Be Yourself

8/9/08 Life in Chicago: Week 1

The other day I was walking down Milwaukee Ave, a major thoroughfare of my new neighborhood Wicker Park. I was late for a Millenium Park concert because I didn’t have cash for the ‘L.’ Not to mention… about an hour earlier I had been fully discombobulated when I was rear-ended by an absent-minded driver. In this frazzled state I had no time for anything but my stress. I took some deep breaths to collect myself and constructed a way out of my frenzy. The plan was to go to the Seven-Eleven near the ‘L,’ purchase a bottle of wine for the concert and get change for the train. I was on a mission. And of course, just at the moment of clarity I walked by the neighborhood hippie. Standing with her guitar, dreads, and raggedly self-sewn clothing, she kindly looked me in the eye and asked, “Can I play a song for you?” Any other time I may have said yes. But, not now, not when I was running late and a little fed up with the city. So, I gave an appreciative nod and said, “Sorry, but I’m running late,” expecting to walk on in my same hurried, frantic state of mind. Before I could get out of earshot from my new friend, she apologetically smiled, and in an enlightened slightly drugged tone of voice, said, “Don’t be sorry, be yourself.”

And so, that’s just what I’m doing here. Here in the city where street performers double as prophets, and bicyclists have the right of way, I’m feelin’ pretty good. It seems I am living in the neighborhood that recently got too hip for school and thus people both resent it and love it. I went to a gallery in Pilsen with my friend last night. The gallery owner, who prefers living in the rough artsy part of town, smirked at me when I said I was living in Wicker Park. It is funny moving into a place full of stereotypes and “locals” knowing that someday I, too, might feel like “Wicker Park just isn’t what it used to be,” as a kind woman recently let me know at a dinner party. But for now it is good for my naïve soul. Sure, there is a bit of an overtly obvious Bobo (bourgeois bohemian) flare by day and an anything goes party vibe at night. But, the fact that the hipsters, the hippies, and the frat guys can all get down here has served to make me feel all the more secure in my own unlabeled personhood. I don’t feel like I have to convert to an only organic, local, vegan diet (though if I want to, it is here) and wear only Chuck Taylors. And those that I have met who do ascribe to that lifestyle have given me nothing but warmth.

In fact, on the whole, I would say Chicagoans are very nice people. Only once did I feel a bit of contempt. It happened today when I was biking down Division. A lovely girl leaned out of the passenger window as her car drove by me and yelled “BBBIIITTTCCCHHH!!!” I was a bit startled, and even got a little choked up, wanting to say sorry despite knowing I had done nothing wrong. But then I remembered my prophet guitarist and sighed a mantra of “don’t be sorry, be yourself.” I biked on, found the yard sale I was looking for and bought a movie for two dollars. They didn’t have the dresser that I actually needed, but I wasn’t going to go through verbal abuse to get to this yard sale and buy nothing. And so the settling in continues. This week has had its ups and downs, as every week has, but overall I think Chicago might fit.