Exploding Fireworks

Hyde Park's mirror of Navy Pier is Promontory Point. Like the Pier, it is an extension of the land that juts into Lake Michigan. But the similarities end there. It is quiet and shady, speckled with trees and firepits and criss-crossed with running paths. A light house like building sits on the very tip. Off of 57th street, it is within walking distance of Blackstone. One Wednesday evening, PJ, Curtis and I decided we'd go there to watch Navy Pier's weekly Wednesday fireworks. 

We arrived just in time to perch on the big rocks lining the beach and watch the faraway fireworks explode. As we watched, the three of us sat together reminiscing over 4th of July's past. The fireworks, twinkling against the dark sky and dark water seemed impossibly small to me like trivial little  jewels sparkling in the distance. The sharp cracking noises reached our ears after the fireworks had long since exploded-- making me realize just how faraway they were. 

I recognized familiar patterns-- they shot off my favorite, gorgeous, trickling, shimmering sparkles. We Ooohhed and Ahhhed for old time's sake.

As we walked back home, we discussed the magic we had witnessed. 

Plopping onto the couch at Blackstone, I tried to describe the fireworks we had just witnessed. 

"Even better," I continued. "They are two times a week!" I was still basking in a post-firework glow. 

"Yeah, I saw them, too," he said glumly. "Do you know how much each firework costs? think how many of the social services cut that that could pay for..."

"Thanks, Phil," I said. With one statement, he had extinguished all of that joy. I limped away, back to thinking about everything that is wrong with this city-- and the horrible budget cuts that would soon slam into all of our organizations.

The next day, Philipp followed up on the previous conversation.

"I talked to the guy at work," he said. Philipp works with homeless veterans in the Southside in a program called Featherfist. We respect everyone there immensely. "He actually said that he thinks its a good thing because it gives people something to do with their families that is not drug related. It is free. It gets them out of their hoods."

From the soggy, tear-stained ashes of the fireworks inside of me, I felt a small, but resilient warmth-turned-flame begin to glow. 

Internship: Interview 1

All signs said no when I left Blackstone for my first interview. It was starting to rain and you could practically see steam rising from me I was so upset. I had spoken to my top three internship sites earlier that morning and each one had told me they were full up to their quota of interns-- paid or unpaid. Most let me know I was late in asking, which was the most frustrating part because I had been advised by the staff at the Chicago center to wait until now to contact anyone. 

The storm clouds were as dark as my mood and flustered, I had left the house with neither coat nor umbrella. I stood at the bus stop in heels and dress, ranting my woes to my sympathetic mom. The phone was getting poor reception and I had to practically shout to make myself heard over the rowdy crowd of high schoolers. Just then, something other than raindrops fell from the sky. Bird shit, landing squarely on my bag. 

Just then, the bus pulled up and I jostled on amongst the high schoolers. Plopping into a seat, I found a wet wipe and began furiously scrubbing the white smear off of the black bag. A sinking thought invaded my inner dialogue-- was it on my back, too? I looked around the bus. Well, I concluded grimly, at least I'll make some kids laugh.

"'Scuse me," I said, tapping the shoulder of the nearest fifteen-year-old. "Do I have bird shit on my back?" 

"Nah, nah," he managed before exploding into laughter.

Things Can't Get Worse

At the train station, rain began to fall in sheets. As the rain fell, I decided just to enjoy my luck. I mean, it'd make a good story, right?

The train ride was uneventful, until I descended at my stop. Could this be real? I wondered. A man leered at me as I maneuvered the steep metal stairs in my retro heels. I was in what looked like an industrial wasteland. But the intersection seemed right. I walked along under the El tracks. I was in a meat packing district and it was mostly abandoned-- except for 25 dogs who charged at me from behind a fence. Luckily, the motley crew then bedan to wag tails and I saw a swimming pool, reassuring me that it was a doggy daycare and not a training facility for killers. It was still raining and my delicate sweater and curled hair were damp and lank. Finally, on a warehouse not unlike the others I walked past, I saw a sign for Streetwise. I rang the bell. Here goes nothing, I thought. 

The Clouds Dissipate

From the second a smiling man welcomed me in, things took a dramatically different course. I was ushered into the office of Ben Cook. He had originally interned with Streetwise as a student in the Chicago Center program. Now, he had a full time position there.

Ben had brown eyes and a friendly manner. We got to talking and soon learned that the Chicago Center was far from our only connection. We had the same home state and when I confessed my rejections from the other sites, he nodded. "That was me, too," he said. "I wanted to work at In These Times."

That had been my No. 1 choice, too. 

