The Drake

I drove downtown Chicago yesterday and today for a phenomenal shoulder course that provided a lot of neat info I can apply to my patients. Yay! I also had the privilege to be one of the few driving south on Lake Shore Drive at 7 a.m. this morning with the windows rolled down to enjoy the 45 degree temperature and pink laden sky dumping itself over Lake Michigan. It was beautiful and refreshing for early February.

On my way home last night, however, I found myself temporarily parked outside the famous Drake Hotel. My brain was fried from 9 hours of shoulder lessons to which I hyperactive-ly absorbed every detail I possibly could. I was half attentively staring up into The Drake and had a view of the chandeliers, lavish draperies, and gaudily painted columns of the second story. All I thought about was how chandeliers and drapes collect dust. And those columns, decorated with gold protrusions and speckled flecks of gold, were a smidge tacky. Not that I am knocking The Drake- it is truly a beautiful building. But why? Why do people go gaga for The Drake and wish to spend mondo bucks on staying at or eating at The Drake? My fried brain came up with this: nostalgia. We know what has happened there and thus, by inserting our own lives into a historically famous architecture, we like to think we know what will happen to us in our own lives. And here's the thing that I considered as I merged onto Lake Shore Drive: I am captured by it too (as if you needed me to point out the obvious). Nostalgia weeps out of this city for me like sweat weeps out of the pores of skin

because Morgan used to work at that bicycle shop on Bryn Mauer which was around the corner from where Lisa used to live in 2002. That was when we used an umbrella in a horrible wind/ thunder storm to walk to Francescas Italian Restaurant and the wind flipped the umbrella inside out leaving us to get wet. And we giggled the whole time. And from her canopy bed we watched lightning ignite the sky from her 10 story or higher apartment with floor length windows (or at least, that's how I remember it).

because Elizabeth and I waited for almost 45 minutes at the Loyola el stop sometime around midnight in March after experiencing Cabaret where amazingly enough I picked up a cute boy by being my total unabashed self. (The boy was pretty but sooo not worth the three dates we endured.) And during our long wait in the freezing temperatures, Elizabeth said: "I now know the power of your attractiveness. It was amazing. I'll never see you the same again." In exactly a year's time, we are sitting in her car outside our apartment complex on Sherman and she tells me that she can't remember me without Ben. That this is a good thing, she assures me: that he completes a part of me that I didn't have at the Cabaret. This is an important conversation and my relationship with Ben is flattered. We all play Scrabble later that night.

because there are so many times that I sang with different individuals while driving past Belmont Harbor singing on top of my lungs: Sometimes Always, Tricky, Tori Amos, & excerpts from The Little Mermaid, etc

because I wish to sit in every coffee shop as I did with Megan on Thursday nights after I rode the el in to the Fullerton stop to spend the night in Lincoln Park with her. because I loved sitting on a stool with Angela at Wellingtons Pub the night before the fourth of July. because Stefanie, Kari, Abby, Karen, and I sang Christmas carols up and down Michigan Avenue and I adored watching their little bobbing hats in front of me. because the first time I hung out with Ben, we rode our bikes from Lawrence Avenue to Meig's field and I sang Van Morrison "Moonlight". because this city holds a cartography of memories that are doused liberally with grand emotions and stunningly vibrant memories. They are just as painfully lost as they are beautifully found again. Maybe I hoard my life but everywhere I drive on the Northside, I am reminded and I smile. And that is why, I am certain, The Drake is The Drake and I will probably pay ten dollars to have a cup of tea there one day.

beauty queen

Myrtle & Marge are 80+ year old roommates who live in the transitional care unit at a nursing home nearby. We wake them up at seven and get them ready for breakfast. Sitting up in bed and getting dressed is a forty minute process for each. They are in pain- the pain medication hasn't kicked in and learning to dress yourself one handed with adaptations like reachers and shoehorns can be very frustrating and diffilcut. Leaning over is impossible and standing can be wobbly. Forty five minutes later, after bouncing between Marge and Myrtle, the two ladies are dressed, their teeth and hair is brushed, and they are sitting in their wheelchairs ready for breakfast.

