TIME OUT

Iconic clock, Marshall Field & Co., Chicago, IL 

I have spent the past two weeks making the conscious effort to pay attention and notice the details of my hometown. Things I would normally take for granted as part of a hazy backdrop have clarified before my eyes, their outlines solidifying, their beauty becoming ever more pronounced. Chicago is a beautiful city, one rich with history. As I walk down its streets, enjoy the complex weave of its architectural diversity, and frequent my favorite local establishments, the question occurs to me, "Are you sure you want to leave?" My answer is a definite "yes," but it is an answer heavy with mixed emotion.

Chicago is a city rich with history, including my own. Usually, history manifests itself as a network of roots that dig deep into the earth and provide you with a firm foundation. At the same time, it can also weigh you down and prevent you from moving forward on the path that calls you forth. This is precisely my predicament. I am a proud Chicagoan, born and raised, and wherever I go that pride and history will move with me. But having lived out West, I realize that I need something else, something different. To live some place where nature is visibly present, surrounding you on all sides and suggestive of something larger and greater, a place where mountains shoulder the blue expanse of sky and desert opens its vastness like a bloom, this is a place that can nourish the soul. At this time in my life, I want something more than the familiarity of Chicago; I want this.

In the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible, G-d commands Abraham, "Lekh lekha." "Leave, leave to a place that I will show you." I don't pretend that my life or move carries such cosmological consequence, but I do believe life presents many of us with a lekh lekha moment. Do we remain chained to the familiar for comfort's sake, or do we allow for the discomfort that attends a creative rupture? I have moved away from Chicago three times before--twice to Colorado, then to New Mexico and Arizona--and each time I have returned to Chicago, but my most profound growth has occurred during these Western sojourns. This time the stay will be significantly longer term. In the Tanakh, when G-d calls out to Moses, the answer Moses replies is "Hineini"--"Here I am." And so I consider the challenge before me. Can I create a life elsewhere? Am I ready to try to envision and realize something new? And for now, my best, most ready answer is Hineini. Here I am.

So, in the effort to maintain this state of conscious presence, I will continue my photo essay of Chicago, in order to appreciate its beauty and uniqueness more deliberately, and to honor it as my hometown, even as I make my way homeward-bound. Hineini.  

Dig Deep

Magnificent Tree

Laguna Beach again, at the patch of ocean front where I took that incredible photo of the Pacific Ocean. I have no idea what type of tree this is, but I was completely captivated by the immensity of its root system, so vast and extensive that not even the earth could contain it. I imagine this tree's stages of life, even though I don't know its type. I imagine that it took decades to achieve its height and to grow its root system, a slow, steady persistence through seasons of sun and drought, rain and floods, hot weather and chilly weather (or at least as cold as it gets in southern California). It must have involved an unwavering tenacity to grow and thrive, even in the midst of environmental challenge.

About 15 years ago, I lived briefly in Boulder, Colorado. Positioned right up against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Boulder draws a lot of nature-lovers and seekers. It was the perfect place for the founding of Naropa University, a Buddhist university devoted to the liberal and fine arts. I remember having a discussion with a woman about personal transformation, and she made the statement, "Real change takes time." That statement held the paradoxical magic of being both banal and profound. We live in a culture that gravitates towards quick and easy solutions in the pursuit of one-dimensional bliss. But the long, steady growth of this tree seems to counter our pop culture narrative favoring the shallow and immediate. Real change takes time. You work slowly at it, deliberately, through time and adversity, developing the necessary root system to dig deep, building the firm foundation to support the great branching-out. It takes time.