After chatting with Ben, I felt considerably better. Flipping through old issues of Streetwise, I thought about how similar Ben and I were. If he had liked the internship so much that he had accepted a job here, it could be great for me, too. I began to absorb my rather unconventional setting. The office was wide and spacious, constructed by thin walls and dividers set up in the open space of the warehouse. The mixed crowd reflected the paper's mission. While Streetwise has a professional staff, its vendors are homeless or those at risk of being homeless. There was a vendor's meeting going on in a big room next door, so while half of the people I saw looked like typical office staff, dressed up in business casual, the other kind were (literally) off of the streets. 

I continued flipping through the magazine with a rather critical eye until my editor burst in. Her huge, circular glasses and frizzy hair gave her a kooky, unkempt appearance. She started chatting right away and I couldn't deny she was friendly, even if I wasn't exactly sure what she was saying. I nodded and smiled. After getting me a glass of water from a kitchen where huge, steaming trays of lasagna were currently being dished out to vendors and finding me a chair, the interview began. 

You know the type of interview, or indeed, conversation where you want so desperately to like the program-- you feel like you are trying so hard to meet them halfway and you feel like you should like it and yet, they offer absolutely nothing to make you excited about? Well, the first part of that was true. I was trying so hard to like it, but just not convinced. Then, the editor, in her goofy way, starts flipping through the list of potential stories. We need a person to write a story on... homeless immigrants. 

The magic key. I could not fully express my joy, my enthusiasm, my shock. This presented the chance to actually write about my idiosyncratic field-- my dream is to be a reporter on issues of immigration. And even better-- Streetwise would let me write about these topics AND to be published? 

The answer was yes right then but I listened joyously as she went on to explain how certain ethnic aid groups provide special services to their populations-- some are given special holiday food, etc. Many of the immigrant homeless are manual laborers, cut in the recession. Some, however, are driven to drink by loneliness. Sometimes, Suzanne told me, the aid societies even send an immigrant home. 

I was sold. The chance to report a story like that? Once in a lifetime. 

And so I left. As I walked past the dogs, I waved. I took photos of the El clattering above me. Well, it wasn't how I had envisioned an internship-- but it would make a good story. 

Assignment: Response to the DuSable Museum of African American History

June 13, 2009

Response to DuSable Museum of African American History

I used to live for the Art Institute right in the center of downtown. For me, it was one of the best things about Chicago. This time, this time, however, I didn’t feel it. Something about the museum didn’t click with me.  I felt the opposite in the small art gallery at the the DuSable Museum of African-American History.

Each picture was strikingly different and each one captured my attention. They were filled with color and emotion, raw and real and fantastic. One showed the bustle of a snowy winter evening, another a street corner, lit by milky, golden street lights. Another was a strong black man staring the viewer down—in the caption, I read that his strength and capability was meant to challenge stereotypes of the typical black man in a servile position. I couldn’t tell you which was painted by who, but I was introduced to the work of William Carter, Charles Dawson, Walter Ellison, Archibald Motley, Jr., Marion Perkins, Augusta Savage, Bernard Goss, Charles Sebree, and Elizabeth Catlett. I learned that Bronzeville, the area just north of me (it encompasses North Kenwood, and I am situated just below Kenwood proper) was the Harlem of Chicago—a place of black artistic and cultural renaissance during the same era in Harlem.

Not only is emotion captured in these pieces, but a shared historical narrative is as well. The cornerstone of the museum is a giant, wood carving illustrating African American History in one interwoven, winding narrative. As our guide pointed out, it is a fantastic teaching tool for history. I saw both familiar stories and new stories in the wooden figures. The room housing the wooden panel was also filled with portraits of American Blacks—historical figures that I had, sadly, never heard about.

One more surprise—on my way out, I stopped by the bathroom. Coming out of the stall and preparing to wash my hands, two paintings on the wall caught my eye. They were amazing and I know that I was floored, though right now, I am not sure exactly what was so magical about them. I liked them just as much as the art I had seen in the displays. Even the bathrooms here, I thought in wonder, have great art.

Assignment: Response to the Art Museum

 

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Response to the Art Institute

 

I lost my group early on and so, for the next two hours, I wandered alone up and down the sparkling new modern wing. It began as a campaign to find a piece I that liked, one I could write a journal entry about.  But as I wandered up and down the hallways, nothing really spoke to me. And so I continued, covering almost the entire modern wing, liking some but always pressing on.

 

In retrospect, my strategy was completely wrong. I probably could have written about several of the pieces that I quite liked but I had developed a rhythm at that point of moving on after a quick survey. When I got home, I realized that foggy impressions of several paintings remained, but with the memories of only a minute or two of scrutiny, I didn’t have enough substance to write about it.

 

Only one painting stayed in my mind; a familiar friend, one I know well and visit each time I go to the art museum. I first discovered the painting when I was in Chicago for Model United Nations in High School. After seeing it, I sat through a council of African States (I think I was a representative of Mauritania that year) and wrote the best poem I have written in my life.

