Chi Town Part I

Windy city, but so warm it is tonight! I am sitting in a giant concrete box, unfinished walls are torn, half painted and revealing their electric veins.  The florescent lights are humming soft and lightly, sounding a tink with each subtle blink.   We rode down the service elevator for scraps of wood to paint. My attention remained on the vanishing feeling as we watched the shaft lengthen above the chain-link ceiling.  The doors stuck, delaying our ascension, not terribly confidence inducing, but I’m assured there are only 3 short flights below.  Seated and blogging safely upstairs occasionally a siren wails, half as often as the L rattles the rail racing by a nearby window.   I have always taken comfort in the sound of a distant train, the wheels scraping along the metal rails and vibrating the glass of the buildings like the wake of a speedboat. There it is again! I look up each time but my view is sadly blocked by another mountain of stacked living and selling. We make our way through the grid-like maze of blocked controlled chaos, each street fanning to the right like a flashlight through the dark as we whizz past city block after city block after continuous monotonous city block. People above people below people, cars decorating every inch of dirty curb, bicyclists obliviously careening their paths beside us, man on machine by man in machines- the closeness of tragedy unsettles me and I turn my eyes up- the gleam of the topsides of buildings sparkle inspiringly above, a somewhat misleading indication of life below in the Chicago city streets.  “762 ROAD DEATHS THIS YEAR” Flashed on light signs entering the downtown area.

Veronika and Jeremy primed the pieces of wood we found discarded downstairs and back in the studio spray paint cans are being prepared for expulsion.  The studio space doesn’t have the intense Asheville creative flow power, but the light is good and Jeremy’s art is stacked everywhere. With some planning and artistic output this place will reflect his and his partner, Justin Pauly's themes.  From what I’ve encountered of his work I find him to be abstract, contrasting and intuitive.   Unlikely characters connect in a cosmic threading into reality like the golden OM patterned background underneath an octopus wrapped in and around a human skull that I am faced with now.

The artwork of Jeremy Palumbo

Veronika is excited to learn the art of spray, Jeremy itching to complete his project due tomorrow of a gothic chick- the commissioners ex girlfriend depicted in an angelic manner in a flattering condition, and I type away into the night- our creative forces combusting against and accelerating beside one another.

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From Massachusetts one night before….

Gung-Ho, ready to go, wiped the bittersweet tears from my eyes as I would need to input google maps to lead us out of the town I’ve left weeping many a time.  The emotional stirring and stagnation left a heaviness in my heart and on my eyelids, and we were not out of the state yet when we pulled over to snooze.   I set the alarm for 5, an ambitious move I know, and “dismiss” was selected at the hour of truth and waking…. And going back to sleep.   I would toss every 15 minutes with nagging piriformis pain and leg numbness.  Veronika slumbered, curled up under her coat in the drivers seat noiseless and motionless.  At 730 we unfolded in our seats and just got moving.  Our travel time from Massachusetts promised a solid 14 hour drive that was bound to put us in Chi Town at ten PM.  Recalibrating directions from updated locations as we grew near revealed we would need to be more conscious of our time spent getting gas, washing up and feeding, as our ETA ballooned far past ten PM and our shoulders sunk at the notion of 90 extra seated and boxed in minutes.  However, a miracle in West Indiana we had not expected or accounted for! We rolled into the next time zone and an hour suddenly appeared!  Our hearts raced and we sing songed many cheerful “we made it safely to our next city and we’re gonna have a blast while we’re here now let us the fuck out!” songs.  Emerging from the bridge the vastness of the city’s stretch amazed us.  Chicago is big. Huge. Outdoes Boston and New York by a long shot.  It feels loomier, older, dirtier.  It could be the flat geographical positioning that reveals the city’s distant edges giving its appearance of enormity, a sprawl of public display, privacy evicted. Yet you are alone.  In a sea of millions, no one gives a shit. You are invisible. However, our smile to smile back ratio is vastly greater than that of Ohio.  We wondered which cities were warmer, considering we come (now) from Asheville where people not only smile but connect, recognize you on a deep level or at the very least acknowledge you. Cleveland left something to be desired, and we would go nowhere near Toledo.  We stopped at a taco bell for bean hard shell tacos.  

Veronika charging up for the road

We giggled while saging ourselves in the parking lot. It was cold, windy and generally shitty feeling all around. There wasn’t much to revel in, the drive was long, straight and flat like Florida, but something about the road in Ohio that makes you suddenly realize you’re going 90MPH and jack the breaks. If the air is this depressing and the roads catapulting outwardly, I’d not like to encounter the law.  Especially considering our questionable cargo. 

