Least Heat Moon called (and immortalized in a book by the same name) "blue highways." On a blue highway, you will find the local doughnut shop. On a blue highway, you will find the hand lettered sign, "Fresh Eggs," at the edge of a farmhouse. On a blue highway, you will see the small stores and not just the strip malls.

On a blue highway, you will find a piece of this country's, and perhaps your own, past.

My life is threaded with blue highways and they are my preferred routes for travel. Back in my student days, I would sometimes take the Greyhound bus from Chicago to Delaware and back again. The bus in those days only traveled the blue highways. I knew the look and feel of downtown Fort Wayne, of Van Wert, of Delphos and Lima and Kenton.

Driving on the Lincoln Highway decades later, after a weekend in Chicago in my old haunts, I felt the faint touch of the past, light as moth wings, whisper against my face. I raised my hand as if to brush the memories away, drove on through town, and onto US 30.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

All Our Daughters

I returned late last night from four days in Chicago. It was cold, windy, rainy, and glorious.

I spent the time in ways I had not anticipated before leaving. The short version is this, for those who read my post last week: Lindsay and I did not go chasing down the ghosts of the 1893 Columbian Exposition (although Warren and I were lucky enough to catch sight of a small piece of it - a ticket booth - in, of all places, Oak Park). Lindsay and I did walk for miles on Friday, after we finally met up. (This is not an exaggeration. We walked from the Congress Plaza Hotel to Buckingham Fountain, then along the lakefront to Navy Pier, then to the Tribune Tower and back up Michigan Avenue to the Palmer House. That's 4.4 miles, for those of you counting.)

There were many great Chicago moments, despite the cold and the rain. I attended two days of the national conference of the League of American Orchestras, where I heard and saw some amazing performances and I participated in some impassioned roundtables about the value of music. Warren and I had a wonderful walk around Oak Park our first night in town, followed by a late evening League reception in the stunning new Modern wing of the Chicago Art Institute. Just walking through the Impressionism galleries en route to the reception was celebration enough. While waiting for Lindsay on Friday, I had the tremendous luck to arrive on the University of Chicago campus just as commencement was ending, which means I got to see and hear the bagpipe recessional while all the bells of Rockefeller Chapel - no small assortment - pealed.

But the lasting memory of this trip will be my Saturday morning with Lindsay and Stephanie and the wonder and delight of seeing the adults our daughters are becoming.

I use the phrase "our daughters" loosely, because I have two sons. My experience raising girls, until very recently, has been largely vicarious. But it has been a rich vicarious experience over the years. When it comes to Lindsay and Stephanie, I have known them since their childhood as both were classmates and friends of my older son, Ben. I have known Lindsay since she was five, Stephanie since she was seven. I have been fortunate beyond words to watch them navigate childhood, adolescence, college, and, now, young adulthood.

Stephanie moved to Chicago last year, after graduating from college. Lindsay had let her know we were coming to the city; Stephanie joined the three of us Friday night for a concert at Millennium Park and dinner afterwards. We had so much fun talking that she suggested Lindsay and I meet her Saturday morning to see her neighborhood farmers market and share a cup on coffee.

Stephanie lives on a quiet side street in Lincoln Park on the north side, not far from the lake. From the bus stop, you stroll down a tree-lined street filled with late 19th and early 20th century Chicago-style apartment buildings. Her apartment is in an early 20th century yellow brick with the original interior woodwork still intact. We arrived to find Stephanie's cousin Susannah, who was in Chicago for the weekend. (I have known Susannah for many years as well, and she too had turned into a young adult while my back was turned.) Despite rain, we headed off to the farmers market, several blocks away. We walked and talked; Susannah and I discussed sustainable local agriculture (of deep interest to us both) while Stephanie and Lindsay caught up from when they had last seen each other.

Susannah had other places she needed to be, so she left as the three of us made our way back to Stephanie's apartment. It being lunchtime, we all eschewed a proper meal for Molly's Cupcakes instead. Over cupcakes and milk, the three of us talked for the next two hours.

It was a wonderful give and take, primarily between Stephanie and Lindsay, of where they are in their respective lives and where they see the future going. Stephanie talked about the adventures of being in pharmaceutical marketing, of being young and single in a city as vibrant as Chicago, and of her hopes and dreams. Lindsay, who has taken a year off after college and is presently deciding whether to attend graduate school or start a career, spoke of the soaring feeling of being young with so many choices laid out before her, and of her hopes and dreams. School, where to live, travel, salaries, dating, jobs, careers, marriage, children, lifestyles now and in the future - everything was offered up for conversation.