 

What haunted me first was the correlation between the date (1916) and the subject, a beautiful dancer wrapped in lace. World War I was ravaging Europe when Goncharova painted this. In the caption, I learned she had spent the war in Spain, making costumes for a ballet.

 

On Seeing Spanish Dancer (1916) by Natalia Goncharova at the Chicago Art Institute

 

While Europa was soaking herself in red,

red blood,

she painted white lace.

In a picturesque Spanish villa

she studied lacy intricacies—

woven flowers and

patterns of tiny holes—

the perfection of beautiful texture.

She couldn’t watch Europa tear herself apart in the mud

so she pulled the lacy curtains shut

and instead

watched Spanish dancers

whirl and twirl

whirl and twirl

oblivious.

 

CONTRACTED OPTION 1: I saw it happen before it did...

June 26, 2009

Response to Heads by EM Lewis, directed by Jessica Hutchinson (Part of the Alcyone Festival 2009 at the Halcyon Theatre, June 26, 2009) and “Iran Escalates Its Fight With Britain; New Clashes Erupt” by Michael Slackman (Published New York Times, 28 June 2009)

The headline in the New York Times said that British Embassy Workers in Iran had been detained. I read it and suddenly, my mind was filled with vivid images—the chafed wrists and bloodshot eyes of the people who hours before had thought themselves invincible, the damp mold expanding across a prison wall, the stained mattress on the floor. I had seen the one of the detained embassy workers in her cramped cell, shared with an American engineer who had been missing for months. I really had, only two nights before.

My window into their prison cell was a small stage in a dark church basement on Leavitt Street. The combination of incredible acting and a room so small I was practically sitting on the stage transported me into the midst of their incarceration. I left the play haunted, with the grim realization that I had probably seen something very close to what was actually occurring a world away.

But as I read the Time’s article this morning, the similarities between what I had seen on stage and what was being reported made my stomach twist. The article mentioned two journalists, one who worked for the BBC, another of British-Greek heritage, who had been expelled from Iran. Creepily, they had been in the play, too—only in the stage version, they had been detained, not expelled. The two characters in the cell next to the embassy worker were a free-lance journalist with an accent, who could have easily been Greek-British, and a young man working for a network—in the play’s case, NBC.

Since I left the theater, I have had flashes of scenes play through my head—the way the embassy worker compulsively tugged at her clothing and the way her hands shook; the way the freelance journalist bloodied his hands trying to sharpen a piece of wire; the regime the engineer had constructed for himself where he allowed himself to think of his wife only once a day. It has been uncomfortable, haunting, to think of events like that happening. But to think of them happening in real life is a million times worse. 

Assignment: The Themes of the Pilsen Mural Tour

Pilsen Mural Tour, June 2009

Life is color. Life is pain and joy, heritage and future. In the neighborhood of Pilsen, all of that is evident. The neighborhood is a testament to reality—to life. Lives happen in the streets and restaurants, churches, schools and little homes. Then, the stories of those lives are splashed on the walls in the form of Pilsen’s famous murals.

As we began our mural tour on a baking summer’s day, I reveled in the humanity around me. Everything that is important to people surfaces in this neighborhood. Children play in the hoses, neighbors and friends grill hotdogs.  Vestiges of home in a predominately Mexican neighborhood are evident. Spanish rolls from people’s tongues, street side vendors peddle exotic fruit and spicy treats. Still, I felt a shadow over all of this color—many of these people are incredibly poor. A giant smelting factory spits toxic chemicals into the air and strange diseases strike those living there. Many of the residents are undereducated, don’t speak English or are illegal—and so the illnesses continue.

Jose, our guide, led us down winding streets to stop us by walls popping with color. The murals were beautiful, thrown on to the walls of tortilla factories and churches, schools and homes. Many of them featured portraits of the community members below; grinning children, wizened grannies, and scolding teachers. The murals celebrated the communities heritage with a  backdrop of the Puerto Rican flag, words in Spanish or portraits of leaders like Cesar Chavez or Rigoberta Menchu. They were playful—coloring in shadows and creating puns with words. They were sad, showing disintegrated families and loneliness. Ultimately, they were filled with the dreams of immigrants—that their children would rise up—that they would one day read, would graduate, would embrace the future. 

Spud Wars

 I had offered to make the team baked potatoes. To tell the truth, I just had a hankering for them myself, but when I found out that 2/4 other housemates also thought that sounded good, I was on it.  I like making food for people and the fresh tomato pasta sauce I had spent several hours making yesterday had been a disaster. It was all cooked, looking (and smelling) delicious when Bryan announced he didn’t like tomatoes OR squash, Lauren quietly sprinkled parmesan on her plain noodles and Danny was no where to be found. So I really wanted a take two at preparing dinner. Plus, potatoes are easy-- my recipe was simple—seven minutes in the microwave and voila—a meal fit for kings.

