City Wendy in the Windy City

Being back at Lake Michigan for the first time since I left Chicago reminded me of all the reasons I stayed there for 7 years despite the terrible traffic, the hassle to get anywhere, and enough look-alike white yuppies in Northface fleece to drown a small town.

Chicago is pleasant — it's one of the most pleasant places I've ever been in my life and that's counting the week I once spent in the South of France with an old boyfriend and his entire Iranian family who pretty much only spoke Farsi around me for the whole trip. I mean, terraced vineyards and plum trees are beautiful, but sharing them with a dysfunctional guy and his family who clearly don't want you around sort of ruin the pleasantry of it all. But Chicago, Chicago is pleasant through and though — at least from May to November, it is. And so for five days I lapped up all that pleasantry — inhaled it and held it as deep in my lungs as I could. I sat at the lake and I looked at far as my eyes could see, like if I looked long enough and hard enough, I could somehow transport some of all that pleasantness back home to New York.

This visit back to Chicago was what I'd been waiting for — the weather was actually really gorgeous the first two days I was there and my friends were happy and relaxed now that their horrible winter is behind them. We had BBQs and bike rides and hula hoop karaoke, and Neil even drove to the outskirts of the city and picked wildflowers and mushrooms that we rolled in batter and fried like chicken and ate for dinner  with salmon burgers and Nikki's homemade potato salad and, well, if that isn't the most pleasant thing you've ever heard of, I don't know what is. And then I came home.

I wish I could say that I was happy coming home to soggy New York, but the truth is I wanted to go back to Chicago. Just for a couple more days. Just for a bit more bike riding, one more BBQ with my friends, another walk through Winnemac Park. See, the great thing about leaving is that it always gets to be this great place I visit now. I hated so many things about Chicago and being back, I realized I'd hate it even more if I lived there now. My old neighborhood -- Andersonville -- is nothing more than a relocated Bucktown, the over-priced, pretentious home goods stores strangling Clark St., my old favorite haunts replaced by trendier joints with pretty blond families in the windows, even Lincoln Square with it's cute stores and cafes is Stroller Central, I'd hate it. And in a way, it took moving to New York for me to realize how much I kind of hated it to begin with. But visiting? I love visiting! Oh, the pleasanty, the parks and lake and tree-lined streets.

You know what I wish? I wish I were a gypsy and I could just travel, travel, travel and never get to a point where I hate a place. I wish I could wrap my arms around the whole wide world and call it home, never settling in one spot, never unpacking my bags, never staying long enough to get on anyone's nerves or for them to get on mine. I wish I didn't have an apartment to keep clean and a fridge to stock. I wish I could be on vacation all the time. Maybe if i get good enough at hula hooping I can run away and join the circus once and for all.

Comments

[Nick]

Yes, wouldn't it be great just to keep on travelling for ever? It's such fun exploring new places and cultures. If only I'd had the cash I'm sure I would have done just that. I feel the same way about London - nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there again. Now I can see all the downsides.

I love the pic. You look so relaxed and the water looks so amazingly blue!

[East Coast Teacher]

LOVE the photo. Glad you had such a nice visit...I've often found that to be the case - you often don't appreciate a certain place until you leave and then return...

Hope all your visits back are like this one!

[Beth]

God I love Lake Michigan...when I win the lottery I will have an apartment facing east and a cottage in MI facing west.....

[teahouseblossom]

Yeah, that's an awesome photo!

I'm glad you had fun in Chicago..it is LOVELY this time of year.

[Alice]

That is an incredibly gorgeous photo! The colors are so vivid and sharp -- what a shot! Makes me want to be there too...

I think we all have that fantasy of being somewhere like that, or of basically being on vacation all the time at some point... Ah, how I would love that! Not having the daily worries of everything, something new waiting around the corner to figure out. That's life, I guess!

[Natalee]

Damn. Now I feel the need to listen to Sufjan Stevens' "Come On Feel the Illinoise" album (which you turned me onto, btw.)

I think I have a bit of the gypsy urge in me myself. That's probably why I keep playing the Powerball-hoping that someday I'll score a big enough jackpot to travel the world.

[arexa]

i have been reading your blog for some time now but have never commented...my dude is from chicago but we live in araska and i am currently in nyc for a quick trip and for some reason was thinking of you and your move here (wish i could do it but araska is also very "pleasant" in it's own totally fucked way). anyways, hope you're enjoying the slight upturn in weather and have a totally wicked-awesome bitchin'summer!