i’d thought i’d tackle some big ‘idea’ this morning, but then the sun came up (as it does) and suddenly all thought of writing a manifesto for the revolution evaporated, poof!, just like that. (you can thank me later for saving you from my feeble attempts at metaphor and the grand gesture.)
for those first few years of living in chicago and making my way on my own (fraught [yes, i wrote 'fraught', but then i thought better of it, i mean, who says 'fraught' anymore, except snobs putting on airs?] complicated as it was with the vagaries of youth and indecision) i was a student of the long walk.
if you live in chicago, or have lived in chicago, i think you may understand how easily it is to fall under the spell of long walks. for one thing, it’s nearly impossible to get lost in chicago. it is one of its great advantages over new york city, i believe. no matter where you are the numbers are always the same, radiating out from 0 at madison and state, every block going east and west from state st. is numbered the same and every block going south and north from madison is likewise numbered. that’s why a chicagoan will always give you their exact address, “i live at 1343 wolfram, one block north of diversey,” and you would immediately know that they were just east of southport (1400 west) — and 2900 north — 29 blocks north of madison. that never happens in new york, does it? i thought not.
regardless, there are very few times weather-wise in chicago when a long walk is something you’d want to undertake (unless circumstances force you to); in the summer the heat and humidity would do you in by block 3 (or about 8 minutes into it), winter–well, duh, and although spring may offer you occasional opportunities to hoof it a great distance they are not as frequent (or reliable) as fall is in chicago.
by late september and through october (and if your luck holds into november), there are so many perfect days, cool enough, dry enough, less windy, all-in-all perfect weather to strike out by foot for whatever destination suits your mood.
and then there are fall clothes, which with their corduroy, flannel, cable knit, cashmere, vest, foulard and cap are incredibly suited to a good, long walk. you know that after a few blocks, you’ll start to warm up and you’ll need to shed a layer or unbutton your jacket, but with the sun to the south, there’s always that cool float of air circulating (an outdoor ceiling fan, if you will) and layers of fall clothes let you adapt and improvise, your scarf loosened or sweater tied around your neck/waist, all of it a bit scratchy and a little too comforting, but you’re on your long walk, and that casualness (disheveled/dishabille) is part of the allure and the attitude of someone with the leisure of taking a long walk.
the long walk is for you on the street, not the person on the #10 or the #22 bus, faced pressed against the window, exhausted at the end of their day and catching a glimpse of you walking, sigh, and they turn a jaundiced eye to your obvious insanity. the billboard of their face shouts at you, ”what is wrong with you, walking?” there is nothing wrong with me that this long walk won’t cure, you mumble to yourself–it may be that you would say that phrase out loud, not that you need convincing, but because your inner voice sometimes need to be heard. obviously, the purpose of the long walk is exactly that, a chance for all of the turmoil and dust clouds of doubt and anxiety that you’ve held back, it is the opportunity to let it out (aloud or silently, it matters not.)
when i am on a long walk (true then, too) i take long strides–i never thought of it as walking fast, quite the contrary, for someone of my imposing height, with the longest of legs balanced by a torso that tends to thinness and arms that swing to and fro, i always thought i walked at exactly the right pace for who i am, marking time with a good shoe’s leather heel beating a rhythm, i want to stretch out my legs (a racehorse) and lean into the walk (not speed-walking, i’m much too arch for that); it’s a walk that gets me somewhere i want to go with a bit of elegance and economy of movement.
combine with this gait a penchant for observing, the gutter below as well as the cloud above, the man with the flapping trenchcoat and swinging brown leather briefcase ahead of me racing to catch the idling bus (not for me, no i’m walking), the children coming out of l’école français on state street with their berets and mary-janes, cars idling at the curb waiting to drive them around the corner to their greystone on astor street, the view of lincoln park at the end of the street, the red brick of the cardinal’s victorian/gothic residence, the smell of grass, tar, exhaust, and the wind off the lake adding its own watery slap, slap to my time up and out of the near north, the ‘gold coast’ and into lincoln park. (we are, after all, talking about a walk in chicago one nameless fall day in 197_ or maybe even 198_, long enough ago that it doesn’t matter what day it was or how often i repeated it–which was not nearly enough–all that matters is that i did it.)
