chicagodads

Something kind of funny about living in Chicago is that it teaches you the fine art of impatience and of never being satisfied - least of all with our own impatience.

We are supposedly just a big town, right? A collection of much smaller neighborhoods. But we can’t seem to slow down for anything. And, me, I’m just a slow-down type of guy. So I loves me some places that allow the privilege of doing just that. The coffee shop, the library, the book store. Those are urban spaces wherein we are invited to make space for at least mulling, if not contemplating or meditating.

Chicago, wonderful city that it is, has only pockets of green space. And I appreciate the fact that we have it. But they’re too few and too far between. And a bit too small.

The paradox is, of course, that in order to find what you are looking for, you need to look deeper, to slow down to such a state that the little that is there is sufficient. It becomes necessary to contemplate a small area, to envelope the limitations as a completeness.

And then, possibly, to recognize and embrace your own limitations, your own finite smallness, which can get lost in the vastness and hardness of the city.

It’s difficult but necessary to recognize the good around me and in my own backyard. Because sometimes, you know, the grass does look a whole ‘nother shade just past the fence.

But not always.

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