Or so I thought.

Midway through Potato One (Lauren’s), the power in the kitchen went off. This happened to us on the first day, when it was just Lauren and I at Blackstone.  We had been extremely proud of our problem solving abilities—the two of us had gone down into the basement and flipped the switch on the fuse box. It had worked and we gloated (neither of us are adept at all at solving those kind of issues). So, I trotted down the stairs, through the boys bathroom, a storage room, the communal laundry room and into the dark, damp and dank basement room where the fuse box is kept. I flipped the switch a couple times for good measure, and a few others just to be sure (and heard a yelp from Danny), and then I headed back up and restarted the microwave.

Two minutes later, all stopped again. I rolled my eyes and went downstairs, unlocking bolts and latches as I went. Flips switched, I traced my footsteps, securing the doors behind me.

Up in the kitchen, I started the spud baking again. A minute later, all was dead. I checked and the potato was almost done. I was going to cook this sucker no matter what.

“Your potato is almost done,” I said to Lauren, “I’m just going to flip the switch again.”

“It’s ok,” Lauren said. “You can have my potato.”

“No, no,” I said gallantly. “I said I’d make one for you. This one is yours.”

I traipsed back down to the basement and flipped the switch.  Lauren waited in the kitchen to start the nuking process the minute she saw lights blinking on the screen. A minute later, hers was done. I was triumphant. One down. Mine went in.

Towards the last few minutes of cooking, Bryan had began to pace hungriliy around the kitchen. I made a decision at that point, however—this next potato was mine. I had been noble enough with Lauren’s potato. Bryan would have to fend for himself him for his own potato (I was still a little sore from his refusal to eat last night’s pasta sauce.)

The power must have died three or four more times in the seven minutes it took to cook my potato. I began to leave the doors downstairs open and unbolted, expecting to return in a few seconds. We got a system down-- Lauren stood guard in the kitchen, finger poised over the start button to expedite things. One minor glitch when Danny went into the bathroom and access to the fuse was cut off, but roughly fifteen minutes and fifty sprinted stairs later, my potato was done. It emerged—soft, perfect, warm, and smelling delicious. Bryan’s went in and was done roughly nine minutes and one trip (which I made) later.

My potato seemed to glow—it was like a golden nugget, I thought to myself as I added butter, salt, tomatoes, lettuce, hummus. Never had I worked so hard for a meal. But oh boy was this spud worth it. 

The Kids at Blackstone

There are three components to this program, Emily said. Three ways to learn. One is the seminar—in which we are introduced to ideas and venues all across Chicago. The second is, of course, our internship. And the third is living in Chicago—that includes who we are living with.

The crowd at Blackstone could not have been better chosen by a casting director for the Real World. As we came together on the first day, my jaw dropped with the diversity amongst us.

Lauren is my roommate, quiet and elegant. We met on the first day when it was only the two of us and passed a companionable day in mostly silence; reading, checking our e-mail and occasionally taking little walks together. Since that first day, we have become closer—having many chats about life, the boys we live with and the people we meet. I watched her dream come true—she is working a PR internship in the John Hancock building. She dresses up each day for work, looking immaculate in stilettos and silk skirts, and has her own, lakefront office on Michigan Avenue.

Danny is the baby of the family, only eighteen. He is a business major from Wilbeforce University, an all-black college in Ohio. My suspicion is that his friends and family in the city drew him more than anything else—his boys come over nightly to hang out. He offers sudden and unexpectedly perceptive reflections on life ad the rest of the time baffles me with his diet of oatmeal, mcdonalds and ego waffles and yet-- immaculate physique.

Bryan escapes easy description. He is majoring in Criminal Justice and Japanese. He’s got wings tattooed on his ankles and a lip ring, likes anime and is in a frat.

Philipp is twenty-four, a tall German exchange student who plays Mexican acoustic guitar and heavy metal—a leftover from the days when he had long haired and lived for the heavy metal scene. He is working in the most dangerous neighborhood in the city and in him, I find sound advice, intellectual conversation and a penchant for obscure European foods. 

None of us judge each other, except for minor infractions like leaving unwashed dishes or buying the wrong kind of hot dogs. Instead, I live in a remarkable environment where we occasionally eat dinner together and embark on conversations on the people we meet and our relationships of the past and where we go grocery shopping and laugh the whole way about our broken shopping cart. Even after two weeks together, I have concluded only two universal truths amongst us. We all like bananas. A lot. We all like T-Pain’s On a Boat. A lot. 