"Marge, you look as beautiful as a beauty queen," Myrtle says before we leave.
"Why thank you, my Darling, I think brushing my hair helped this morning."

Love Letter to Ben

When you leave there are elements that you forget to take with you. I am moving around my apartment and there are the tiny messes- disarranged towels, dirty glasses, a crowded nightstand, and rumpled clothes shoved out of sight. It is the physical elements are easy to remove: the finger prints, the second season of Sopranos on DVD to be returned, the tiny messes, and runnaway beard hair from the time you shaved in my sink. I went to bed last night and my pillow smelled of you ("in a good way" I reassured you on the phone). The apartment was too quiet. I could hear the tapping toes of my neighbor. Pull the sheets over my head and fall into a deep sleep.

It is non-physical elements that are never easy to remove. Although I embrace them, they make me painfully miss you. I drive the same route back and forth to the same coffee shop almost daily now. It is the Bloomsbury equivolent for the occupational therapy study group. Annette and I found ourselves surrounded tonight by 65+ year old fiesty bridge players & last week we observed Elvis inspired poets sing on stage. Yet you and I go there once- to experience a folk trio featuring a woman in a long sleeved black velvet dress heated under stage lights- and that coffee shop suddenly reaks of you. There is you in the corner, watching & analyzing the sound system as I order rasberry chai for the first time. You manipulating your seven letters into a 40 point word. You winning a game of scrabble (just barely) again.

Thank you for sharing a pizza & Sopranos with me after my mega-test day when my mind was literally putty. Thank you for grounding me all week long. Thank you.

The eye

What is a powerful bond? I asked myself last night. I think of an example that uses the eyeball. If you take the general anatomy of the eyeball as seen in daily life, you see the iris, pupil, and the whites of the eye. Sometimes in older people you see the cloudy lens of a cataract. People with jaundice have yellowed whites of their eye. We are struck by the colors of our irises- so blue, we might say to ourselves. Exploring the anatomy of the eye further gets me every time. The eye rarely falls out of its socket- thank goodness. Clearly there is the optic nerve and the muscles that hold it firmly in place. But remove the entire anatomy of the eye and spread it out before you. The eye has four huge muscles that hold it in place. They intersect perpendicularly at the eyeball. They are a strong safety net that seem to almost cradle the eye. see figure here. The muscles abduct, adduct, lift, and lower the eye. Sometimes these muscles are weak and the eyes are unable to misalign. This is lazy eye. Sometimes the nerves paralyze and then the eyelid droops, the eyes cannot abduct and thus a person cannot climb the stairs or read as they used to. The muscles and nerves are everything to a structure that, in daily life, looks so striking and independent of itself.

So what is a powerful bond between people? I believe it is being able to look at the same document with a person who knows you well and be able to mourn and cry at the same parts as though they are in the same skin, cosmic alliance, and emotion as you. It is their ability to predict exactly where you come from. And exactly where you are going. The ability to abduct, adduct, lift, and lower you gently and smoothly to where you need to be and where you need to go. A powerful connection can be obvious like an eye jerked to the left visual field at the sound of a startling noice. Or it can often go unnoticed- as it does when it passes over the text in a book. Careful & minute but working with you one hundred percent of the time.

So here I am: singular in one sense. Out there blue & blinking. But I swear to God without my muscles and nerves I am nothing. I thank you over and over again.

"These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown through that darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds and incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman's place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, it is deep" -Audre Lourde. Thank you Megan for this powerful writing.

