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Published: October 8th 2007
I forgot to add this - I meant to add it before adding anything else to the blog. Just reflections after going to Chicago for my Visa on why I love the city so much...
I am in love with the city.
C'est le bonheur quand j'erre.
Reflections after Chicago.
I got off the bus at about 8:00 AM, stepped onto the street, and slipped into the city. I call it slipping into the city because it reminds me of the way you put on a jacket; the air and noises are the texture of the fabric against your arms, and the cut and fit of the jacket are how well the city suits you.
It's like how slipping on a business suit, a uniform, a hat, or a red dress can cause you to assume an entirely different identity.
One of my favorite things about the city is the cool, easy indifference everyone exudes as they pass one another without knowing it, each one so focused on their own private little world that to look at any one of them, you would think that they were walking the city streets totally alone.
It isn't an active, angry state of not caring, either. I think a lot of people mistake them for having a sort of « fuck-you » attitude. In reality, they are just honest in admitting via their actions that they are only really concerned with themselves and what is happening in their own lives at that moment, and they are assuming (usually rightly, if you're willing to be honest about it) that you are the same way.
I'm from a small town - a village of 500 people. I was raised to smile and say hello to everyone I passed on the street, and I like doing that. However, I have also come to love and appreciate this way of thinking. It makes sense to me, and I respect its honesty.
I've learned to look straight ahead (or around, as I see fit, just never directly at anyone else) walk with more purpose and authority than I may actually have, and remain in my own private world, whether in it I am thinking only of myself or not.
People also often talk about their dislike of the « noise pollution » in cities. I grew up in silent meadows and cornfields with the only sounds being birds, the babbling of a nearby creek, and the occasional snapping of twigs as deer wanderd through the woods in the backyard.
Human-produced or -induced noises were more rare and often included a mother yelling for her children to come in as disk settled in (or, for if you were my Maman, you produced a whistle so loud that you could hear it from any point in town or on our property), a car or truck flicking up gravel as it passed by, and (let's be honest) the occasional gunshot.
I love the sound of frogs peeping, crickets chirping, and birds singing. I love the sound of rustling in the woods. And it's soothing and it's nice and it's appropriate…for that setting.
I also, however, love the sounds of the city. The patter of so many different pairs of shoes going at so many different speeds reminds me of the sound of water in a creek of the crackling of a fire; it has no particular set rhythm, and even its arrhythmic quality is subject to change volume or timbre at any given moment for any length of time.
In fact, the cast variety of inevitably present in any given noise is one of my favorite things about the sounds in the city. Transportation is a great example of just that. There are engines that roar, hum, rumble, rev, and putt.
Buses roar and heave at varying pitches depending on what gear they are in, trucks rumble at rest, waiting for the light to turn green and the traffic to lurch forward. Compact cars add a more treble-intense layer to the mix, and the lurching forward of traffic (as opposed to easing gently into motion) adds still more complexity to the city's cadence.
Further deepening the intricacy of the city's rhythm are the railway cars - Amtrak trains, subway cars, commuter trains… each with its own version of the and and of the wheels on the track, the made by the cars as they pass the spot where you are standing, and the screeching, cadenced and not, of the steel-on-steel contact.
And then there are the horns. But it isn't the anger-filled honking of a man (or woman) in the suburbs who has waited politely, then impatiently, and then really just can't stand it anymore, at which point all that frustration and emotion comes out in an irate HOOONNNNKKKK.
City drivers are just aware of the fast pace that comes with all life in the city, and they expect everyone else to be aware of it as well. They are quicker to use the horn, resulting in a more dispassionate (yet more frequent) honk. Even a honk that comes as the result of being cut off or almost hit seems less angry and more like it's just saying, "Hey, I drive in the city and I have my act together, so snap out of it and get yours together, too."
Voices also add to the sounds of the city. While sitting on a wall along the sidewalk in front of an art museum, I heard an old man with a deep, gravely voice talking to a younger man in his mid-twenties with a higher, smoother, more feminine voice. Two squealing teenagers (girls) giggled, their voices varying wildly and constantly in pitch to reflect the all-important, all-consuming drama in their lives.
Children squealed with sheer delight, cried from exhaustion, babbled excitedly, and whined their wants and needs to distracted parents. Mothers shouted orders in percussive bursts with commanding, no-nonsense voices that carried easily, a stark contrast to the non-intrusive, soft-spoken words of women on a walk in the city, having a fairly routine and uninteresting conversation about the things and people in their lives, their voices fading out as quickly and easily as they had faded in as they walked past.