First Few Days: Cold in Chi-town

The coat I brought to Chicago was a last minute decision. I stood, looking at my overstuffed suitcase, and wondered if I really needed it. I was already bringing so much shit. Finally, I gave up and tossed it in.

Good thing.

Since my arrival in the Windy City, Chi-town has been just that—windy. Oh, yeah, and cold, and rainy. As we traipse around the city, experiencing art and culture, I am a little sad that I am not dressed the part. All of the cute little dresses and nice shoes are still stowed away in boxes as I grab yet another sweater.

We are sick of it, but we all giggled together as we shivered on a street corner waiting for the bus to arrive.

“At least we aren’t here in January,” someone offered.

Simone, who is from the city, offered another tidbit. “Did you know that gang violence decreases during the winter?”

We all loved that one. Sarah imagined the scenario.

“Yo, you know you my boyz and I got chour back, but I’m just gonna stay here by da fire, make me a s’more,” she said. 

Assignment: Revelations about the Southside

Southside Tour. Saturday, June 13, 2009.

The first neighborhoods we passed broke any stereotypes I had about the Southside. The areas were entered were all black, but middle class. Places of cared-for yards and small businesses. Places that looked safe and were community oriented. Arvis told us about their history—many areas had been built for whites but when the first black people moved in, the whites fled leaving the community to grow and develop on it’s own. The shady streets are well cared for; block clubs post warnings about being noisy and parking.

Our tour shows me that the South side cannot be characterized in one generalization. It includes our safe refuge of Hyde Park, where the average level of education is seventeen and a half years and professors stroll down shady streets coffee mugs balanced on the handlebars of strollers; it includes the wealthy black neighborhood of Kenwood where Obama lives blocks from Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the nation of Islam; the middle class blacks of farther south. It includes Englewood, the second most dangerous place in the nation, a place where a nine-year-old girl was shot yesterday while bathing her dogs with her dad. It includes parks, cemeteries, Chinatown, the White Sox, and the ritzy apartments that house Mayor Daley and his cohorts. For this summer, it is my home. 

Trapped in Hell's Garden

Southside Tour. Saturday, June 13, 2009.

We drove back up Dan Ryan highway and I cried. I didn’t want anyone to see me, but I felt angry, nauseous. We had just visited Altgeld Gardens—less like gardens and more like hell on earth, these public housing projects fester in isolation, miles from any sign of humanity.

The projects are located off of 130^th street, a street that juts out from one of the busiest highway in the nation. Cars zip by, in and out of the city, the people inside oblivious to the hell that is these people’s reality. We drove, passing gentleman’s clubs and megachurches. and listened to Arvis talking about the methane that still burns in the nearby dump each night, forty years after the dump shut down, sending poisonous fumes to the Gardens.

We turned off into an area of fields. We pull in and see a boarded up store. Then, we see homes. All along the east side, the brick buildings are closed—haunting rows, their windows like eyes with patches over them.

“They closed because people got sick,” Arvis says.

The projects are toxic—people get cancer and mysterious illnesses. Children are born without genitals, a little boy goes blind after playing in the grass.

The few buildings on the east side that are open have broken blue and white awnings and signs. They are charity centers—there are no stores in Altgeld.

We pass family services, Catholic charities. And then we see an elementary school. We see new houses.

A shiny new school? New, red brick houses?

Arvis says it before I can notice it for myself, but they closed the toxic homes and built new homes literally feet away. If that ground is toxic, how the hell is that ground not toxic?

Beyond that are more projects, rows and rows of new buildings, custom made. Two shiny, new Laundromats sit at the corner. There are lots of little playgrounds, yet all are void are children. It is sickening. I stare in awe at one some politician thought was a good idea—revamp the projects. Build them new homes. No one seems to notice that it’s the location that is toxic—not just because of the horrible chemicals but because of the location. Three to four thousand people are trapped here in an impossibly small amount of space. One bus arrives every day. There are no jobs, no hope, no escape. Nothing.

Arvis points to police cameras on every street corner—installed to watch for drug deals. So the people there are ignored—except when they are caught doing something illegal. I can’t believe it.

Later, someone, blinded by the new buildings, commented that the projects weren’t that bad.

They were the worst place I have ever seen in my entire life.

One hope: This is where Obama did his mission work. I have hope in the fact that we have a president who worked there. 

arvis adjusts my lens

Southside Tour. Saturday, June 13, 2009.

