Chicago

Within five minutes of my arrival, it becomes clear that Chicago--the streets of which are sparsely walked at the midnight hour--is both very much an alive place to land at any point in the day, and perhaps as a consequence, smells like poop. However, I feel safe and anonymous here, setting up a game plan to ensure that for the three days I plan to spend, I have the ability to get around easily and see as much as possible.

I purchase a three-day Ventra pass for $20, which allows me rides on all busses and trains within city limits (“You don’t want to go out to the burbs, man” the agent who sold it to me tells me) and walk to the bus stop that will take me to the "L" (short for elevated) train station. Chicago is quiet at night, but bathed in the glow of high-rise lights, which reflect off both the river below and the fog hanging above. I stand waiting for the 151 train, trying to take it in, though eventually remembering that the practice is more effective if I completely quiet all of the observations in my rapid-fire brain and instead notice the sensation of my own broad, shotgun smile in the humid air, and my feet standing on completely new territory.

It’s midnight. I’ve already phoned the hostel I booked at the last minute to tell them I’m checking in late, and when I arrive I am greeted by a woman who shows me where the bathrooms are, explains the fairly small set of rules, and leads me to my room, a four-bed women’s dorm in the basement. I plug in my electronics, tuck myself in, and conk out.

In the morning, one of my roommates, an older lady, introduces herself to me as I pull out of a hazy sleep and address the disaster that is my hair (dingus forgot to pack her hairbrush.) She grew up in Chicago and taught here as well, but now lives in San Francisco. I explain where I’m from and who I am, which only opens up the door to more questions I’m not yet ready to answer so as politely as possible, I run over this interaction with “BOY AM I HUNGRY!” and skitter upstairs for the promised free breakfast. This would become a pattern with her--the only consistent hostelmate for my entire stay--to deflect gradually prodding questions or meaningless chitchat with “WOW I HAVE TO GO DO THIS THING BUT I’LL SEE YOU LATER.” My social skills could probably use some work.

A short time later, I find myself walking towards the Lincoln Park neighborhood. I would learn more and more throughout the rest of my stay that Chicago, for a person like myself, is an easily walkable city. The place is completely flat, and for much of my radius, the streets were cohesive and easy. The neighborhoods I spent much of my time exploring were shady, boasting well-kept gardens, and endless rows of buildings that bore near-exact resemblance to each other. (The photo of my hostel demonstrates how most of the residences I past often looked.)

After plenty of tromping around in multiple directions looking for the Lincoln Park conservatory because Google Maps is consistently drunk on the power it holds to get me lost in foreign places, I come upon the Lincoln Park Zoo. For an hour, I let go of all of my high horses about animals kept in captivity and gleefully wander through buildings housing tigers, monkeys, sea lions, giraffes, and so on. My life becomes a scene out of an indie movie. I’m watching the humans around me and their interactions with jungle creatures, the Mountain Goats’ “Heretic Pride” giving me an almost sickeningly sweet background noise as I forget that I’m ever a well-informed grown-up with social anxieties that would make Boo Radley roll his eyes. I can’t remember the last time I was at a zoo, or even did anything remotely this simple and free in the pursuit of enjoying living. But eventually, I get cold, and decide that I feel really awkward without a leather jacket, and I probably need to go find one because I forgot mine at home (this would end up being a wild goose chase I would set myself on for the sake of exploring the city, which is a common practice I do on vacation. I never end up buying anything, but the wandering that kills my time is always worth it.)

After a nap, I wake up around 8:30 and decide that I need a drink. I take the subway downtown, and spend the better part of an hour walking through the fracas that is Friday night Chicago. Read: I comb through teems of well-dressed people looking for a bar where I won’t be swallowed in sports fans or uppity awkward mixology bull. I ask Google Maps to take me to a dive bar. It delivers.

Rossi’s is positioned between a 7-11 and a pizza parlor, dim-lit and small--a stark contrast to the glassy polished tables and italic print menus of its neighbors. The bouncer, sporting a long, ratty ponytail not unlike the one I rocked for most of elementary school, checks my I.D. and calls me “sweetheart” in a very polite manner. I order a greyhound and share a table with a gender-fluid person who is continuously hugged and purred upon by other patrons, while I scroll through AirBnb and nurse my drink. It’s an hour later that I find my new favorite thing, the Pick Me Up Cafe, a vegan-friendly late-night restaurant tucked into Clark St, and attempt to eat a Veggie Benedict with my left hand while chatting on the phone with the other.

Hunger sated and sleepy-eyed, I wander back to the hostel and lay awake in bed, listening to the sounds of dogs barking in the distance and the rain hitting pavement outside the window.

The next morning, I’m back at the Pick Me Up, drinking coffee and thinking again about whether or not I really need to purchase a jacket, reasoning with the parts of me that advocate for hella style, versus the parts of me that advocate for hella not spending money. I decide I’m not going to win this battle with myself, that the shores of Lake Michigan still haven’t met me, and nothing seems sweeter than to sit in the sand and pretend I’m at the ocean or something inane along those lines. I catch the Red Line, this time going north. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, the city and its inhabitants are bearing rainbows of every possible physical incarnation. The family sitting across from me on the train are following suit to match their marathon-running gear. I decide that I’m more in love with this city than I would like to admit.

I spend most of the day wandering the stretch of city by the shore. Lake Michigan could honestly be mistaken for any computer desktop background’s picturesque beach. The sand is white, the water shades of turquoise and dark blue, the waves gentle and steady. In Montrose, where it is bordered by a long stretch of pavement, I watch a man ditch his bike and jump in. Passersby make comments about the cardboard sign he put in the wheels, asking that no one steal it and explaining the rider to be in the water.

I walk all the way back to the hostel, and shower before meeting a friend of mine who attends the Art Institute at the Reservoir in Uptown. The restaurant is surprisingly reasonably priced, and the two greyhounds I order come out to less than $10 in what has to be a Chicago miracle. She and I discuss the nature of change, and the trap that Spokane can be for a young person’s growth; she expresses that her move across multiple states has allowed her the room to make a life that is real for herself. What she’s talking about is a real phenomena. People my age in Spokane seem so stuck in their lives that they don’t create with them, that moving forward is difficult, that malaise becomes normal. Many of us are simply making of each day what we can, without ever thinking too far ahead.

After she and I part ways, I decide to visit a jazz club that Gary Graham, the Spokesman’s editor, told me about. Unfortunately, the Green Mill charges a cover beyond my budget, and though I don’t make it in, I peak into the dark club with sharp curiosity before I decide to take the train back to the hostel and fall asleep.

As I finish writing this, I’m currently parked in Union Station, waiting for my train to New Orleans, watching a bold pigeon flirt with disaster in concourse D. I’m anxious to get back on the rails, head somewhere new, though I do love Chicago, and hope to return with my friend Danielle in tow eventually (she would just really love it here.) The time spent hopping subways and exploring various degrees of concrete-covered civilization, all the while in blissful seventy-degree weather, feels almost too good to prolong. I’m ready for my first bump down to the South, especially with the nature of my trip to New Orleans unplanned (I mean, I don’t even know where I’m going to stay at this point.) And I’m also just really ready to sit for a few hours at a time and watch some pretty scenery before I have to deal with the return of hot weather to my skin. I’ve been waiting to visit New Orleans for years, and it’s kinda looking like my introduction to the city will be in the winging-it-fashion that suits me pretty well or horrendously. Either way, I’m interested to see what the city will make of me....stay tuned to find out.