CHICAGO. . .CHICAGO

I want to share some of my impressions of Chicago since I now live in Green Valley, Arizona, a geriatric and retirement community which is comprised of somnabulists. Of course, being a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, any city is home to me. The visual verticality of skyscrapers and high rises as well as the individuality of Chicago streets make its appeal. The grunge of the streets, the panhandlers mumbling to themselves and to you for handouts, the boutiques that hawk fascinating and trendy wares as well as the places to eat are arrayed along the city blocks like faceted gems in settings. In four days we had rain, cold and light snow flurries — at night, sparkling against the street lamps. Weather like this is ornery and diverse and makes me feel in my bones what it is like to experience seasons and to wear seasonal clothes — boots, scarves, gloves, caps and jackets. We used the Chicago Transit System (CTA), effective and clean, to get around after cab rides soaked us. They provide heaters on the walkways for cold weather which is a sensible touch and very appreciated. At Clark and Diversey near the Days Inn that we stayed at stores jangled out — pancake house, Greek restaurant, vitamin shop, a high end ladies shoe store, Barnes & Noble, and a shoe repair store which is a very dying breed, except here in the city. Like charms on a bracelet, the differing stores kept us alive visually and engaged our interests.

We ate at the Russian Tea Time restaurant off Michigan Avenue, supping on lamb, stuffed cabbage, blinis and drinking vodka in a chilled glass served with pickles and brown bread — Russian Standard is the brand to get for home drinking; we also ate in a Chinese restaurant a Jewish Deli — brisket, pastrami, matzoh ball soup, kreplach soup, and Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray (rugelach for desert); we had Italian food (Mia Francesca –not bad); we walked the streets after dinner in the cold, rain and snow and felt invigorated — I put on 4 pounds which I am working off once again. As to culture, we heard live music at the Chicago Symphony Orchesta, Russian works, visited the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Spertus Museum which had an intriguing exhibition on cliches and setereotypes. What was upsetting was a collection of “anti-Semitica,” made up of hand-carved canes whose tops were Jewish faces with prominent and grotestque Jewish noses; for the first time I saw the yellow star (Jude) Jews had to wear in Germany and had to purchase for ten pfennigs (about ten cents). You pay for your own labeling. A German flag maker stamped out these stars and upon closer inspection you can see the interrupted lines as a guide for cutting out the badge. I just love humanity. One other noteworthy display was a tape of Pacino doing Shylock — brilliantly. No matter how you cut it The Merchant of Venice is high end anti-Semitism. We went to the Spertus Museum because my i Tetralogy is in their collection; I am very proud of that.

While resting up in a Borders, Jane was reading some paperbacks and I was reading the New York Times and a black man with very dark glasses sits down near us and begins to read a large album of cartoon figures, often using a magnifying glass without a handle to read the drawings. I paid him no mind. After a while, he withdrew a large pad of newsprint and with a blue crayon began to sketch Jane as she read. I realized this and just observed. When it was finished he showed it to her and she was delighted and for a fin it was ours; only in a city. As we walked the streets, sometimes shivering, we saw the grunge and the dirt and occasionally the overfilled city wastebaskets, the urban detritus, the scruffiness and often we saw homes rehabbed costing up to $1,500,000 in places. The despair mixed in with the upscale, the apocalyptic poor and the well-to-do, we saw humanity in its gradations and I personally felt stimulated and alive. I like sand in my ice cream when on the beach. Here in Arizona we live amid the plastic smiles of McCain’s wife and the belief systems that this is the best of all worlds. The Arizona sun makes me feel warm, but it does not inspire nor make me reach for what I cannot, rather it makes many of us reach for what we can. How sadly desperate.

Jordan, my son, works as a computer technician and spends his real life taking art courses to study anatomy, making animation (go to Freezelab. com), photographing, trying to put his drawings on exhibit, experiencing and feels and knows that he needs city life to fluorish, to thrive, although the rough weather gets to him at times. The Chicago winters are severe. I visit him when I can. I try to absorb who he is once again. I try to salvage moments, watch him relate to me in the same old ways. And as I grow closer to my end I realize he is unaware — perhaps not — that I am on my way out. So these meetings are important to me, infrequent that they are. Separation is a loss of a special kind.