before i got that far though, i’d have stopped for a moment to speak with h_____, the florist at the corner of elm and state street, who introduced me to sterling silver roses, or crossing the street rang ben k___’s bell to see if he wanted to go out later that night (this before cell phones–how did we manage our social lives? just fine, thank you very much. there was a lot of silence which i believe was good for us, perhaps for you too, even now.) it could have been that i did neither, already cocooned in the solitude of this long walk, focused solely on putting one foot ahead of the other as thoughts and dreams flowed freely through my mind; the minor and major irritants (a speck of sand in the oyster) allowed their opportunity in the fresh air and sunshine of a long walk.
i’d pass sandburg village (all townhomes and apartment towers), moody bible school (it’s red brick roundness a stone in the stream of traffic melding around it, the historical society and the break of clark street from lincoln park west, more often than not i’d choose clark street with the a stop at the belden deli with its steam table matzoh ball soup, ordering a liverwurst sandwich on a kaiser roll with a slice of red onion, tomato and lettuce, all wrapped in wax paper–with its kosher pickle–and tucked into a brown paper bag to carry along on the way home, something comforting, a goal that i knew i could achieve.
there’d be the decision at fullerton to cut right and up lakeview past the mies van de rohe apartment tower or stay the course on clark to wrightwood or diversey (depending on the year, of course, whether i lived on pine grove or on wolfram — separated by my years in pilsen) with its storefronts and shops, its traffic (foot or wheeled) or by then i may have thought to drop in at the aspidistra bookstore where i first fell in love with durrell, and where the dust motes and dirty windows, the boston ferns and the table bins with used books stacked all willy-nilly and the owners love for books all conspired to seduce you (you could not refuse such an offer, it would have been like refusing manet’s olympia, you could not imagine the disdain, her look of boredom with your obvious stupidity.)
of course, there were times when i made no stops, considered no diversions, paused only for stoplights and turning traffic, avoiding the exhaust of a cta bus belching its disgust at you–walking, of all things, how could you?–my head and my feet with but one goal in mind, home. and you know, you know if you’ve done this yourself, that those final steps to your apartment door, perhaps preceded by the whoosh of the elevator (hopefully avoiding your neighbors) or the climb up 4 flights of stairs, again avoiding human contact as best you could, not wanting to sully the virgin snowfall that the long walk had laid down on your life, were often the most important steps you took that day as you closed the door and turned your back on the world.
the most aggravating thing, should i be so bold as to rank life’s aggravations, which i will be, bold that is, and come out (not that i’m not already out, you know) and say, perhaps exclaim would be a better choice, if you’re going to put an order to the vagaries of living that drive you crazy (metaphorically, obvsly, what i’m saying is that i’m not crazy, but aggravated, although i imagine if one were so inclined — not to be crazy about it — aggravation could be closely associated with crazy, if one were to take the meaning of crazy as a state of aggravation, but not being that one, it’s hard to say how it will be met and what meaning will be ascribed to the word–we all have our own experiences with definitions and english, god help us (if you believe in that sort of thing, god that is, not english, although for the sake of this argument–were we?–you should probably believe in english, as well as god and country–a rick perry moment if ever there one), filled to the brim as it is with subtle shades (not redundant) of meaning and innuendo, the most aggravating thing is, i’m not sure there is a most aggravating thing. surely there are times when i’m aggravated (as i was moments ago when i sat down to write this post about the most aggravating, annoying ____________), but the fact is i’m fairly certain that someone who can’t sit still (that foot tapping, jiggling leg of anxiety) is aggravating — you do notice that one’s self is never aggravating, only other people, objects, roadblocks to your serenity are truly aggravating, so the roar of the neighbor’s vacuum cleaner just as you’ve laid down to take a nap is aggravating, but could you, with a clear conscience, say it was the most aggravating thing, or only the most aggravating thing at that moment? and now that time has entered into it, it’s whole new ball game (trite phrases are also aggravating, truth be told–see you just can’t get away from it, well, i suppose if you were a henry james or a jane austen, you might not even come near a trite phrase, avoiding it like the plague [see what i mean?], but for the rest of us, it is just one of life’s many aggravations.
