Chicago, Chicago

April 9-10, 2009

A long flight takes me from the somewhat familiar to the familiar. After an extraordinarily long wait at Customs, I am allowed back into my native country and make my way to the Chicago Transit Authority's Blue Line that conveys me into The City of the Broad Shoulders, where my feet take over and propel me to the Palmer House Hilton. I have stayed here twice before, and I am enamored of the old-style hotel, the gilded ceilings in the large lobby. In my room I make myself as home as a person can be in a hotel, laying out these essentials.

After a walk of several miles, I find a perch in Miller's Pub, where food is always good, and order a domestic meal and a domestic beer (Honker's Ale). My waiter, Matt, sees me writing in my Moleskine. "What are you writing there, a book?" Matt says. I tell him of where I have just returned from and he says he wishes he had written down notes of all his experiences when he played professional soccer in South America. I ask him how he went from professional soccer to waiting tables; he points to his head and says, "brain tumor."

Of course.

I learn that he is from San Diego and wants to each English overseas, that he loves to travel and decided when he "was sick" not to spend his life not doing what he doesn't like. It is a good conversation, and it fits in well with conversations I had with both Sharon and two elderly women at the Windsor Hotel--a good cast of characters.

The remainder of my stay in Chicago itself is somewhat lazy, and I find that while wondering without a plan in London and Brussels was fine, I want a plan here. Perhaps it is fatigue, both physical and mental; perhaps my familiarity with the city edges out any strong excitement. When I leave, I am pleased to be headed home, and in my long layover in Dallas-Forth Worth airport I think back to the last 2 weeks, to what I have seen and the people I have met. And when I remember the people, I see a connection of theme: the elderly women who had breakfast with me at the Windsor House are probably still planning further travels in their carefree style. Sharon, so energetic and seemingly positive, must be performing somewhere; and Matt, the soccer player turned waiter and planning to teach, is still saving his money so that he can afford to live overseas.

I do not associate well with many people, but I found these 4 and thoroughly enjoyed hearing their stories. Then, just days after getting home, I ride my bike through wind and rain and am overtaken by a man about my age, a man who pulls alongside and starts talking. We speak of our occupations, and he tells me about his brain tumor, about still recovering from his treatments. He says his goal is to work at finding ways to connect people--not connect with them, rally, but to somehow attach them to other people. The rain and wind bother him less than they do me, and when I turn back toward home, now riding into the wind and rain, he smiles happily and tells me he has many miles to go.