I walked by the Hancock Tower, turned up Chicago Avenue, took the Red Line back home. I had walked for two and a half hours. I arrived home, sat at the desk with the pencil in my hand, took a deep breath, and started writing.
3
Chicago, that somber city once known for dirty meatpacking plants and even dirtier politics, for Al Capone and the lowly Cubs, for being the birthplace of Hemingway before he got the hell out, and I can’t blame him for it, either. How can I make one understand the misery that that lone winter brought me? It never let up and seemed as though it would never end. The cold and the wind. It’s far worse than what I’d been told, worse than what was possible in the realm of my own imagination, so cold that it can make you cry, though the irony is that you’re far too chilled to cry. The low, gray sky and the wind has an impressive knack for taking the most optimistic of moods and wiping its ass with it, tossing it on the ground, stepping on it without regard. Day in and day out. Layers, that’s how you get through it. Thick socks, thermal underwear, heavy sweaters, wool caps. Don’t concern yourself with wearing too much. You can’t. Keep the heat as high as it’ll go, or as high as you can afford. Plastic over the windows helps, and so do space heaters. Don’t depend on the trains. When you’re most cold is when they’re sure to be late, and when they do finally arrive, their heaters are certain to be broken. Find someone. Find someone to curl around and to curl around you. There’s no greater source of heat in the world than passion and love and affection. Find it and coddle it and it’ll keep you warmer than you could have ever imagined. And don’t you dare let it go. Or let it go, but know that the cold you once felt is nothing to the cold you’ll now feel.
4
My mother. Most of the time I can no longer remember what she looked like, her face, her hair, her eyes, all memories that are failing me. I can only picture her in context. When I try really hard I can still see her at the campsite, legs crossed in profile while staring out into the far trees on the opposite side of the road all those years ago. I can still see her soaking-wet hair and her arms propped on the side of the boat on that lazy summer day at the lake. And I’ll never forget her face in the crowd, always yelling for me, always watching. Always there.