Slowly, throughout the tour, we found out about our tour guide’s incredible past. In his younger days, he knew Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Harold Washington and scores of others who I know deplorably little about but who constitute incredible figures of Black History. These days, he is a friend of the Obamas. He has lived in Chicago for many years and has been involved in all aspects of the Black community. It was with his perceptive lens, knowledge base, wicked humor and cynicism that we saw the Southside of Chicago. It was an exhausting tour—three hours in a van with only one stop. Each place we were had a difficult history for us to understand. We were pummeled with painful statistics and a bitter history of betrayal by our government and our race. Arvis never let us forget our position—no one could escape the fact that we were white voyeurs, driving along in a huge, red van with tinted windows. He never let us forget that we were the only white people for miles and miles. Everything we saw illustrated a painful past and present marked by death, poverty, broken promises and no hope.

By the end of our tour, I felt physically sick with my race and our history. 

After three hours, it got to be too much. We pulled into the Art and Culture Center at Southport and saw the sleek steeds and cowboy hats of folks gathering for a rodeo. All the cowboys were black. That wasn’t too much of a surprise for me. I had read or seen photos somewhere about a black rodeo culture. But Arvis figured no one had. “A Black rodeo!” he exclaimed over and over. “I bet you all can’t believe it! A Black rodeo! These folks here ain’t heard of a Black rodeo!”

I wanted to protest—I don’t have those horrible stereotypes that you think I do! I am here because I care—because I want to know. That’s why I am in this program! That’s why I am on this tour!

It only got worse when he explained his decision to live in South shore. South shore is an all-black community just south of Hyde Park that is economically integrated—the poor living right alongside rich people like Reverend Jesse Jackson. “I gave up on race integration,” he said, “And just went with economic integration.”

I felt hopeless, hopeless.

He talked about how for years in his education, he had been the only black student in his school. He talked about moving to South shore because it was easier, because he didn’t have to answer stupid questions asked by white people when he came home at night.

An incredibly intelligent, well-educated man. A man who was friends with some of history’s greatest. And my race had made him so uncomfortable that he no longer wanted to live with us. 

Arvis lays down the law

Southside Tour. Saturday, June 13, 2009.

We had just eaten in happy oblivion at a Soul Food restaurant called B.J.’s Market when Arvis Averette arrived. The professor of economics at Columbia College was eager to go—ready to take us in the infamous Southside, a place we were all fascinated by and yet terrified of after years of hearing nothing more than stereotypes about it. After we had all piled in to the tan van, he lay out the rules. “I know you all think you all that and a bag of chips. Well, I don’t want no texting,” he said, looking back at us. “Otherwise, I put your lil’ happy ass out in the hood.”

Race in the City

The city is exhausting. Everything has a racial undertone. I became especially aware of it after our tour of the Southside. But everyone mentions black and white, white and black. I’m on the bus and a man boards, screaming to anyone that will listen that white people are committing genocide, that Black Americans will soon be extinct. Beggars call you on it—“Oh, you ain’t giving money to a black man?” and people casually comment on it “I wad wid a white man and hid wife found out and she woulda beat my ass cuz I’m black.” Again and again. For a white girl from Kansas, it slams into me each time. Does everyone have to talk about it.

At the Corner Café, our group represented the only light faces in the establishment. It never would have bothered me before; I come from a liberal place and have never questioned race relations. I have always judged people on their character, not their skin tone. But after everything that I have learned about and seen in the past week-- the hate, anger and bitter history still present in this city, I suddenly feel unsure about my relations with people of other races.  I felt cut-off, like an outsider, an observer, who loved it all, but who didn’t really belong. Did they all hate me? Was I welcome? I felt like there was a huge chasm between me and the regulars. Our lives, our experiences were so different simply because of our skin tones.

Thus, after the performance, I am ashamed to say I was shocked when a black man struck up a conversation with me while we waited in line for the bathroom. He was smiling from ear to ear, he loved the performance just as much as I did. It was both of our first times and both of us wanted to come back. He was so kind, so genuine, so friendly; that I felt my old comfort returning. He went in to the bathroom and the man behind me struck up a conversation, too. He, himself, was a performer and he introduced himself, saying he hoped I would come back.

It was then that I realized I must not let myself be poisoned by this city. I must continue to believe that racial integration is real and people are people. I must continue to believe that I am not the only one who believes that. 

 

Joe rocks his kicks... and describes the dangers of clubbin' and leg braces

Verbal Balance/SpokenWord. Wednesday, June 17, 2009. PART THREE. 

Next up, the Emcee announced, was Joe. “Our Joe?” I swiveled around to ask the director, Scott, seated behind me. Scott shrugged, nodded and a second later, Joe, an employee at the Chicago Center, struggled up from his seat. His leg braces clanked as he jolted to the front of the group assembled.

“Has he ever done this before?” I asked Scott.

“I don’t think so,” Scott said.

“I’m going to do a stand-up routine,” Joe said. “It’s my first time, so, uh, bear with me.”

And he began. His entire routine was based on his disability and it was one of the funniest, bravest things I have ever heard. I took notes, even while I was shaking with laughter and I’m jotting them down here.

