Sweet home (again), Chicago

It seems just a little bit arrogant to reclaim something that never belonged to you in the first place, but it's one of the perks of getting older, tweaking history a bit. When I moved to Chicago 34 years ago, I never thought of it as my city. My adopted city maybe, but not really mine. You can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can never take the Brooklyn out of the girl. 

I moved here for a whole host of questionable reasons, but the Chicago lakefront in the summer certainly helped tipped the scale. Though I grew up just a stone's thrown from the beach at Coney Island, I had never experienced the magic of sand abutting concrete thoroughfares, of venturing into a bustling urban landscape clad in flip flops and carrying a towel. Not north of the Mason-Dixon line, anyway. Summertime in Chicago -- that most odd sensation of being on vacation without going anywhere. 

Today was the day I had envisioned when I decided to move back to the city, a quarter century after fleeing to suburbia. Sunshine, blue sky, and a lake so crystalline you're almost tempted to dive in even though you know you'd freeze your toes off, for starters. It's taken my skittish boxer, Eli, a good ten days to be willing to venture more than a block or two from our new digs, but today he was up for a walk to Grant Park, and the lake. Sunshine after a long winter is infectious, and it had gotten to him, just as it had gotten to me. He marched on without complaint, nonchalant as he accepted the occasional compliment, sure he was headed somewhere good. 

I narrated the city I used to know as we walked. The grassy expanse over there -- where the guys used to play 16 inch softball. The ferris wheel at Navy Pier in the distance, a place that always looks so much better from afar. My favorite skyline view (it only just occurred to me we had settled on the wrong side of it); the stepladder of buildings south of the Loop, looking like a two-dimensional painting if you're lucky enough to gaze at it from a sailboat on the lake. It's taken on a few additions these days, modern glass towers in odd geometric shapes, but still, the steadfast rectangles take my breath away. 

I used to walk these same paths when I worked nearby, but somehow it feels different now. I'm not rushing to get back somewhere, and I can come back if I want, first thing in the morning. It feels, in some weird way, as if it belongs to me now, as if this piece of the city by the lake is finally mine. 

Sue is back. So announced the banner strung across the pillars of the venerable old Field Museum. Sue, the T-rex who has called Chicago home since the turn of the millennium, even though I'd venture to say she was not born here either. Sue has undergone a few nips and tucks, and is back, just better and in a new hall. 

I may be a little worse for the wear than Sue, but let's face it, she has a team and I don't. No matter though. It's good to see us both back home.