you know what else is aggravating? post titles that are tangentially and diametrically inconsistent with the contents of the post itself. i may be accused of that as i often have a title in mind, and it may have something to do with the photograph, it may have something to do with what i want to say, it may have something to do with the inspiration for the post or it may have nothing to do with anything, but it is something that has just come to me and i feel it’s important to get those thoughts down before they flee my peaked little brain, possibly i find it important to make those notes (and what is a blog after all, if it is not a gathering place for ideas, notes on this topic or that one, something you may reference later in a larger work or never again because you’ve forgotten you’ve written it.) if i’ve aggravated you today or in the past, please note that i will more than likely aggravate you in the future, it is in my nature to be aggravating.
the heat of a summer morning. what do you think about in the morning? do you clear your mind of the dreams from your sleep? or think about the day ahead and what you must accomplish? are your thoughts more mundane than that, perhaps about how the coffee tastes or how blue the sky is or why is the dog smelling that particular blade of grass?
do you ever wonder why? why you think about what you do at any given moment? are your thoughts just forming themselves, a little foggy at the bottom, but with the light of clarity seeping in at the top?
sometimes i do. but then i decide that the prevailing wisdom on the subject is probably best left to those whose job is thinking about such things.
okay. this is how this will work: i am posting several photographs that i took yesterday. i will start the caption below each photographs leaving one or more spaces empty for you to add your suggested insertions. everyone will be a winner! not that you’ll receive anything (well, anything tangible) for your efforts, so some of you may feel that’s a lot like losing. but! you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you contributed to this worthy cause. and that’s winning, isn’t it? (if you need to win, at least it’s something. there may be those of you for whom the idea of winning and/or losing as the be-all end-all might be somewhat distasteful. i mean, the very idea of striving may be anathema to you (you know who you are.)
so. let’s get started.
1. a rose is a ________ and by any other name may ___________ as ________.
2. the devil and _ were talking the other day. ”what were you thinking,” he said, “when you _______ that?”
3. as i was walking down the _________, i thought about ______ and ______, but no sooner had i _______ than those thoughts ____________.
4. ”but, he cried,” in some distress, “that is not what i _______. you have taken my words and ____________.”
5. i stood a bit, the cool wind brushing against my face and contemplated ___ existence of ______ and how nature seems to be the __________ of all that is good with the world.
6. and, as if on cue (the stage manager sotto voce) i turned to the ____ and realized that it was true what they _________ _____ ______. it somehow assuaged the despair i had been feeling earlier.
so. instead of what i thought i’d share with you (a project that i’ve held close to my chest for fear of spoiling it somehow by letting it be seen before its due date–whenever that is–although in my mind i see it finished, but not when,) i’m here tonight/today/yesterday or tomorrow, perhaps even next year as long as time means nothing to you, because that is true.
the rose has no agenda. it blooms when it blooms and it blooms when it blooms (the words ‘blooms’ were interchangeable with each other,) and now it is blooming, but time had nothing to do with it. unless. unless you impose your sense of time on it. your need to control everything. well. it may not be your need, you may have no control over your time. which. is a pity. not having any meaning, that is a pity (ah, but for a comma.) but where were we?
oh yes, time. your time here (but you said “your thoughts here”, which indeed is true, but that was a ruse to get your attention–and your time.)
to what purpose then? they say you can share your time with another, but that is not the same as giving them your time, because they cannot take it and add it to their own. it is still your time and you do decide how you will spend it (there is no time credit card, it is cash & carry only, oh i suppose they might accept american express, like costco, but when the bill comes at the end of the month you’d better be ready to pay.)
no. i will not be sending you a bill for your time here, although the thought did occur to me just now that that is exactly what the new journalism (the one that replaces the old new journalism) is doing. they are charging you for your time. it is your time & now you are paying for its use (by you.) which. i may accept as a new standard for personal blogs. pay me in time. (not on time, but in time, with your time, you see time is the only real currency that is left to us.) look for your statement in the mail (also on its way out of our time.)