First topic? Goin’ to the clubs.

Joe said: “The problem with clubs—they combine two things I hate more than any other. Dancing and moving in crowded spaces….

“So, I’m standing at the bar, talking to a girl and things are going well. I mean, she even looked over my kicks. Some guys have the, uh, Air Jordans and I am rockin my Kmart special. (Joe shows off his super supportive white shoes, the type worn by old ladies.) So things are goin’ well. And then she utters those two horrible words: ‘Wanna dance?’ It’s then that I remember the movie Hitch and the wise words of one character. Women equate dance with sex and I think… oh, shit…

“The problem with dancing is you move your arms, and then you move your legs. Well, I can do one of them, but the combination just… stumps me. It doesn’t work. So, it’s a little like… DJ, hit me up with some music!... (DJ obliges and Joe does a cute, awkward dance with all of us cheering him on.)

Next topic? 4 am bars.

“Three bad things about them—there’s dancing, I got my leg braces and by this point… I’m fucked up…”

Joe continues to tell about the time he arrived at one, hammered, and fell down. After that, the bar tender refused to sell him drinks. Joe was livid—“You don’t understand! I’m not drunk!” he yelled, “I’ve got a disability!” When the bar tender still refused to sell him drinks, drunk Joe yelled: “I’m gonna sue your ass!”

A Soul Speaks

Verbal Balance/SpokenWord. Wednesday, June 17, 2009. PART TWO. 

His name might have been Big Owie or maybe it was Big D. In any case, “Big” was certainly the adjective. When they announced his name to resounding applause, I turned around to see one of the largest human beings I have ever seen amble slowly up to the stage. He was like a human block, and I looked at him with a little bit of awe. He seemed to be made of mountains of flesh.

He seemed shy and awkward and once at the microphone, he spoke softly. His baby face was turned away from me and I strained to hear snatches of what he said.  It sounded like he said he had just been released from the hospital—the applause must have been a welcome back to a good friend. What I did hear him say was: “Well, you know, I at a high risk for diabetes. It on both sides of my family.”

My heart broke for this soft-spoken giant. Did he really think that the only reason he was at risk with diabetes was because it was in his family? It was probably in his family because of their situation, their family style of eating, and probably, because of their poverty. It used to be poor people were skinny, nowadays, it seems the poorer, the fatter.

He couldn’t have been older than me, but he already had so much working against him. To me, he seemed trapped—in poverty, in a certain lifestyle and in a hot, uncomfortable, awkward body suit.

He paused, breathed and then drew the microphone close. And  something escaped, flew free from that prison. His voice, gentle and sweet, rose up and filled the café. His song was of beauty, heartbreak and a peaceful place he’d escape to. A peaceful place, he repeated, a peaceful place. He spoke, then, his words rhythmic and strong. But it was the melody that haunted me. He sung it again and all I wanted in the world was for him to have that peaceful, beautiful place always.

I knew the thin, haunting melody was his soul.  All I could hope was it wouldn’t be crushed.

 

i find myself on an island in a dark sea

Verbal Balance/SpokenWord. Wednesday, June 17, 2009.

The café we sat at was lit with soft light, made cozy by the bright yellow walls. An audience dressed in bright colors milled around, chatting and laughing and eagerly anticipating the SpokenWord poetry we were all getting ready to see. People ordered lattes and chicken salad sandwiches so good that one man turned to his and said, “Baby, you the best.” There was laughter, reunions of old friends, smiling and shuffling of chairs.

Placed in the walls were huge windows, looking out on the neighborhood beyond. That’s where the coziness stopped. The cold windows looked out into an industrial wasteland in the heart of a the South side of Chicago. One streetlight lit a corner. If I glanced outside, I couldn’t help but feel nervous. My eye would catch a car driving slowly by and my heart would pulse a little faster. Every time I saw a shadowy figure appear from around the edge of a building, I wondered if we were safe. But a moment later, they’d enter the door and warm light would illuminate their grins. They’d become human, a friend, part of a safe space.

How this place, The Corner Café, existed I don’t know. The darkness outside might have hidden a more residential area, something to explain the café’s survival or something to explain where to people inside eked out their existence. But there were no questions to be answered in the dark beyond. It was blank, scary. What was evident, however, was the light within. 

One Week in Chicago: The Introduction

Today is Sunday, meaning that I have been waking up in this city for exactly a week. Last Sunday, I was in a hotel next to the lake. I woke up and went for a run with my Dad and my sister before they dropped me off at Blackstone and my Chicago program began. It feels utterly impossible that it has only been a week. I have met so many people, seen so much, created the beginnings of an entire life here. I haven’t had time to breath. But I think it is time to introduce you to exactly what I am doing here, in the city.

