The Joy of Being From Somewhere Else
I suppose this could just as easily be titled the joy of going home but no, not really, because I’m not going home. I’ve lived in the Twin Cities twice as long as I lived in Chicago so home is Minnesota not Illinois. Yet I will always be from somewhere else.
As I compose this draft, the Spousal Unit (™) and I are riding the CTA Orange Line with a transfer to the Blue Line from Midway out to, well, where I was last from before moving to Minnesota . I screwed up our plane reservations and booked us into Midway rather than O’Hare. When my sister noticed, my only option was to repurchase the ticket so I decided we’d take the CTA out to O’Hare. This will take us longer than it did to fly from MSP to MDW. I’m not upset about it, though. Because there is joy in being from Somewhere Else.
When you return, every sense is assailed by the somewhere else left behind and indelibly etched in you. For me, it begins as a small spark when flying over the neighborhoods, recognizing architecture unique to the city. Slowly a warmth spreads as memories flood back. Places. People. Food. Events. Street names. Traffic. Weather. Smells.
I love riding the L because you get a bird’s eye view of the buildings the cars snake through and by. You can be a voyeur or make up stories about the people who live or work on the other side of these 2 sets of windows. Growing up, my family always utilized public transportation because we lived in the city and really, was there any other reasonable option? Even when we moved to one of the last city blocks on Chicago's northwest side and the closest bus stop was at least a mile away, we walked to the bus stop. On a good day, or in significantly inclement weather, you might be able to convince a parent or sibling to pick you up or drive you to the bus stop; otherwise, the expectation was that a little exercise and fresh air was good for you. So riding the L is pretty much ingrained in me. The familiarity of the tunnels and elevations bring back a soft feeling of belonging. I especially like the elevated section of the L. When the cars coil past the office building in the Loop, I remember hoping that the driver knew what he was doing so that we didn't either crash into the building or onto the cars below. I'd hold my breath until the train screeched through the sharply angled turn and we were safe, as safe as one could reasonably be feet above the ground on a rail track that threw off sparks and went racing past another train going in the opposite direction. What I still like best, however, was being able to look into the buildings. On this trip, most of the offices were decorated for the holidays. The building exteriors hadn't changed much, if at all, from when they were originally constructed. (I just asked the Spousal Unit(™), an architect, what all the various decorations and designs on many of the buildings are called. He's thinking about it, but you know what I mean.) The interiors had been modernized and look similar to almost all multi-spaced offices these days. Beige, blandness broken up only by how various employees personalize their spaces. From what I ascertained, some workers are way into the holidays, others, not so much. After passing through the Loop (and Minneapolis ps your downtown is so not the Loop, even though you call it that), the L shoots through residential areas. What struck me was the gentrification of the neighborhoods. I recall three flats with rickety wooden back porches facing the L tracks; didn't see any. In the time when I was from this somewhere else, I was fortunate enough to live in a house although my first five years were spent in an attic apartment. So I'd peer into the third floor windows of these apartment buildings, sandwiched together, separated by gangways, fronting busy streets and wonder who lived there and why they lived there and if they had kids, where did they play and what kind of jobs did they do and...and...and... About the gentrified buildings, I wondered who would want to live there. (I wonder same about the myriad of apartment buildings sprouting up virtually all over the Twin Cities. Currently that's a no, thank you for me.)
Fast forward 24 hours and we're in Kankakee, hometown of the Spousal Unit(™), to help celebrate our sister-in-law's 80th birthday. Here the Joy of Being From Somewhere Else is that he was able to get out of town. Kankakee has struggled since its major employers decided they, too, would move on and be from somewhere else. This has been a slow dive process over, well, the past forty six years that we re-camped to the Twin Cities. Although Kankakee is the county seat of Kankakee county, the downtown area is tragically abandoned, leaving behind buildings unoccupied and in various states of disrepair. So do the neighborhoods around where the Spousal Unit lived. As we drove through them, he murmurs, "This is so hard to see." There are a couple Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes along the Kankakee River and my sister-in-law's party was held at the B. Harley Bradley House, one of these buildings on the National Historic Registry. The home has been carefully and beautifully restored, something the city and community is justifiably proud of. There is Joy in Being From Somewhere Else. Sometimes you just need to keep looking.
We'll be with family until Thursday, when we return home to resume the routine. While we're here, it sort of feels like slowly inflating a balloon. Each place I go, everything I see, I inhale a fragment of memory that may expand or contract, may lead to another recollection which seeps or explodes. When the plane takes off, I'll feel the balloon deflate while the Somewhere Else falls behind as the plane climbs on its way to Where I'm From Now, bringing home with me Joy.
