One time while I was in Chicago for work, I found the time to sneak away from my companions to write. I went to the bookstore attached to DePaul University (a sort of half-ass fulfilment of a dream I had of going there to study theatre, but instead studied somewhere affordable and in Kansas). I found a high-top seat at the bar facing the window. It was March and snow was everywhere. It was the first time it had snowed since the year before. This fact was apparently strange and was discussed by people wherever I went during the whole trip.
I fired up my tablet and wireless keyboard (my writing method of choice at the time) and began to be brilliant (hyperbole). I actually stared out the window for a while, admiring State Street, or whatever street it was and wished I was any of the people walking by. I had already wasted time browsing the store for some books that made me feel like a writer (A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and A Room of One’s Own). I bought a coffee and opened my anthology of Graveyard Poetry and felt pretty damn intellectual. I read just enough Elizabeth Carter that I felt like I wanted to copy her (we’ll call it paying tribute) and set my fingers to the task of creating something new, but exceptionally Gothic. I didn’t get very far. I finally remembered to look at my phone (forgetting to look at my phone isn’t something I do, so good job, Chicago) and there were texts saying things like “We’re in the hotel lobby, having drinks,” and “We’re ready to go get dinner.” I had to leave without writing much, but without the feeling of failure that usually follows an unsuccessful writing session. My goal was spiritual, rather than task-oriented. Walking back to the Palmer House (the company paid for the room), I felt like I belonged. My feet knew where they were going and I was able to soak in the surroundings while I worked out the poem I was writing in my head. Of course, when I got back to the Hotel, my co-travellers whooshed me away for dinner and drinks. The poem fizzled in my brain and by the next day, it was going nowhere, so I moved on to other things.
This Chicago trip, as both of my previous Chicago trips, was not a vacation. I was there for a conference with my boss and a colleague. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to be there and had a great time. However, it is hard to really keep the writer juices flowing in between sessions and then being required to eat every meal with people, and then having planned excursions every evening. I guess, the problem is I am quickly reminded that I am not as much of a writer as I like to think I am. I am not Elizabeth Carter or Safiya Sinclair (whose reading I attended while in Chicago that week and whose lyrical prowess and talent escapes description). I am just a guy who sneaks away and tries to write in half-hour spurts.
On day two, I skipped one of the sessions and went to some cafe (it’s a chain, but I forget what it was) and got another seat at a bar, overlooking the snowy sidewalk. I was much more productive this time, but still, it wasn’t long before I had to get back. The third and final time I tried to write was later that night. I took a notebook down to Miller’s Pub. It was after midnight, and I was already drunk. I do not have the Hemingway Pulse; the ability to pump blood into the necessary organs to be creative while drunk as fuck. It was after two when I stopped drinking and very little was written aside from scribbles about George Dickel, my father, and my being a failure.
After the trip was over, I missed Chicago as if I had been born and raised there. I almost immediately stopped trying to “find the time” to write. There is something toxic about my house and every place I have lived before now that prevents me from writing at home. Coffee shops in Chanute, Kansas are not open late and the bars here accommodate rowdiness and pool tournaments and are not very conducive to writing. These are just excuses, but in Chicago it is not a problem. A few years later, my friend and I took a trip to Chicago with the sole purpose of writing, haunting the bookstores and cafes of Wicker Park and any place that sold cortados downtown. It wasn’t a working vacation this time, but I did actually work the whole time. It was just the kind of work that feels energising, exciting, holy.
What is it about Chicago, or any big city, that inspires people like me? Frank Sinatra sang about Chicago. It is the home of the Cubs, all the stuff good crime cinema is made of, and the best pizza (Pizano’s) and sandwich in the world (dipped, with hot peppers). It is the backdrop of so many books, movies, and plays. Maybe this is why I feel “artistic” in Chicago, whatever that means. It could just be a kind of romance that comes from growing up in a small rural town and reading books like High Fidelity and The Jungle while everyone else played football, and we all agreed that I simply did not belong. I don’t know that I belong in Chicago, either, but I really did like writing there.
DoubleSpeak 