choosing Texas
i admit that i like the ella langley song about losing her lover to Texas. it’s been slipping through on my playlists, and her reminder about Abilene and Amarillo kept me from completely falling in love with Chicago. i spent the past 13 days desperately searching for my spirit in the streets of downtown Chicago. my steps exceeded 15k nearly every day as i wandered up and down Randolph or Halstead. i wrote postcards and cried inside La Colombe. i also cried when i finally saw Michael Jordan’s bronze statue, dunking in the middle of the entrance of United Spirit Arena. i cried at Lucy Parson’s very humble grave. someone had left her a fresh orange.
the past 7 months have been a quiet struggle. Saturn taught me years ago that i have to keep to my routine, to follow a ritual, in order to prevent myself from collapsing in grief. so no how matter how internally devastated i felt, or how hollow or anxious, i would wake up and meet the demands of my day. arriving in Chicago was a relief, to be far from the energy of what i was living in. i left my ghosts in Texas and occupied a small dorm on the UIC campus, with a broken A/C and a single bedsheet. my friend bought me some big bottles of San Pelligrino and they kept me hydrated through the week. i learned about desert poetics, taco literacy, and ate incredibly delicious Puerto Rican food in Humboldt Park. somehow i also wrote several poems, had amazing conversations with a 4.5 year old Libra who reminded me that curiosity is cultivated and should be valued, and that he understands Marx better than a Chicano reading Stalin. it rained a lot while i was in Chicago, making everything seem much more romantic. i saw old friends and hung out in bars. i sat on the beach with a new one, listening to the water and people nearby. and each day, without realizing, that old cowboy found their way back. but he was different too. grief changes you.
on a day we finished our work early, i walked to have tea at a Palestinian owned cafe, and as i made my way to a museum, ran into a ghost at a crosswalk. i don’t know if the ghost recognized me, but i was so surprised i decided to skip the exhibitions and stay close to the water. i made friends at the Egyptian restaurant i ate dinner at multiple times. then i watched a football match at a college bar with a friend, drinking prosecco and learning about her family. love was in the everyday, in the details. and i felt something come back online as i sipped a South African Brut at a wine bar in Printer’s Row with an old friend. we got drunk and spoke openly of how much we loved one another, and loved the people we met at our time together in Italy. and it was romantic, but not in a way that will make sense to anyone who has not experienced something like this. nothing of it was about sex. it rained so beautifully, and the light was perfect from the street lamps, and we each understood that love, in its best and queerest form, is simply a presence and being seen and felt. i forget entirely, for the first time in 7 months, how sad i was and have been.
today another friend expressed that it was surprising that i still could show up the way i do and immerse myself in love, despite the painful experiences i have had with romantic partners. that love still could be possible. but is that not the divine? to continue to seek and exalt the beloved even if such a thing cannot be known?
someone told me earlier in the week i should stay in Chicago longer. they knew a place i could rent if i wanted. it was tempting. i already felt very comfortable in the city. but Texas waited for me, promising me hotter weather. and i am a faithful lover.
i came back.
Lake Michigan