I grew up in a house next to the house next to the alley on the south side of a street on the northwest side of the city. Out front is a mighty tree, rich with age, and a slow growing sapling. Ugly brown vinyl siding envelopes the house. The porch is painted white, covering the textured brick that makes up four posts, two on either side of the stairs. I used to sit on the ones closer to the street when I was younger and pretend I was a gargoyle. The room upstairs at the front of the house is mine and has been since 2019.
We had just dropped my brother off at college. When we got back, my neighbor and I dragged my belongings across the hallway. I tore down my brother’s pennants and put up my posters. The trifold windows illuminated the heavy wooden desk. The stained glass window threw rainbows on the closet walls. The room & the bed & the next few years were bigger than before.
At the window on the right, I open the glass, lift the screen, pull my ratty desk chair over, swing my right leg through the frame, prop my left arm on the chair, boost my left leg through the window, then crawl until I can swoop my head out. To the right is Cicero, a major north-south street in Chicago with a constant stream of cars. I try to count the spacing between buses going in either direction – if there is a pattern, I wish to learn it. Middle aged men bike down my block. Back when the Family Fruit Market lived behind the alley, I’d see arms full of groceries for the week. Now it’s a Dollar Tree, and my mom calls the city to complain about their overflowing trash cans on the sidewalk. I always go inside feet first.
On my sixteenth birthday, I walked with my friends to the Art Institute after school. We giggled as Ava applied gloss to our puckered lips in the bathroom. The hallways expanded endlessly as we trailed through the exhibits. I was drawn to the empty Chicago stock exchange trading room off to the side. The glossy wooden floors, mesmerizing detailed ceiling, and octagonal marble posts. My brother and I had played tag in there, chasing each other in tight circles until our little legs grew tired. At that moment, I felt so old and couldn’t remember what it was like to be so small. On the train ride back that evening, I sat alone in the furthest seat of the last car watching the skyline shrink behind the ongoing tracks.
It was my last day of the summer before making the trek to college for the first time. I sat, bent over, trying to get my cat to drink some water, as he clung to the last bit of his life. My ride was out front. In the backseat, I tuned out my friends, tracing the streets and houses with my eyes. On the black brick siding of a church, white paint wrote ‘You belong here’. I wondered if they were talking to me. The lake had warmed up by now, gentle waves crashed against the concrete ledge. Blue Angels did flips in triads to prepare for the Air and Water show, creating a relentless ruckus. I had been treading water, dunking my head under intermittently, and staring at the skyline, trying to absorb it.
I have found myself withholding love for other places so as to not lose the love I have for that room, that house, that city. This is the only aspect of my life where my love is finite. My unique stubbornness is loyalty for a promise I don't remember making, and it is loudest when I feel comfort somewhere else. I know I will go back to Chicago, but I want to do so in triumphant admittance that there is another life for me there. One where I can go to real bars and rent an apartment off a different train stop. I just need my parents to keep that house, and for everything to remain exactly the way it is forever, and also for them to never die. I joke that my room should be made into an exhibit with red velvet rope blocking off its perfectly preserved state.
Only recently, though, I’ve started to wonder what kind of torture it would be to walk those streets again with age. My college returns have been bittersweet, coated in nostalgia. On a winter visit back, I took the bus to the Village Discount at Kedzie and Irving. Empty chip bags blew down the alley. Cars shot up exhaust as they turned onto my street. No blue, only gray. I walked past the magazine store I used to love going to as a kid when I would rummage through the lower shelves. At the bus stop, I listened to wooden drum sticks strike plastic buckets turned upside down and held between thighs. The beat was quick and loud, but seeped in sadness.
On the ride back, seats were filled with high schoolers. Backpacks shoved between feet or slung on one shoulder. I used to be you. At first it’s exciting to remember my tumultuous teenage years and the stories I’ve racked up, proof of an interesting life. Then, suddenly, I’m an aging embarrassment trying to hold onto my youth. It is not enough to go back to that place and remind myself of the past, I must create something new.
Particia Herder