perfect ovals
II of IV | December 1, 2003
This will change your life.
I am happiness approaching. That is how he must see me. There are worlds and spaces between us, just as there are between his teeth. He wants nothing more than to be greeted, to be accepted, and to be seen.
In order to best accentuate the obvious lesson here, I must first rewind.
On November twentieth Chicago’s air is abundant with a bitter winter chill. It is warmed only by the sense of human anticipation. I spend the majority of this evening riding on commuter trains. Beginning on the red line, I ride to the Washington stop in downtown Chicago, a subway stop below the infamous Loop. I walk under ground, through a tunnel, over to the blue line stop of the same name. It is here that I catch a train northwest in the direction of O’Hare International Airport.
There is a quick stop made at Damen, where I walk several blocks towards Armitage in order to deliver a class assignment to a classmate at a bar called Darwin’s. Halfway between Darwin’s and Damen Street, on my way back to the train, my phone rings. The aforementioned sense of human anticipation is crippled by a call from Cleveland, Ohio. My guests of honor for the weekend, due to arrive in Chicago at 8:57 p.m. will not be landing now until sometime near, before, or after 10 p.m., lovely.
Tom, Jess, and Chris, whose names have not been changed to protect the innocent, arrive safely to Chicago. The train we board at the airport has a delayed departure due to construction on the tracks ahead, and a cluster of three other trains using the same tracks to get into the airport. So we wait. We play catch-up. We laugh at how tired we are, how bad their flight was, and how illegible their airline complaint cards are.
Arriving home just before midnight, I am allowed to laugh at the Friday morning class I have to wake up for.
We spent much of the weekend conversing over meals, over alcoholic beverages, between Wrigley Field and the Loop, and while walking near the waterfront. It was a battle for me to enjoy their simple presence, as I was hell-bent on showing them as much of the city as possible.
As thankful as I was for their visit, it was virtually impossible for me to be sentimental about it. I shutdown every heartfelt piece of commentary by changing the subject matter and I reserved myself from being the maker of any such commentary. It was not that I did not want to be sentimental and reflect on the nature of our relations, but rather it was my way of acknowledging the changes in our relations without having to highlight them.
As turbulently as it began, the weekend ushered itself to an awkward end with rains and winter winds. Their plane departed on Monday afternoon and the one-hour train ride back to my apartment gave me ample time to contemplate my second Thanksgiving away from home, but the first without friends or family.
For me, being alone on Thanksgiving was not an issue that would impart depression or make way for sadness. I looked at it as an opportunity to put everything that I was thankful for into perspective. I almost welcomed the idea of being alone as educational, or inspirational, or even influential.
Then, the aforementioned loneliness was interrupted by a phone call. Do you see the pattern here? On the eve before Thanksgiving, receiving a phone call, this is where the fairy tale begins.
Thanksgiving morning turned Chicago into a ghost town. I walked down main streets in downtown, where there would normally be traffic strewn for blocks, there were empty streets. Where there would normally be herds of businessmen and women walking to and from offices, there were families staring into department store windows. There were Christmas decorations in every direction, animated displays setup in windows along entire street blocks, and there was the sound of an angelic choir escaping from a festive tent in the heart of the city.
The morning is cold, crisp, gray, and silent. A feeling that can only be described as bittersweet.
I walk towards a bridge that stretches over the Chicago River. Cinderella approaches the same bridge that I am approaching; it is that kind of morning. Cinderella approaches with her stepsisters; it is that kind of holiday. There are no gowns, no ballrooms, no horse-drawn carriages, and no bickering. Today she is prince-less, that is without a prince. Today there is no family arguments, no melodrama, and no glass slippers. Today Cinderella runs to me. She is happy to see me, happy to hug me, happy to be prince-less.
Let me tell you, meeting Cinderella is a lot like spending the day with your childhood best friend, or conversing at length with your imaginary friend, or meeting the love of your life, or quite possibly combining all of these together into one person.
So we journey over the State Street Bridge and gather in front of Smith & Wellensky. Here I meet her step mother, her fairy godmother, her narrator, and of course her sound guy.
Every fairy tale has its loophole.
This loophole is her sound guy, a constant reminder that this is not a fairy tale at all, and before long one of the stepsisters will be joined by, her good friend, Jeff.
So now, inside, around our circular table we sit. Starting from my left and moving clockwise there is Julie, Jessica, Catherine, Talia, Wes, Steve, and Amanda. This Thanksgiving, this is my secular family.
We are given menus, each menu is on a piece of paper which is framed in a wooden picture frame, and we are offered a Thanksgiving dinner that includes Pumpkin Bisque or New England Clam Chowder, Country Salad, Roast Turkey, and Pecan Pie or Pumpkin Crème Caramel. When Jeff arrives he sits between Talia and Wes. The waiter offers him a menu. The same menu we got, framed in a thick wooden picture frame, to which Jeff asks, “Did this fall off the wall?” We laugh; it was that kind of holiday.
Before our dinner is served Jeff suggests that we go around the table and say what we are thankful for, and so we do.
When my Lemon Pepper Chicken arrives it is a whole chicken and it is shown to me before the waiter carves it.
I should probably take this opportunity to explain that Julie is a good friend of mine. For as long as I have lived in Chicago, she has been touring the Midwest with a children’s musical version of Cinderella. I should also mention that this is the second time that she has visited me in Chicago, and it is our second Thanksgiving together.
Before, during, and after dinner, Julie and I talk, we play catch-up, we tell stories, and we laugh. We discuss the fact that five of us are wearing horizontal stripes, we talk about the theaters they have performed in, their knitting habits, and Steve’s mustard bottle. There is more food on the table than we can stomach, which makes for perfect leftovers, for them on the road, and me the college student.
In what seems like no time at all we are already ushering the cast of Cinderella back to their rental van, we are already saying goodbye, and I am already starting to walk home.
I walk. It is my pace that alternates based on the weather, my mood, or my destination. Tonight the sky is clear, the air is calm, and the city is glowing with Christmas lights, so my pace is slower and refined; I am in no rush. I walk holding my plastic bag of leftovers in my left hand.
As I step down off one curb and head across the street to another, there is a man standing just ahead of me.
I am happiness approaching. That is how he must see me. Me; dressed on Thanksgiving day in stylish jeans, a horizontally striped sweater over a white collared shirt, all beneath a brown leather jacket and brown knitted scarf. Him; dressed in dark winter sweats to keep him warm, a black winter coat, and boots, all weathered, all torn. His smile is triggered by my smile. There are worlds and spaces between us, just as there are between his teeth. As he asks for my attention, small fragments of crumb fall from his tooth, to his lip, to the ground. He wants nothing more than to be greeted, to be accepted, and to be seen.
And so talking to him is not the interruption I had expected. Talking to him is equivalent to bandaging a wound, minus all the stinging. He asks about my holiday. He waits for my response before telling me how unhappy his has been and will continue to be. He references all the families that just pass him by. There is not much that he has to say before I offer him my leftovers, and when I do the smile that wipes across his face is a smile that can only be described in one word. Bittersweet.
And so everything that I am thankful for lands within perspective. Sometimes we spend so much time focusing on and searching for a path of least resistance, that we fail to experience the beauty of the unplanned and the unpaved. We continue to orbit around our centers. Us; the satellites that we are. There is safety in routine. The atom around its nucleus. The universe around its sun. The body around its heart. The humans around their city. Satellites.
And if it does not make sense to you now, it will, some day.
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