On Lake Michigan

  

Last weekend I spent four days in Chicago to visit my college roommate and to spend time with Aaron who’s been in the city for an away rotation since the end of October.  

 Saturday, my roommate took me out for high tea on Michigan Avenue.  We sat beneath a cathedral ceiling at a table overlooking a rooftop garden.  Three men in tuxedos played violins from the balcony. Our food arrived on tiered plates: asparagus on triangles of fresh cut bread; chocolate tortes with edible filigree; quiche the size of Barbie pies. When the waiter poured my tea, pink tips of rose petals dropped into my teacup.

After two weeks of bad coffee and a steady diet of Rice-a-Roni, the biscotti made me swoon. My roommate tasted one of the scones, moaned, and announced it had ruined biscuits forever.  We tried very hard to behave in a dignified manner, napkins in laps, pinkies pointed, but I suspect we blew our cover when we started creating still lifes of the leftover food and photographing the teapots.  

Sunday, Aaron and I had lunch in Chinatown, then spent the day driving around the city, investigating potential neighborhoods. Though Chicago is one of ten places Aaron will be interviewing at this winter, it's long been a favorite for its blend of Mid-western familiarity and urban novelty (meaning a novelty to us). We also have several friends who have already migrated to the city or who are thinking about doing so.   

Our tour of Chicago environs ended with Evanston. We circled Northwestern’s campus, parking by one of the university sports fields to walk along Lake Michigan. It had begun to snow—thick flakes, fat off the lake. The university ran the length of the water's edge to our right. Where the university ended, the land continued, curving out into the water so that if we stood on the lake’s edge facing forward we found ourselves looking directly on  downtown Chicago.  This moment on the black lake, in the white snow, seemed emblematic of where we are in life: our now shared path just beginning to wind around the unknown towards the yellow-orange lights of the city.   

Aaron and I both admit we’re country bumpkins who prefer trees to skyscrapers, but we have this incurable fascination with city life.  I spent the summer living in Boston, as Aaron’s now spending four weeks in Chicago. We’re tying the knot in downtown Cincinnati and are flying to San Francisco for our honeymoon.

 For my part, the city means access to art.  Painting and writing are so different. When it comes to books, the masterpieces are at the ready. For five or twenty dollars (or, God bless libraries, for free) I can have an “original” Fitzgerald, Austen, or Dickinson.  Paintings are not so easy to come by and they do not translate well to print.

Obviously, neither Aaron nor I have final say on where we’ll be moving in seven months. For now it’s exiting to plan and dream. To look out across the lake and watch the snow fall and hold hands and, for once, not think too hard.  

Comments

[Mark Pierce]

Bethany, I loved your post and your picture. Everything you do is artistic! Have a GREAT Thanksgiving holiday! Love, Uncle Mark

[Walt Pierce]

Hi Sweetie Pie,

How exciting to see you blog again. I check daily. I saw Chicago first when I was 17, last at 77 and I loved it both times. Enjoy and remember not to talk to any sailors. HA

Grandpa