Being There

Between ter­mi­nals at O’Hare

For the sec­ond year run­ning, I’m out of the coun­try for Christ­mas. Last year I was in Paris, eat­ing really good Indian food, choco­late, and mac­arons. It was the first time I’d skipped the fes­tiv­i­ties, and I really enjoyed it. Although it was a bit weird to phone home and hear my fam­ily hav­ing Christ­mas din­ner with­out me, the com­plete un-craziness of hang­ing out in the empty city more than made up for it. While every­one else was stressed out about presents and cook­ing, I was free to explore unfettered.

Teenagers at the Cheese­cake Factory.

This time I’m in Chicago, and I’ve con­vinced my father to come. He runs a pub, and works almost every day. I’ve been work­ing on get­ting him to go on a vaca­tion for a long time. The last time we went on vaca­tion together was, well, a long time ago. He always says that all he is going to do is sleep. I never beleive it; he’s actu­ally a pretty ener­getic guy, and besides a pen­chant for nap­ping, he’s restless.

My father’s par­ents met in Chicago. My grand­mother is from Wis­con­sin, and was a singer here when she met my grand­fa­ther, a PhD. stu­dent. My mis­sion, on Christ­mas, is to visit all their old haunts. One of my favorite things about trav­el­ing is get­ting lost, in a directed sort of way. I’m look­ing for­ward to explor­ing the places where my grand­par­ents were young in a youth­ful city.

Every­one loves The Bean!

I feel con­flicted about the United States. Its a place that’s easy to love. Every­thing is BIG here. Amer­i­cas don’t really do nuance.  We passed a McDon­alds today that took up a whole city block. Like the other Amer­i­can cities that I’ve vis­ited, Chicago has an air of vibrancy and pos­si­bil­ity to it, even in the most dif­fi­cult vio­lent and impov­er­ished places. The unabashed enthu­si­asm of peo­ple here is enthralling. It’s infec­tive. They don’t apol­o­gize for any­thing. Peo­ple here really believe that is is the best place in the world to live. They’re Amer­i­can, and they like it that way.

It is also a ter­ri­fy­ing place. The oppres­sion and exploita­tion of minori­ties, even in sup­pos­edly enlight­ened states like Illi­nois (they have a Free­dom Museum on the main strip) really leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Although Chicago and Toronto are of roughly the same age, size, and regional impor­tance there is not the same amaz­ing mul­ti­cul­tural mix­ture here. My grand­mother tells sto­ries about grow­ing up Ger­man in Wis­con­sin, where every­one had to learn Eng­lish, regard­less of being Pol­ish, or Ukrain­ian, or Aus­trian. You checked your alle­giances at the door. She can still speak Ger­man. I can’t. I think that the beauty of the United States is in its new­ness. It’s too bad the price is hav­ing to give up your past.