I watched them light up, grow serious, or break into laughter while they talked. It was one of those beautiful and glowing moments that shimmer and hang in the air.

It was two hours before we all realized we still had other obligations for the day. Stephanie hugged me hard, thanking me for coming to see her; she and Lindsay made plans to meet later.

Lindsay and I grabbed an El downtown so she could get her car and I could meet up with Warren and head back home. When we got back down to the Loop, we hugged goodbye. Lindsay was excited about what the evening held with Stephanie and her friends; she thanked me for inviting her to join us in Chicago and show her a slice of the city. I thanked her: she gave me a gift by sharing my favorite city with me.

As Warren and I headed to the Skyway, I tried to convey the magic of the cupcake lunch. I was talking so fast my words tumbled over themselves, relating my wonder of hearing these two sing a beautiful duet of youth and hope and Life. I have been turning it over in my head and heart ever since, trying to capture it on paper and knowing I am only putting down fleeting glimpses.

You had to be there.

Both Stephanie's and Lindsay's moms are longtime friends of mine. I am writing each a note telling them what they already know: that their daughters have grown into beautiful, thoughtful, bright, funny young women. They are filled with the dreams and talents and hopes that I would think all of us would wish for all our daughters, indeed, for all our children.

I have been blessed to be a small part of Stephanie's and Lindsay's lives and watch their transformation from girlhood to womanhood. I cannot wait to see what their futures hold.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Chicago

Wednesday morning we are getting up very, very early and driving to Chicago, where Warren will spend the rest of the week attending the national conference of the League of American Orchestras and I will spend the rest of the week enjoying Chicago.

"Enjoying Chicago" means I am in for lots and lots of walking, as the number one thing I love to do in Chicago is look at the architecture. And there is no better city in the world than Chicago in which to look at architecture.

On Friday, I am being joined by Lindsay, who is the same age as my older son (23) and who I have known since she was five. Lindsay also loves architecture.

Both of us are fascinated with the Columbian Exposition of 1893, which was the first true world's fair and which took place in Jackson Park on the south side of Chicago. The Columbian Exposition featured the White City, a fanciful collection of Beaux Arts buildings that ringed the Grand Basin. With the exception of the Fine Arts building, which was built of brick to protect the works within, the buildings were built of staff, a plaster and straw mix, overlaid onto metal frames. They were only temporary.

After the Exposition closed, most of the buildings either burned down and were razed. The Fine Arts Building quietly rotted for a number of years before being restored and transformed into the Museum of Science and Industry, which has just celebrated its 75th anniversary. Other than that and the Midway, there are only traces of the Exposition left. Some of what we plan for Friday is looking for those traces.

I first saw Chicago when I was 18½. I had been admitted to the University of Chicago, which was built of the north edge of the Midway, and my parents drove me to college. I had never seen the campus, only studied the college brochures and catalogues. (This was long before internet, websites, and virtual tours.) I navigated my father off the Dan Ryan, down Garfield to Cottage Grove, then south on Cottage Grove until we turned onto the Midway and I first saw that magnificent wall of Gothic architecture.

Although I didn't realize it back then, Warren has a lot of Chicago roots. His mother was born and raised in Evanston, and until Warren was well into high school, his grandmother lived in the greater Chicago area. As a result, he and his siblings made frequent trips to Chicago. When Warren was 20, he spent the summer in La Grange, working at the Musser plant. He was leaving Chicago and returning to Delaware to start his junior year at Ohio State just as I was arriving on the Midway. In looking back, I figured we missed each other by one week.

Warren and I talk about everything, but one discussion we tend not to visit is "what if?" We chose other paths back then. Life happened. We'd both rather celebrate we have now than wring our hands over what never was.

We do a great job of celebrating the here and the now.

In the past, I had always felt as if pieces of me were scattered all over the country and I could never quite gather them all up. That sense of being scattered was something I'd carried with me from childhood, for lots of reasons. There were times, more than there should have been, when I felt my life was built of staff - an impermanent façade much like the 1893 Exposition buildings.

It took me awhile to figure it out, but it turns out I wasn't made of staff after all. I was made of something more resilient and lasting. Thanks to a great therapist, great friends, a not so great illness that taught me great things, and the incomparable love of Warren, I have been restored, not unlike the transformation of the wreck of the Fine Arts building.

The beauty of my life now is that all of the pieces are gathered. I am no longer torn between here and somewhere or something else. I am finally home, literally and figuratively.

Friday Lindsay and I will be looking for the remains of an amazing event, the first world's fair ever. We will look at the outside of the Museum of Science and Industry and compare it to the photos from the fair to see the phoenix that rose from the ashes of the Columbian Exposition.

I know just how it feels.