Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The Arrival

I made it to Chicago relatively unscathed.  The only casualties were a picture frame housing Carrie Fischer's autograph and a soup bowl.  Not a bad body count for a fifteen hour trip of all my belongings (except the bed - it was either the bed or the books) crunched in the back of my stepfather's pick-up.  So, I'm here perched on my inflatable bed looking out at fire escapes dimly lit and listening to the faint sounds of traffic further north.

My studio is twelve by fifteen, but I somehow seem to have nothing but space- like a shoebox that encompasses most of a lifetime.  I walk up five flights of stairs and can see the lights of downtown, smell Lake Michigan, and repeatedly fall in love with the endless visage of opportunity.  It seems that I have always been here in some metaphorical form or other.  Maybe it's that sparrow my grandfather always talked about; and she finally flitted back to the big city with a powerful beak burgeoning with some strange new song.

It's rather lonely here on my second floor.  Still.  And I can hear everything all the way back home.  It resonates on the breeze sifting through the windows.  A music I've never been able to hear before.  I suppose it's to be expected.  A repose and chorus of memory that circulates through this small space.  But it's still warm and I know I'll have trouble falling asleep.

People often write to remember, unearth what is hidden in lost caverns of the psyche, and then to forget.  At least I do.  But sitting here in Lincoln Park, I'm writing to discover.  I haven't the slightest what I'm trying to find, but I'm almost certain there is something waiting, sparkling and pulsing, for me to uncover in these words.

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