The textures and shapes in the city are also extremely varied. This might by my favorite thing overall, since I'm a very texture-oriented, tactile person. Modern, streamlined buildings with blue (or green, or silver, or copper) reflective floor-to-ceiling windows on every floor were quite different from the older buildings in the city, where the rough, beige stone gives way to deep-set windows of varying shapes and sizes, something often carved or etched in to the atone around them.
The grayish-beige becomes more of a color than in any other setting, as its color and texture provide a drastic change from the many metallic shades found in the windows, steel, and sculptures, and from the lush colors of the flora and fauna throughout the city.
There are gothic-inspired carvings and details on some buildings, and Roman letters and numerals etched on others. The next building over could be made entirely of steel and glass.
The city is a place where ornate, intricate sculptures and buildings coexist with stark, angular graphics and structures. It is possible (and easy, for that matter) to stand anywhere and, in 360°, see metal (rusty, brushed, polished, painted…), glass (tinted, clear, reflective, frosted, blue, green, copped, silver…), wood (trees, benches that have been worn smooth, decks, telephone poles…) and stone (polished and rough, shaped and natural, intricately carved or graphically etched, grey, brown, deep maroon, reddish-orange, beige, black…).
It is a place where mad-made meets nature. The two directions of traffic on multi-lane roads filled with chaotic amounts of cars and people are interrupted in the middle by dividers filled with wildflowers of every color. Parks with concrete and gravel walkways allow you to enter spaces filled with grasses, trees, and fountains - an explosion of rich, natural colors and textures amidst a sea of manmade structures.
When lunchtime came, I grabbed a sandwich from a local sandwich shop and headed to one such park. To get there, you stepped off the busy sidewalk, down a few concrete steps, and down into a soft pit of gravel, composed of small, fairly uniform pebbles in shades of mahogany, orange, beige, taupe, and rose. It was a relief for tired feet that had been pounding pavement all day.
I took my shoes off and had a seat on a low concrete wall bordering a small, square patch of grass and a tall, leafy tree. There were eleven other spots just like mine, each with a tree in the center, creating a dappled pool of gravel as the rays of the sun filtered through the millions of small, oval-shaped leaves standing in their way of the ground.
I was not alone during my lunch hour, either. Women in skirts and stilettos, men in power suits and silk ties, and college students with fashionable, mock athletic shoes and backpacks filtered in, some with packed lunches and some that were bought, and reserved themselves a spot in the park. Most of them took their shoes off, crossed their legs, and didn't talk about anything work-related.
It was nice to see that, even in such a big, bustling city, people were taking time to breathe, enjoy a little good food, and just be. For those twenty, thirty, fifty minutes, no one was rushed. It was as though they had temporarily slipped out of the city.
I saw two men a quarter of a mile away rushing toward the park. They were speedwalking with their shoulders back and an authoritative look on their faces. Then, the second they hit the gravel, their shoulders relaxed, their facial expressions became less tense, and they wandered gradually over to a free spot to sit and eat.
I entered several shops and restaurants while in Chicago, and that's when realized something beautiful and important. Almost every restaurant, bakery, café, and shop had at least one painting of the city done by a local artist. They paintings were done in different styles, with different colors, and depicted a totally unique image.
That's when it hit me.
Chicago is the name assigned to that every-changing set of buildings, parks, trains, businesses, and people. But, as with any city, there is no ONE Chicago. Every person who has ever lived in, visited, been through, heard of, or thought about Chicago has his or her own version of the city, each with its own set of things and people that represent it, which goes right back to that cool, collective, easy indifference. Of COURSE people aren't concerned with the strangers around them in the street; they are not even in the same city.
This little trip was great for several reasons. I spent hour upon hour walking in a city I did not know at all. At first, all the names, streets, and sights were foreign and new. As I passed them again and saw more of the city (giving me a context in which to place them), they became ore familiar and, finally, became mine. I had created My Chicago.
I love the city.
Et c'est le bonheur quand j'erre.
Walking with purpose when you have no real plan or agenda is great. It allows time for reflection and just time for oneself in general. I am happy and, in some senses, relieved to report that after a much-needed break from all the life I know and some serious introspection, I am still thoroughly content with my situation at present and thoroughly excited for the future.
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