But the strange thing is, I’m not devastated by it. I mean, I don’t love it. I love Kansas City so much, so much that its even weird to say love. Because you don’t talk about how much you love your blood, or your internal organs. But you probably would if they were missing from you. That’s how I feel about Kansas City.
But I love Chicago. I love Loyola. And its still a budding love, but its there. And when I was backat St. Teresas’s, (a good place to come back to. A good place to center. A good place to get back to yourself at.) I thought about the love I had for everyone there, everything there. The trees and the skirts and the tile floors and the stairs and the laughter and all of it. And how silly, how stupid it would have been to waste even a minute there wishing I was somewhere else.
And I’ve decided I’m not going to waste a minute of the next four years wishing I was anywhere else but where I am. What a disservice I would be doing to my new home, to my old home. This love, budding when all other things are dying for winter, is only going to grow. Love is like that. Its like yeast for bread—it grows, it rises, it feeds on itself. It only grows bigger. And I don’t want to look back, on the day I have to say goodbye to the lake, knowing I wasted even a minute of time wishing I was anywhere else. Because this all goes away, and sooner than I think
I love where I’ve been and I love where I am. My life is ABUNDANT, when I treat it like it is. Hannah from CLC told me I need to be where my feet are. Be where your feet are. Anywhere can be home, because home is within me, its something you carry and I’ve been lucky because I’ve had such great homes and now I have another one.
I know its probably a little naïve to think I’ll never be homesick again, but its good thing to try I think. And also, I think it’s a little naïve to say I’ll never ache for Chicago when I’m away from it. So I’m going to act like it while I’m here.
---
How do I even begin to explain how I feel? When I was walking back with Alex today, and she said it! She said "My life is here now." Will my life ever be here? Or will I fall in love with the city but never quite love people the way I did back then? Oh, I want someone to adore. I adore Katrina. Is that why I'm afraid of her coming? I want to adore someone the way I adore her, not just her in another location.
But the problem is that I do adore her. Does that make sense?
--
Tune my heart to sing thy grace
--
I want to write about the lake but nothing new has ever been written about the lake. Not since the Native Americans knew all there was to know, all that was important anyway. But if I could find a way to write this in a new way, I would: between the grey of the sky and the grey of the concrete overlooking the lake from the library, the lake is a great shock a blue. A thrill of hope, in between dreary worlds. But five minutes later, and the lake is grey too. A lesson in becoming. If it wasn't cliche I might compare the way the lake changes in an instant to the way I feel like I change, every five minutes. But I know better. Because I know the lake isn't the thing that's changing, its just the light. The way the light reflects off the lake, changes how we see it (and how we see things isn't real anyway, just a trick of the mind.) but it doesn't change the lake. The lake doesn't change. Its older than us by about a billion years, and its water will continue to crash against the shore long after global warming or nuclear devastation or the flu has killed us all off.
That doesn't scare me, though. That makes sense to me. The lake is vast, and bigger than me. Sitting here in front of it, it makes sense that it dwarfs me in dominion and power. Makes sense.
What scares me is this. Prior to 1900, the polluted Chicago river flowed into Lake Michigan, poisoning the entire city’s water supply. Rather than stop dumping their waste into the river, the city literally reversed the flow of the river through a system of locks. So instead of lake Michigan, Chicago sent their waste down the Illinois flood plain. They reversed the flow of the river. It goes the wrong way.
That scares me. --
Katrina is here.
And nothing hurts anymore and all is right with the world and to be fully known and fully loved is what we are meant for and I'm meant to be with Katrina, her Ryan and me all walking through Wrigleyville chain smoking cigarettes, like its how its supposed to be its the thing I was meant for. ---
I went to my parents' first apartment. I stood outside the doors and imagined them stumbling up the stairs, drunk and in love--with each other, with being young, with the city, with the plans they had for the future. I remember a couple years ago when we were visiting Chicago (Did I know? Even then? Surely I must have felt something. Surely.) We drove up from the Western Suburbs. We were going to the Art Institute. We drove through the highway and onto Michigan Ave, and we--my sisters and me-- must have been reading or on our phones or something. And my parents just looked and laughed at each other, and said "they don't get the same feeling, they don't feel the way we do while driving into the city. They can't feel it."
When I walked back through Lincoln park to meet up with Katrina and Ryan (we went to the coolest coffee shop in the south loop) I saw the most wonderful bird I've ever seen. Stark white and deep black in a beautiful complex pattern, and no grays, no in-betweens. A warbler I think. It hopped along the sidewalk and flew away in such a magnificent flurry, with no recognition of the miracle of its existence. Beauty without flourish. That's when the city began to feel brand new. The way I felt when I first got here.
---
In my small group, we talked about our love languages. My rankings were (in order) Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Acts of Service, and Receiving Gifts. I cringed whenever a question about physical touch came up, and was surprised when it wasn't the last on my list. I'm afraid of sex, of being too close, of not being able to make a last minute retreat.
But then of course, Katrina came. And Katrina rests her head on my shoulder while we wait for the el. Katrina slipping her hand in mine to kiss my knuckle as we sit and laugh in Flaco's. The just barely awareness I have of Katrina's pretense as her shoulder bumps and brushes against my arm. The feel of her presence in the room, while we both fall asleep. And when I saw Katrina--walking from work in the cold, down dark and quiet Winthrop to Granville, turn a corner and a familiar sight. Ryan and Katrina, smoking and laughing. My walk turns into a run and I shake when I feel her familiar arms squeeze me tight, her familiar smell, the touch of her hair, the sound of her voices. The senses, the world we experience in real time, in living color. Its one helluva drug. I think I've thought for a long time, without realizing it, that this world exists in the mind. Or at least that the things of the mind--ideas and ideals, poetry and art-- are far superior. But this world exists in the world, a physical, bleeding, screaming, laughing, warm, sour world. And what a beautiful world it is.
Katrina is gone now and I feel her lack. But she's renewed me and the city, and life seems wonderful again. Full to the brim of things to see. I can do this without her. I can do this by myself. I know I can. This world is full of beauty, its spilling over with it. Even now. Even here.
Comments
Post a Comment