Chicago Writing

Fear

I think that God throws our fear in our face so that our arms get too full. They get full of all the silly, stupid things we’ve picked up to defend ourselves and be in control, to try to prevent disaster. When fear- which is mostly not knowing- gets too big, we have to drop the little medicine bag we’ve assembled. The box of band-aids, the calculator, the calender, the brownie. And then he can get to us and calm us. First he has to knock us down, bloody our nose a bit, knock the wind out of us. From there he can give us a little sip of water, wipe our tears from our eyes, the snot from our nose so that we can see him, see he’s still there. 6.15.05

Smells

Something that I’ve noticed this time around in Chicago is the smells. Some remind me of Rome, the sewage, the water on concrete, the smells that happen with lots of brick and pavement and people. But coming right out of the subway at the Chicago stop I smell brownies. The delight sweeps over me before I can think to be confounded. Through all the concrete, exhaust and heat the aroma of the Ghiradellie factory slips into the summer breeze and lingers for blocks. I read this last part to Shawn and he said he hates the smell, it makes him sick. 6.24.05

The Hottest Day in Six Years

Today is the hottest day in Chicago in six years. I smell my own body odor. I wore a tank-top because I knew it would be this hot. It’s not as hot as Texas. In Texas it is so hot and humid that you fear if everyone in the city takes a breath at one moment all the good air will be gone and you will no longer be able to breath. Not breathing will not kill you in such a scenario however, but instead make the arduous task of existing in that scorching weather all the more disorienting. In Chicago it is less humid, more shade from the buildings and a consistent breeze- not cool, but at least moving air. 6.24.05

Cheetos

My senior English teacher was brilliant- or at least led me to believe so. She had copyrighted worksheets under the name The Whitenight Forum which she had created for teaching seminars to other teachers at Princeton. The fact that she had taught at Princeton in some form or fashion wasn’t a matter of casual name dropping, as we were not sophisticated enough to appreciate or disdain such an act. She explained she taught High School English because she saw how college professors would eat Freshman alive. She wanted to prepare them, to give them a chance as small fish in the big pond. Maybe she did this out of the goodness of her heart, but perhaps she said this to ingratiate us to her. She scared the hell out of me. She never taught first period even though our school didn’t start until 8:50 in the first place. She wore leggings, spandex, but not the shiny kind, there was no mistaking her for a Debbie Gibson infatuated aerobics instructor. She looked like a pit-bull, her short spandexed legs grounded in Birkenstocks, supporting a stocky torso and a tanned face capped by silver, cropped hair. I wondered if she had ever worked for Disney- not because of any sort of cheerfulness, but because when she spoke you wanted to shout, “Hide the puppies!” This alone would have been proof-positive of her nicotine habit, but she also used her smoke breaks as an opportunity to make a score for her other habit. Cheetos. The Cheetos always lay on her desk in plain sight, it wasn’t something she tried to hide, yet it wasn’t something she flaunted either- she never licked her fingers. She taught us about William Blake, T. S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock, and Hamlet, we even had a Shakespearean insult contest. We studied Voltaire’s Candide, yet it was years before I knew to which female part the character Cunigunda’s name referred. She helped me finally decide to save money and go to a state school in the longest conversation we ever had. It took two minutes. 6.27.05

Hell and The Cubs

I’ve been reading about hell and how it’s a doctrine a lot of people can’t stomach or maybe heart would be the better organ for idiom. That it turns people off of Christianity. I’m sitting at a Starbucks in Chicago and looking at a Cub’s poster that reads “Believe.” The Chicago Cubs have been cursed for many years by an old Greek man after the Stadium wouldn’t let him bring his goat in to the game. The Cubs ask fans to believe they can beat the curse. They don’t advertise that the curse isn’t real or isn’t powerful, but to believe they are strong enough or spirited enough to beat it. Maybe the curse serves as a reminder that it’s going to take more than they have as players to win the series. They’re not playing against the Yankees or the Red Sox, they’re playing against a goat that’s been dead for years. Jesus never tries to convince anyone that hell doesn’t exist, but maybe it serves more as a reminder than a destiny. Jesus’ poster would look like the Cubs’. “Believe” Yeah we’re up against some pretty tough shit, a lot of evil, but believe I am powerful enough to overcome it. 6.28.05

DePaul’s Pope

There’s a painting of someone I can only assume is a Pope or at least a Cardinal on the brick building of DePaul University in Chicago. It faces the Red Line of the train just past the Fullerton stop so that you see him slightly smiling every time you pull away. I wonder if he is a Pope from past ages who was never photographed, or at least never painted making quite the right face. He looks strikingly similar to Robin Williams. They must have approached Robin Williams and said “Look Robin, we need to paint a picture of this pope on the wall of our school, but we really don’t like any of the pictures we have to choose from, we can’t find the expression we want to convey. He was too damn happy, all of the faces are too silly for our school. We wonder if you would mind posing for us by barely smiling.”
“Sure Father.” he smiles.
“Too much,” He frowns.
“Wait a little more, perfect. Oh damn we forgot the silly red cap, Robin could you put this on and smile one more time.” He puts on the fez-like cap and you can sense him repressing the urge to do a Moroccan Sheik, but he recovers and resumes the barely smile. 6.29.05