Paying Attention to the Details

These days, life has just been so busy, and the weeks have flown by. Very often, I find myself caught up in lists of things to do, sensing that the blue sky and the magnificent fluff of clouds hovering miraculously overhead are beautiful, but not taking the time to stop and appreciate them. And yet, life is in the details; it is the sweet collective of little things that comprise the symphony that we love so much. And so, this morning, wanting to visit the Desert Botanical Garden and take in this year's Day of the Dead celebration, I took a moment to capture this monarch butterfly delicately grazing on a colorful feast of lantana blooms. Take time to enjoy the day.

Gesture

Rough week.  Ever get the undeniable feeling that the universe is sending you a message?  Oh well, it'll just make us stronger.  Have a wonderful, restful weekend, and here is to better weeks to come.

In Memory

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dirge Without Music

The West is the Best

Palo verde tree, near Black Canyon, AZ

I took this photograph several years ago, on a return trip to Phoenix from New Mexico. If memory serves me correctly, this is a palo verde tree, which usually has green bark spanning the length of its trunk, especially when it is young, although sometimes the green diminishes as the tree ages and grows. In the spring, it bears a multitude of yellow blooms. This photograph was taken just outside of Black Canyon, where the saguaro's habitat begins. So, with this photograph we are at the doorstep of my part of Arizona.

The stillness of the desert is stunning. There is a sense of languishing in the desert, for those too used to the frenetic pace of urban life and the verdant scenery of the East, and a sense of calm and peace, for those of us ready to apprehend its austere beauty. And there is distance, great expanses of parched red earth beneath a vast arid sea of blue sky. This is where journeys proceed, and this is where mine will begin again.

I love my hometown of Chicago, but returning to it never felt right. It was my past: been there, done that. So much of it involved my retracing old steps. It is truly a great city, but it was also the wrong choice for me, an uncreative choice because I was returning to what I already knew. And while I also know Phoenix now, there is just so much out West that I have yet to see, too much beauty that remains for me to enjoy for the first time. Adventure begins when you cross the boundary from what you know into the unknown. So now I am about to take that first step, beginning the process of crossing over...

Photographs will be taken of my journey back out West and posted once I get settled. This blog will continue. Something needs to document the beauty I continue to encounter. I look forward to beginning, and documenting, my journey, and I hope you will enjoy bearing witness to it. "You come too."

Moving On

Nature boardwalk, Lincoln Park, Chicago, IL

How do you encapsulate a city? How do you encapsulate a life spent in a city? How can you fully capture all of the unique and nuanced ways you have experienced living in your hometown? You can't. You simply take what photos you can, communicate what you can, and move on, trusting in your own good memory. You move on, trusting that what you lived for so long will continue to live in your heart, even after you have moved on. And it's all about moving on, it's all about movement.

Above is the southern stretch of Lincoln Park, near the Farm in the Zoo. Back in the day, during my years completing my undergraduate studies, when I rented my first apartment, I used to take long walks from the area of Clark Street and Belden through Lincoln Park and down this path along the pond, heading towards the Gold Coast area and downtown Chicago. Many times, Michigan Avenue would serve as the main artery for my walks, and so I would take it south into the Loop and then back north to Lincoln Park, where I would eventually head home. Back then, these walks served to reacquaint me with downtown Chicago, as I didn't go there often during my teenage years, and appreciate the beauty of my hometown and its wealth of retail, cultural, and nightlife options. As you can imagine, completing a college degree gets stressful, and so I took many such walks to explore my city. I think it was the first time that I truly fell in love with my hometown. Back then, this path along the pond was simple concrete pavement; today, it is a nature boardwalk, made to showcase the reintroduction of prairie plants to the park. Things change and life moves on.

How do you encapsulate a life spent in a city? You can't. You continue to move on, keeping what you can, such as photographs, and trusting in your good memory. I am excited about moving back to the Southwest, and I look forward to enjoying desert beauty again, and I also look forward to the addition of new content to this blog, but part of me will always love Chicago. Part of me will always be taking this walk through Lincoln Park, with the John Hancock Center looming high in the sky in the distance, down Michigan Avenue and around the Loop. Part of me will always be walking back north on Michigan Avenue, greeted by the white-clad Wrigley Building, heading back to Lincoln Park. Part of me will always be on a meandering path, and heading home.

Looking north on Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL

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.