August 4, 2017
It’s always a good time to go to Chicago, and this was an exceptionally perfect weekend to visit my beautiful home town. Food and music festivals closed up intersections as revelers caroused on the sidewalks, enjoying the bliss of the long hot summer days filled with music in the air. Downtown bustled with the influx of summer tourists flocking to their moored vessels in the harbors of Lake Michigan. There’s never enough time to get it all in, even with plans best laid. It’s a humble honor to call such a vibrant and architecturally and culturally significant town my home. Arriving becomes meditative, deeply nostalgic, and unavoidably I am overwhelmed with gratitude.
Yet, I still am who I am—aging, slower, not nearly the wild child of yesteryear who could be out the door by 9pm, to a late night Theatre by 10, to the bar by midnight, whether it be beer and argument or dancing our guts out, and to breakfast by 4am (because Chicago bars are civilized like that). It was all I could do to stay awake to Lyft over to the Daily Bar on Lincoln to see my old pal Carol B., and on another night, to CORK on Addison to gabgabgab with my dearest Jen P. Time flies like a thief in the night, and always did, in their company.
Opting to miss my sweet cousin Joseph’s band playing at Elbo Room was a heartbreaker. It wasn’t just that they were headlining and probably not starting until midnight. It was the realization that I simply can’t manage the simple joys that were once a standard in my routine. So, I dedicate this monthly post to this talented, kind, intelligent, and absolute shredder on the guitar and vocals. His energy and youthful vitality, musical genius, and carefree sensitive spirit embody so much of what the city is for me.
On one of the last days there, I drove down Aldine in Boys Town, thinking of all the beautiful ones once in my life, now relegated to relationships on social media. Keeping those unions alive and accessible in this way is strange and new, but I’ll take it for now. We’ll always have Chicago.