As I compose this draft, the Spousal Unit (™) and I are riding the CTA Orange Line with a transfer to the Blue Line from Midway out to, well, where I was last from before moving to Minnesota . I screwed up our plane reservations and booked us into Midway rather than O’Hare. When my sister noticed, my only option was to repurchase the ticket so I decided we’d take the CTA out to O’Hare. This will take us longer than it did to fly from MSP to MDW. I’m not upset about it, though. Because there is joy in being from Somewhere Else.
When you return, every sense is assailed by the somewhere else left behind and indelibly etched in you. For me, it begins as a small spark when flying over the neighborhoods, recognizing architecture unique to the city. Slowly a warmth spreads as memories flood back. Places. People. Food. Events. Street names. Traffic. Weather. Smells.
I love riding the L because you get a bird’s eye view of the buildings the cars snake through and by. You can be a voyeur or make up stories about the people who live or work on the other side of these 2 sets of windows. Growing up, my family always utilized public transportation because we lived in the city and really, was there any other reasonable option? Even when we moved to one of the last city blocks on Chicago's northwest side and the closest bus stop was at least a mile away, we walked to the bus stop. On a good day, or in significantly inclement weather, you might be able to convince a parent or sibling to pick you up or drive you to the bus stop; otherwise, the expectation was that a little exercise and fresh air was good for you. So riding the L is pretty much ingrained in me. The familiarity of the tunnels and elevations bring back a soft feeling of belonging. I especially like the elevated section of the L. When the cars coil past the office building in the Loop, I remember hoping that the driver knew what he was doing so that we didn't either crash into the building or onto the cars below. I'd hold my breath until the train screeched through the sharply angled turn and we were safe, as safe as one could reasonably be feet above the ground on a rail track that threw off sparks and went racing past another train going in the opposite direction. What I still like best, however, was being able to look into the buildings. On this trip, most of the offices were decorated for the holidays. The building exteriors hadn't changed much, if at all, from when they were originally constructed. (I just asked the Spousal Unit(™), an architect, what all the various decorations and designs on many of the buildings are called. He's thinking about it, but you know what I mean.) The interiors had been modernized and look similar to almost all multi-spaced offices these days. Beige, blandness broken up only by how various employees personalize their spaces. From what I ascertained, some workers are way into the holidays, others, not so much. After passing through the Loop (and Minneapolis ps your downtown is so not the Loop, even though you call it that), the L shoots through residential areas. What struck me was the gentrification of the neighborhoods. I recall three flats with rickety wooden back porches facing the L tracks; didn't see any. In the time when I was from this somewhere else, I was fortunate enough to live in a house although my first five years were spent in an attic apartment. So I'd peer into the third floor windows of these apartment buildings, sandwiched together, separated by gangways, fronting busy streets and wonder who lived there and why they lived there and if they had kids, where did they play and what kind of jobs did they do and...and...and... About the gentrified buildings, I wondered who would want to live there. (I wonder same about the myriad of apartment buildings sprouting up virtually all over the Twin Cities. Currently that's a no, thank you for me.)
Fast forward 24 hours and we're in Kankakee, hometown of the Spousal Unit(™), to help celebrate our sister-in-law's 80th birthday. Here the Joy of Being From Somewhere Else is that he was able to get out of town. Kankakee has struggled since its major employers decided they, too, would move on and be from somewhere else. This has been a slow dive process over, well, the past forty six years that we re-camped to the Twin Cities. Although Kankakee is the county seat of Kankakee county, the downtown area is tragically abandoned, leaving behind buildings unoccupied and in various states of disrepair. So do the neighborhoods around where the Spousal Unit lived. As we drove through them, he murmurs, "This is so hard to see." There are a couple Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes along the Kankakee River and my sister-in-law's party was held at the B. Harley Bradley House, one of these buildings on the National Historic Registry. The home has been carefully and beautifully restored, something the city and community is justifiably proud of. There is Joy in Being From Somewhere Else. Sometimes you just need to keep looking.
We'll be with family until Thursday, when we return home to resume the routine. While we're here, it sort of feels like slowly inflating a balloon. Each place I go, everything I see, I inhale a fragment of memory that may expand or contract, may lead to another recollection which seeps or explodes. When the plane takes off, I'll feel the balloon deflate while the Somewhere Else falls behind as the plane climbs on its way to Where I'm From Now, bringing home with me Joy.
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