Slices of Life in Chicago
My favorite moment from visiting Chicago was a sunset kayak tour where we couldn't even see the sunset. Clouds hung low and snaked in and out of the city buildings, sometimes parting briefly but never dissipating enough to show where the sun was at any point during the theoretical sunset period.
The clouds had threatened rain all afternoon, and sometimes let loose a bit of drizzle, contributing to an uncertain atmosphere that kept away most other potential kayakers. After I showed up at my reserved time and procured a life jacket by the boathouse, I sat alone on a set of bleachers overlooking the Chicago River until an instructor approached and said it would be just the two of us paddling that evening. Instead of being bothered, I was merely glad they didn't cancel the tour. I'm used to doing things alone.
From a dock on the south side of the river, we entered our boats, crossed the river, and headed downstream. We paddled away from Lake Michigan looming somewhere behind us, and hewed close to the concrete banks that confine the river to its manmade course beneath the skyscrapers. Maneuvering the kayak was easy enough. The river flows slowly (or feels that way) along the edges, and on a Thursday night there wasn't a great volume of other boat traffic. My tour guide kept her boat near mine, both for safety and to tell me about Chicago's history and architecture along the way.
I listened with genuine interest, but simultaneously wished I could have more space to gaze quietly at the skyline above us. Being on the river offered a rare opportunity to hold still and admire the city without feeling like a roadblock in a flow of tourist traffic, or being confronted with store windows and street vendors trying to sell me things. It also made me feel like part of a low-key parade. The motorized yachts and big tour boats traversing the middle of the river were the parade floats; my kayaking partner and I were the costumed folks prancing alongside them, waving at observers along the banks.
I think that we travel to feel part of something bigger than ourselves. We pass through cities with storied histories, hike mountains that have persisted through ages and ages of earth's climate, gaze on landscapes that are so vast they remind us of our insignificant place. I was only a speck on the Chicago River, drifting with its current, and instead of worrying about my own life I let myself absorb tales of the city from my tour guide: everything from the first homesteader in the 1700s to the Dave Matthews Band incident of 2004. I alternated between studying the historic buildings, trying to imagine how they looked and functioned a century ago, and listening to the rock bands who played the outdoor restaurants and beer gardens that line the south bank of the river today.
The kayak tour was deliberately scheduled for my first day in Chicago. Over the next few days, I continued on to other places that gave me a feeling of stepping into a large cultural or historical moment. This trip included my first time visiting the museum at the Art Institute. I'm not well versed in art by any measure, but I knew enough to be a little awed in the presence of a Van Gogh, an O'Keefe, a Wood, and Hopper's Nighthawks.
I went to a show at Second City, origin of many comedy stars, and felt like I was briefly part of American showbiz mythology. I stood in line at a deep-dish pizza restaurant where the walls were graffitied by decades of patrons. On the other end of the dining spectrum, I sat at the chef's counter at a high-end restaurant, where I witnessed in person some of the fancy-chef practices I'd seen on TV for years. I ate dishes with components that were carefully tweezed onto the plate, and was tended to thoughtfully by a server who turned the wine bottle to show me the label before pouring me a glass. "I like the artwork!" I said approvingly, knowing that I was going to drink the wine no matter what the bottle looked like.
On my last night in Chicago, on the fifteenth floor of a historic hotel building, I was woken up by thunder and flashes of light. I had left my curtains open about ten inches so I could soak up the downtown lights a little more before I had to leave. Now I opened them wider to watch the whole sky come to life with a lightning storm. I'd checked the forecast before my trip and gotten excited about the potential for this quintessential Midwestern weather experience. I was glad that it came to fruition, even though it led to me getting soaked by heavy rain the next day. Seeing a lightning bolt strike behind the twinkling marquee of the Chicago Theater was the perfect way to root me in that place at that moment.
