A Sense of Well-Being

Lately I’ve been asking myself: Whatever happened to Chicago Jane?

I lived in Chicago from 1982 to 2020. Thirty-eight years!

When I first moved there I had to make peace with the piles of litter on the streets, with drunks sleeping (at first I thought they were dead) in doorways or crumpled up on the sidewalk, with all the concrete and pollution-faded facades on buildings. There was very little grass—even in parks. It had been trampled and ground away. Everywhere was gray or dirt brown. At times, even the sky was colorless, clouded over or in some way obscured. I had to get used to living with less light, less sun, less nature.

I think that’s why I loved cycling so much—it was a chance to get away and see things outside of the city.

Don’t get me wrong: I loved living in a culturally vibrant and diverse place. Chicago is a great place for art of all sorts. Just a bus ride away was landmark museums full of art, science, and all sorts of curiosities. I certainly made use of FREE days to visit them as well as the Lincoln Park Zoo open to the public. And, of course, the lakefront was always free—the endless views of water stretching north, south, and east to the edge of the horizon. It was my go-to space for letting my mind wander and to reconnect with the natural world.

Nevertheless, how did I survive? I now wonder.

Here in Michigan I am outdoors EVERY DAY. Even yesterday in the rain, running back and forth to my daughter’s house, only a deck and sliding door away. As I write this I am able to look out the front door window and see the evergreens with their spire of branches reaching up toward the heavens. I can hear birds awaking in the treetops. Light slowly drives away the gray—okay it’s not quite sunny, but I can see the sky. More than anything I feel connected to the earth.

Chicago Jane does miss her friends and the chaos of the city, the splashes of color especially during the holidays that lit up the sidewalks and windows, the lake. Chicago is still in my head, Uptown my neighborhood is in my veins, my community is still in my heart—but the peace I wake up to every day here in Michigan in my little Tiny House cannot be denied. I drink tea and watch the sun rise.