We considered ourselves lucky and with perfect timing, the foliage in MA through upstate New York and even into the evil vortex that is Ohio, transcended the space around it.  It was a living, breathing oneness of color and design.  We swept past New York’s bright yellows and oranges, Carolina creepers painted the trunks with an upwardly spiraling green to orange then red, and the leaves exploded outwardly in gold and sienna.  Pennsylvania, the nip we traversed of its peak, was the sudden descent from bright hot vividness to warm reds.  Ohio revealed the deeper reds, mahogany and purple. Even the brown and death belonged to the beautiful canvas of fall transition.  All this as we chased the sunset west, the colors of the trees a sunset in itself, the seeping away of life from leaf and sky, drawn out for us in a melodrama of dark falling. “Death is so beautiful,” Veronika noted cooing. I had just been relieved of the responsibility of the drive and lost myself in the pages with pen, or facebook for blackberry, her observation lifted my attention and I remembered while driving wondering how the hell she could be on her phone while autumn seduced all around us, I with no choice but to watch the passing show.  I chuckle to myself and scroll on. 

14 hours takes no time at all. My theory is that long stretches of time on the road shrink.  Time isn’t linear, never feels the same. For example, we were in the RAV 4 for 24 hours (including stops and sleep time) and we have now been in Chicago 24 hours. When comparing the two sections of travel side by side, large chunks of time seem to be missing, though there’s no conversation, nap or traffic jam omitted from memory.  I may as well have been here in Chicago in the company of Veronika and her metaphysical artsy buddy for the last three weeks and I could have been holding my maid of honor bouquet beside my childhood best friend last month. 

I’m quite fond of the between city portions. Its just the two of us, calling the shots, getting it all out, meditating, manifesting, munching, smoking, saging, singing, sitting quietly, in reverence, regarding the other politely, but spending time within; reflecting.  Sometimes, in our silences, one will offer a link of thought worth sharing, or in need of speculation, expansion or validation.  We are not shy of the truth, if we disagree it makes no difference, no judgment is made; always acceptance and respect.  It is our safe bubble amidst an occasionally mean world.  We have encountered the loftiest of kindnesses and the depths of unconscious and uncalled for attacks.

Veronika about to drop some ink and splay!

I took a break from writing to snap some pictures of Veronika and Jeremy working on their board.  She was dropping ink in generous globs around a circular pattern she’d stenciled earlier. Jeremy had been teaching her technique all night as I heard from the corner of my ear, and is now showing her how to puff properly to create a splayed fanning of paint outwardly from the center. I giggled uncontrollably, one of the shots made it look like she was trying to suck on something tiny.  Conversations always turn penile with us, most notably so at three AM.  I returned to the lap top that can’t be unplugged, lest you lose everything you’ve been working on the last 5 hours.  I collected their things for them at 5am to help expedite the home-to-sleep process.  Their creative energy was casually rolling to a stop but I’d passed out in my chair and knew I was on the inevitable downward spiral to total bitchiness. 

Jeremy lives with three roommates, who are all welcoming, on a range of “we’re not bothering her at all, perhaps she’ll grow to like us even” to “I missed you SO much while I was gone today!” They are artistic, one hoops even, and Jeremy is a lightworker.  Sydney gave me a collapsible hula hoop! Just handed it over because I said I loved it.   She also let Veronika pick one from the pile. I feel more welcome in Chicago….

Hippy Happiness

Spontaneous meditation broke out, each of us with a crystal to the third eye.  Our experiences, though separate, were intensified by the others’. Later, Jeremy confides in me his visions of celestial beings and grid like visuals.  For some reason he felt I was a safe person to confide in and I opened up to him about the lights I see and the things I experienced as a child.  When two people meet who’ve had a similar experience… Its like you were both abducted by aliens but you have an incredible time while on the ship and you are taught in an instant how to be happy all the time. You return home and excitedly report what you saw, felt and now know. At a certain point you realize your story is not being taken well.  Resistance has spread across your loved one’s face and it is clear immediately they will not accept your experience as truth. It is not possible! Outside the safety zone of what is seen, felt, smelled tangibly on earth is the great Unknown. Like hearing for the first time the world is round after a lifetime of believing it is flat.  It will either rock your very existence to the core challenging everything you thought you knew to be fact or well you kind of shutdown your imagination and deny anything like that could ever happen, it isn’t true and “ill just stick to my blissful ignorance, thank you very much.”

Imagine the heartbreak of seeing the darknesses in all the lives of your loved ones, knowing it’s so simple to have everything you want.  But its not allowed.  You can't force people to heal.  That’s the special part of being human: Free Will.  We can choose to heal or to not.  Veronika and I plant seeds, and if they take root we water them.  If they don’t, the soil wasn’t ready.

When I meet people like Jeremy, it is a reminder I'm on the right path and that I'm not alone.  It’s the comfort of “coming home” I felt when I met Veronika and the other hostel kids.