chicago: the destination, the destiny.

according to wikipedia, "chicago" is sufjan stevens' most well-known song. according to me, it didn't exist until my paternal grandfather died.

a few weeks later I was driving down manchester, en route to whole foods on a february weeknight and headed into a particularly pretty sunset. this sunset, however, at first went unnoticed because I was focused solely on weaving angrily through traffic. I was tired, I was hurried, I was frazzled; I had it in my mind that a mocha from the starbucks on brentwood was the only way I would make it through my closing shift and I had less than twenty minutes to get one and clock in. as I crossed over macklind, "chicago" came on the radio.

time stopped. autopilot set in.

I was in love with the place
in my mind, in my mind

I noticed the sunset. orange and pink and purple. reminiscent of sunsets in arizona, or stormy nights on a michigan shore.

I made a lot of mistakes
in my mind, in my mind

I started crying.

on top of being stressed out on the road, on the way to my second job, with so much to think about and not enough of me taken into consideration, my mind was flooded with memories associated with that song - from the obvious (that I 'found' it right before he died) to the lyrical (the ones above especially, though the connection is loose) to the obscure (my memaw grew up in chicago and has retained a bit of her accent, which makes me laugh) - that overwhelmed me as I drove... as I heard it.

as I do... every time I hear it.

***

sufjan's song was not the one running through my head last time I set foot in the titular city. wilco's "via chicago" was, though, since I was literally coming home via chicago. this was three weeks after he died; I navigated two plane-train connections through the city for my maternal grandma's funeral during the bitter end of february. the whole experience was a taxing journey that rounded out a taxing month, and more than once I wished that I'd gone with tickets for the entire mess or that I'd routed through detroit instead.

I have to admit that, aside from the insistence of certain family members that I ought to live there just to be closer to kalamazoo, I haven't given a thought to visiting the windy city since.

one could read this blog and imply that I would have neither reason nor time to return there. I am clearly a lover of coasts, though not necessarily a fan of that side of the big lake. the number of current chicagoans with whom I quasi-regularly correspond has dwindled to two. small amounts of free time scrounged up in st louis are spent here. all of these things might lead one to imply that my absence from the city is a result of coincidence, that my lack of fondness a result of lack of opportunity.

but, friends, you and I both have reason to doubt that.

I grew up enamored with that city, having gone there more often than detroit despite growing up smack between the two.

throughout college and when I moved back from arizona, and even in my first few months in the lou, I used to spontaneously show up there just for fun (and take pictures on rooftops on the near south side).

yes... we have to doubt that because I can honestly state that have been avoiding that town, and many of my old friends associated with it, with a particular grade of intensity for just over 18 months.

and we really have to doubt that it's coincidence because as I drove up there this weekend - for my first non-family, non-michigan vacation in two years - I thought about turning around well past the halfway-mark on I-55.

so together we doubt coincidence, but do we need another answer? I don't know about you, but I am currently not interested in all of the reasons for blocking this city from my existence and/or dreading it in a way only I know how. no, I am not interested in explaining away such things with loose psycho-social associations and weak realizations.

I'm actually more interested in the thought I had as I was driving away from a trip to chicago that made a lasting good impression.

see, once I got over my initial dread, once I'd past the point of turning around, my weekend wasn't anything out of the ordinary for such a trip: I stayed in a hotel with a view of the lake. I went to a baseball game (a tigers game at that!). I got around on foot or the L. I walked down the lakeshore and stared at the boats. I got lost in the art institute. I got lost in general. I had a few drinks. I laughed with the people around me, especially the friend there with me. I excitedly justified every dollar I overspent. and I experienced moments of joy, stress, and everything in between.

like I said: nothing terribly out of the ordinary.

aside from those ordinary markers of weekend vacations, though, there was this blissful normalcy to all of it - this welcome feeling of having done everything before and being perfectly comfortable with it - that was so noticeable that I actually made the comment aloud.

but let me be clear here: it wasn't normal because it was ordinary. though the two are synonymous, I would hope that you would re-read the sentence above and imagine a genuinely content smile on my face as I emphasize that the normalcy was blissful.

I say it this way because at a certain point I was just contently there. I wasn't thinking too hard. I wasn't trying too hard. I wasn't thinking about how I'd gotten there and things that had already past, nor was I thinking about getting home and things yet to take place. I was present. and while present, I realized that I was everything I miss being, everything I've written about trying to get back to. it felt normal because I was perfectly, calmly, confidently happy. and there really is bliss in being normal as such.

as I settle back into my life here I wonder, in summary of a succession of questions I've been trying to answer for ten years/months/minutes: why? the thousand questions therein will come, but specifically tonight I wonder: why did it take me two years to get out of st louis without some dire strait or serious coaxing, when I know that traveling keeps me balanced?

we'll see...

for now, I have at least one answer to a general life question: it's less about the place, more about the people. and it's definitely my attitude toward and my presence with them, wherever we are.

***

I was absorbed in the drive back down 55 when a familiar song started to play on one of the mixes I received this weekend. it was the strings of sufjan's 'chicago,' which triggered the nervous laugh that precedes the inevitable tears. this time, though, I remembered the blissfully normal gift that lives in the flood of memories: my paternal grandparents were also avid roadtrippers. my memaw, the one I so resemble in my stature and loquaciousness, loves to tell stories of their mis/adventures throughout the states to the point that I often imagine them on the road together when I travel.

don't get me wrong, I still cried despite remembering that gift. but at least this time I realized that I know where I come from, and that this part of my life that I have been neglecting for two years is something I can no longer ignore... that I must act on it to get on with my life.