I am spending the summer studying at the Chicago Center for Urban Life and Culture. The Center, located in the now-famous Hyde Park (where Obama is from), runs an urban plunge for college students. This summer, there are roughly thirty of us living in six apartments. We are an incredibly diverse group—we are from all different parts of the country (and abroad) and all different walks of life. Together, in the summer session, we will explore every fiber I can of the city: visiting museums and neighborhoods, festivals and restaurants, parks and monuments and communities.  We will read about issues plaguing the city, art that breathes in the city and the people who live here. We will also all work different internships; an incredible draw for me as the city is filled with publications a young journalist with a social conscience might aspire to work with.  The final component will be living here—learning first hand not only what living in an urban environment is like, but also learning to live with people incredibly different people.

I am to journal throughout. I will write about my internship and about the people I am with. Moreover, I will try to capture the city as I discover it on my own and with the help of the Chicago Center. As I am writing about this first week retroactively, it is going to come out in a jumble of experiences; not necessarily in chronological order. This past week has been filled with the exploring the tastes and sites of Chicago, the stressful search for an internship and much more.

I once studied a French artist who, in his life, had taken one monumental trip to Egypt. He later wrote that that single trip could give him enough material to paint for the rest of his life. That’s how I feel about this past week. 

Blackstone Base

We turned the corner and I saw our house first. I didn't let myself think for a moment that that was the one. Then Lucy cried: "That's it! That one is yours!"

a tale of two groceries

I am intrigued by the differences between the grocery stores that I visit on my first day.

Treasure Island really is such. I walk in and want to gasp at the shining apples stacked in pyramid form. I pick up vegetables-- some spiky, some impossibly small or wildly colored-- I have never seen before. Friendly samples-- cool melon, spicy chips and salsa, greek delicacies galore-- line the aisles. For a foodie/for a lover of grocery stores, it is heaven. The clientele is mostly white. They are healthy and most probably well-educated. They, like me, love their food and will pay the extra bit for the taste and the ethics behind their food. I leave hungry, inspired.

Later that day, we stop to get quick supplies at Village Foods, a local grocery closer to our home. Before we go, I read the reviews online. Wilted produce, one says. I give it one star, says another. I am excited to go.

Hungry for dinner, we enter the glass door plastered with hand-written sale signs and immediately see uninspiring aisles of cans stacked high. The minimalist produce is tucked in the back, only to be found by a little searching. The layout speaks of the customer's desires. While Treasure Island entices shoppers with a cornucopia of fresh fruits and vegetables, Village Market doesn't expect the average shopper to worry much about them. They grab mac-and-cheese flavored crackers and Doritos instead of hummus and organic grapes. The talk is loud, rough. The people are mostly black or hispanic. The customers are wearing scruffy clothes and hunting bargains. Shopping here is about getting something done, it's not a pleasure cruise for the senses. 

As I hover over the dinner I am cooking later that night, I ruminate over the first class division I see in Chicago. Food is at the heart of our society and it is fitting that my observations start there. 

Establishing Home

The majority of my first morning at my Blackstone Avenue is spent unpacking. I packed hurriedly in the two day window between my arrival from England and my departure for the windy city. Even though I know full well that Chicago is not the end of the earth, I wanted to make sure I had everything. 

As I unpack, I suddenly panic. After rooting around in the crumb-filled interior of my velvet messager bag, relief. The old cassette tapes are there. I do have them after all. 

I realize I transport home almost mechanically. I live out of bags. It comes first from divorced parents, from shifting back and forth every Wednesday and Saturday of my childhood. It also comes from summers spent abroad, when I squashed my whole world into a tiny suitcase or later, a trusty travel backpack. It comes from living in a different place each year of college. 

My transportable home is comprised of things, beloved material goods that keep me company. Clothes are hung, the bed in made. And soon, my familiar relics and everyday goods spread across this unfamiliar place. I glance at the bed, now covered by my green bedspread; the closet, newly populated by a familiar, well-loved wardrobe. White polka dots on grey, delicate florals, careful knits all arranged just how I like make this strange, shadowy space my own. It is a new kitchen, but the purple stains splashed the white stove are remnants of a dinner all my own-- red cabbage soup, warm and filling, made with the same recipe on this windy Chicago night as in my Lawrence hometown. 

Arrival

It was a strange sensation that I had as I drove into Chicago last night.

The city skyline was hazy yet imposing on the horizon ahead. 

"Just look," my dad said, peering up from behind the wheel. I did look. And what struck me more than anything else was that I wouldn't see that sight again for two whole months. Two whole months of being inside the city. 

During that time, I am supposed to get to know the city, to understand its dynamics, people, neighborhoods. It will be my home.

This isn't a few days. This is an entire summer.