Nightime Chicago

a dream of Chicago. How I saw it when I was away for years. Back then, I thought I would leave Chicago, move back to the country and sleep like I had never slept before--without the noise of honking cabs or the crowd at Wrigley or the Red line rumbling past a half block away from my bedroom window.

My first night back in Athens, all I heard were crickets and frogs and the creak of my tiny house on the hill, shifting in the wind blowing up from the cemetery across the street. It was louder than anything in the city and I tossed and turned all night. I immediately regretted the move. . . I'd settle in over time, enjoying grad school and the new friends I made there. Folks who knew the town better than I did introduced me to swimming holes and hiking trails and haunts in town I hadn't found during undergrad.

But nothing replaced Chicago. It took me five years to make it back, and that whole time, I dreamt about the train and the guy who mugged me once at the back of the Addison station in the early morning on my way to work and the burritos from the little ma&pa taqueria on Lincoln across from Rax Trax, and the way the lake tried on a new look everyday--pale green and still one day, steel grey and breaking in ocean waves up against the turn and snake of Lake Shore Drive toward the formal red glare of the Drake.

I really do love this place--the good and the bad. . . all of it is lovely.