On a lake

Dear everyone,

Man, am I thankful to be living, for now, in Chicago.

I went for a run at dusk today, chasing the pink light coming through my eastward windows. I kept trying to get down to the water, which is about three blocks from our apartment, but I was again and again blocked by the giant boxy beachside condominiums that must have seemed like a good idea to build forty years ago. I'd get a peek between buidings at the light blue water mirroring the streak of blue above the remnants of that pink sunset, and these two boats way out on the horizon waved their broad butter-colored sails at me each time.

Finally I emerged on the open sand between a busy city park and a synagogue that seemed to be just letting its attendees go for the evening. It's odd to be a person running by and looking when other people are so caught up in the frenzy of being themselves. I wonder if some of those people thought the same thing about me. Running gives a level of anonymity and dissociation from a place and it's people.

The boardwalk ended in the middle of the sand, not quite at the water and not really close to the playground or the synagogue--just the middle of the shore. Disinclined to run in my shoes in the sand today, I changed from run to walk at the end of the boardwalk next to a steady old lady who turned her head to look at me slowly. I peered out at the view I'd been craving---the expanse of the water laughing, presenting its openness to the sky which had been jutted by tall buildings.

After a minute I turned and felt the air shake. A phalanx of little boys, their laughter gleaming in the last pink light, was running full-on and oblivious across the boardwalk from the left. Their jeering was directed at two other little boys on the other side of the boardwalk who put up an pitiful defense and then turned tail amid the hail of beach rocks pitched by the army of their peers. They looked like they could be kin--most seemed to be Africans, with one Latino on the attackers' side who was more vocal than all the rest combined. "I got 'em! I got 'em!" He screamed over and over. I don't know what the beef was and I didn't know whether to wonder and quake or intervene on their savage play.

I decided to run home.

On the way I saw a woman standing with her pet squirrel on Loyola's campus looking out over the lake, both equally transfixed.

Goodnight for now!