When I draw the curtains on our first day, it’s to a few cars waiting on the light in front of our hotel. Beyond is Buckingham Fountain and beyond that sprinting marathon runners. Beyond that Lake Michigan. And beyond that…well, a flat, azure nothingness. It’s the most expansive lake I’ve ever seen. The maps are wrong. The great city of Chicago’s cloud-scrapers rest their mighty shadows on the shores of an ocean.
Lake Michigan’s got a schizophrenic weather hold on this city. A microclimate they call it, due in part to having a lake in such close proximity. I don't believe it. As I walk the city, the cold breeze hits me, and then the intolerable heat, then the cold again. So I give in to the lake theory. There’s something to be said about a city that’s got its own distinctive weather pattern. It's got personality. It's got spunk.
Mostly, I find Chicago ironic.
It holds proudly to indulging in the unhealthiest versions of American classics. Like the hot dog. Char-grilled, doused in cheddar, and topped with at least two spoonfuls of sauteed onions. And pizza? A deep-dish, cheese and tomato fest, with, of course, sausage chunks and a butter crust. As if there wasn’t already enough flour and butter in that crust to cover a thousand miniature snow globe towns.
The irony? Chicago’s buildings are fine-lined structures with similarly trim, functional insides. A Chicago building is like a lifelong yoga devotee, a “my body is my temple” kind of health nut. So how does a typical Chicagoan match up with this city’s skyline? He doesn’t. I believe he simply has the honor to walk in awe of it.
Chicago’s buildings are like the flora in nature: still, aesthetically pleasing, and unobtrusive. The space they take up is their only possible home, roots firmly anchored to the ground, to that space of earth called Chicago. Those who tread its streets are the fauna. And if New York is a concrete jungle, Chicago is a concrete/steel/glass forest. Less exotic than a jungle and more manageable, like a forest, and by extension less intimidating.
Chicago sets the scene for you to insert your own story. It doesn’t encroach upon your personality and demand your attention, like New York does. It stands by, confident in its own likability. It doesn’t need your approval. It’s an architectural playground and proud of it. Stand back and delight in it, or continue about your way. It makes no difference to her.
After 3 days in Chicago, I realize I don’t know what the red building is, the one coming out of the Chicago skyline like a giant sore, and I don’t want to know. I love that it juts out like the belly of an obese, middle aged man, still a charmer in his wife’s eyes, simply because there’s no one else like him and he loves her.
It’s why I travel. To witness a city speak for itself, its people and its culture, without restraint. Chicago embodies that. So I say break up with New York and fix the t-shirts. I heart Chicago.
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