Chicago is....

i'm in Chicago
my home away from home

i love it here.
honestly.

even when the air feels like warm sticky soup

like
it
does
today

i love it.

i love the bricks carefully stacked one upon another in the year 1928
the artist having had no idea
that a million years later
i would take such comfort in his creation

of a home
a temple
a building
a place

where generations of loves and questions and anger and growth and failure and births and deaths have been housed

whether in oak park
or ukranian village
or boys town
or uptown
or lakeview
or wrigleyville
or wicker park
or korea town
or evanston

I'm home

and my heart sings

to the man standing at the end of the on ramp at Fullerton and the Dan Ryan.
to the crazy lady painting with black and grey and white in the cafe while she argues with invisible combatants at Borders in Uptown.
to the 30 something yuppie mom with her $300 stroller in Lincoln Park oblivious to any lifestyle but her own.
to the drunk Cubs fans staggering down Clark Street after a game elated by a win, or a loss.

I love passing the place I lived in Ravenswood for what feels like a million years
and
I love seeing the church where I found God and the place where I lost him and the place where I found her again
and
I love knowing I am within minutes of the best thai food anywhere on the planet
and
I love passing under the El and having to suspend conversation because the roar of metal on metal takes precedence to any thought I might be sharing
and
I love watching the tattooed doe eyed girl with a pink mohawk and safety pinned thigh highs saunter down Belmont with her friends

and
and
and
and

Chicago.

My
kind
of
town.