Chicago

Good things come to those who wait, I guess. This was my favorite city I have visited so far. It is special.  

​We arrived in the Gold Coast in Chicago. The Thompson is perfectly positioned at the edge of a residential area at the end of the Magnificent Mile.

Flirtatious window displays twinkle just around the corner from serious, disesteeming brownstones that turn their gazes through oak leaves to Lake Michigan.

​We explored the downtown area for four days, absorbing the rich history and art of this place.

From the iconic architecture to a 19th century baseball team
​pitching ball in Lincoln park, the city’s confidence in itself is infatuating.

This city is a City. We rode up to the 95th floor in the Chicago Park District for a cocktail that costs more than a plate of dinner. As the sun sinks, the buildings transform themselves into incandescent cliffs of steel and glass from which we can see way down into the shadowed chasms of the noisy streets.

​These streets are where we found food we will remember. We savored the bites and found ourselves pulled back again and again to places like The Purple Pig where for two different nights we bellied up to the bar for food and libations. There we made momentary friendships with a mother and daughter from Mumbai and couple from Chatanooga. There was the Lux Bar just across the street from our hotel, were we also chatted and walked and sipped and savored Chicago.

The art was my interest. Wolfgang Butress’ sculpture Lucent is 14 feet in diameter and represents the 3,106 easily visible stars from  the Northern Hemisphere. The half-sphere is reflected between water and mirror-polished steel.

We see ourselves in the art that we admire, literally sometimes, like in Cloud Gate. And...

I see myself in the shadow and light that Monet in On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt.

I see myself in the distressed and tired eyes of Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait.

I see who I want to become as an artist in the pen strokes of Alberto Giametti’s Diego Seated in the Studio

I see who I am in the creamy brushstrokes in the Shoe Shop painted by Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones.

I see my front porch as the perfect subject of a painting because of Yellow House 2 by Alex Katz.

And I see my girlhood naughtiness in Stamford after Brunch by John Currin.

The iO theater and Second City are the home of the art of improv and comedy. The Improvised Shakespeare Company was our favorite. These players on the stage weaved iambic pentameter quips into several improvisational acts over the course of an hour. Second City was high energy and high production. And, we now know - in our bones - that there are few things more life-affirming than a belly laugh and a beer.

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So on our last day, smitten with a city so alive, I sat in Mariano Plaza and painted for hours as Adam slept on the 5th floor of a stylish hotel and the sun wrapped around the city like a blanket nestling me with a knowing that we will be back so many more times.