In Love with a boy named Ben

im in love with the boy sitting behind the pearl drumset. i see him as i walk through the church door and experience the same feeling i get when i call him after a crazy day and hear his voice on the company answering machine: comforted. his hair is a neat mess of curls in the shape of a fro & he wears my favorite urban cowboy shirt and jeans. i take a seat, chilled and wired from the hour commute, and his friends and their families smile at me. 

three years ago i always sat in the center seat so i could count the number of times we made eye contact and report it to candace later that afternoon. "thirteen," i would report. "thirteen's gotta mean something," she would reply optimistically. eye contact games with the nameless blue eyed bible babe became a sunday morning activity i enjoyed very much. today i am sitting in the back of church with sweet pricilla. ben has influenced me in many wonderful ways but i must admit that his occasional untimeliness is begining to influence me too. i am eight minutes late & find myself without the option of a center seat. ben plays drums where i cannot see him but i am tapping my foot to his rhythm anyway. 

it is now twilight & we cruise down lakeshore because i need to be surrounded by tall tall buildings and watch crowds of people scuttle down michigan avenue. the skyline is disappointingly surrounded by haze but i hold my camera out the window and capture the view anyway. ben plays a set of songs that their cover band will play at the professor's daughter's wedding. he decides to treat me to my favorite white hot chocolate at the bourgeouis pig and we play a game of chess. i am awful at strategy and give him a nasty look when he steals my fourth pawn. he gives me an intellegent smile- one of those smiles where the person knows what they will say is no doubt correct. "whatever," he tells me. "youre the kind of girl that would be offended if i let you win." damn his support for liberation, i curse. i lose anyway but "i am learning" he tells me. we drive home with dizzy on the radio & i feel like a child who needs to be taken on a long drive to calm herself down. "if you asked," i whisper as we embrace in the slushy, unplowed street, "i would say yes."

The Professor

we were brainstorming planetary ideas, vocabulary, & questions when we departed for the professor's house. words like stratosphere and polar caps were pulled to the forefront of our brains. we wanted a level intellectual playing field upon our future discussion with the professor. we wanted to at least sound smart if not precocious.

"excellent point, ian" i would say matter-of-factly upon our first view of the fourth planet from the sun. "mars is named after the god of War. and ben, excellent conclusion that mars has a mass of 6.4219e23 kg. i think you may be accurate."

brainstorming only lasted for seconds. instead we shed our planet-primed brain cells to led zeppelin as we cruised down mc cormick- ian air drumming the whole-lotta-love rhythm solo and ben rapping on the steering wheel between gear shifts.

the professor received us in his backyard. the telescope was propped facing east and we each observed mars under five different magnifications and through two filters. we increased the magnification power until it could not cut through the atmosphere.

"the atmosphere causes the planet to wiggle when you observe it in the lens," the professor explained at one point. the planet did wiggle a little which caused blurry edges that made the planet look like a live specimen caught under a microscope rather than a free circulating planet viewed by a telescope. it's amazing how small we are, how tiny our galaxy is in relation to the rest of space, and how almost nonexistent our little rockin brown jetta was on the long drive home.

A million of us

intransigence: refusing to compromise or to abandon an extreme position or attitude.

elizabeth was scribbling down her mounting memories in outline form while i leafed through four years of tourist poetry & phone numbers. in 1998, amanda wrote "i love preston ray james- he is here with me now and thats why i am smiling" while others had written dylan quotes.a group of people entered the cozy tea room where she and i sat under a gigantic magnetic poetry board and they filled the corner seats and tables. the overflow sat at the end of my couch.

"so sarah, how old are you?" the ruddy cheeked, white hair man asked the girl sitting next to me.
 "sixteen," the girl replied.
"an' she got a boyfriend she is gonna marry," her mother chipped in.
the girl toyed with her necklace and mentioned that she and her boyfriend had already decided on their engagement plans.
the ruddy man gasped- in a southern fashion. "why do you want to go and do that?" he exclaimed. "you got a beautiful life ahead of you and there are a million of us out there."

elizabeth glanced over at me and i was already writing it down.

Pretty Okay

i dreamt we sat out back in the parking lot
on a cream colored couch facing ryan's old room
and you wrote me a love letter
"i like you pretty okay."