Freezing wind throughout skyscrapers

I arise like a multi-shells turtle from Union Station and briefly glance at Chicago skyscrapers hanging above the river, curved on Lake Michigan shores. The sky is grey, but it isn’t cold… Or have I become cold proof? Despite February coming, the river lazily runs without a freeze, sidewalks don’t remember any snow.

I meet my friend Morgen, first met four years ago in Ireland as we were both following a summer program in the National Theater School of Ireland. That encounter matches the beginning of this new version of myself. Four years already. Only four years… We meet like we have never parted, like we didn’t meet only once a year. And we are able to tell who we’ve become, how we are the same and yet older.

Today, I discover a new Morgen. I only know her when she travels to Ireland like a pilgrimage to her ancestors. Today, she shares her America by teaching me how to play billiard for my first step. I am far from her almost professional style but I am having fun, but I feel like I belong to this strange land like another country, so different from places I have been driving through for months. Chicago is so far from Alaska of course, but also from anything I have known in Idaho, closer though. You couldn’t picture eating moose nor elk in such a place. Here, you enjoy some sushis and call Uber to get back home.

The next day is dedicated to our own and personal activities until the night, we go the St Olaf choir concert – whose singers are, for some, Morgen’s mum’s students – at the Fourth Presbyterian Church. I am utterly moved. Some songs are religious, others not. Symphonies are international, universal; they talk about faith, they talk about struggle and then they stop talking. They are high pitch sent towards the sky in order to pierce you, in order to full your soul beyond words, to color your heart beyond yourself. I am upside down due to such a beauty.

Then, our weekend is meant to wander in Chicago. Morgen follows her own welcome notes and advice to travel me from one street to another, to give me the true Chicago taste. Thus, our first destination is Portillo’s Restaurant. Famous institution in town, offering Chicago style food. Italian sandwich. Hot dog. On red and white squares tablecloth. In a decor from 1893 World Fair. Our digestive walk leads us to Lake Michigan banks, so clear, so white, so blue, so grey. So big it looks like the ocean. Whose other shores might bring you to Canada. But the one we are standing on looks at a blue vision of the skyline and gives us a work in progress shelter. Then we follow the impatient crowd path and gaze at the stars through the magic bean gate. Night is already coming, shops lights shine in parallel streets and I let the L* iron sound winding throughout the city cradling me.

I am singing a thousand lights, I throb, I shine. Everything is completely alright.

Saturday night, we pay tribute to our first land and celebrate our reunion in an Irish Pub, before reaching back our American present with country music. We wanted to pay a visit to Al Capone at Green Mill Lounge, softened by jazz trumpets, but the wind stopped our move. Another night. In another life.

And to perfectly improve my experience in the US, I am lucky enough to be around during the Superbowl! Traditional American time, even if this year, to set a precedent, the Patriots lost their crown for the rest of the country biggest pleasure. New England – my next stop – is grieving but Kansas City Chiefs are celebrating. They are wining for the first time in fifty years. I am watching this from a baby skyscraper around the lake. Shy, I listen to the national anthem with no hat on my heart; indifferent, I look at the crazy expensive commercials; quite disappointed, I attend the traditional half time show, today performed by J-LO and Shakira.

My last full day in Chicago is dedicated to my lonely wandering. I start on the Northern shores of the lake; leaving from Uptown, following dead trees cemeteries to finally reach Downtown hazy buildings in the far, landed on a blue water, as blue as the sky, shining in the cold winter sun.

Then, I run another stream in downtown skyscrapers shadow. Riding the river, I listen to the famous architecture tour that my cheesy memory instantly forgets. Too many informations too quickly. I am talked about Chicago (or close)’s president. Lincoln. Obama. Reagan. Grant. One oath in a red brick building nearby the Opera. I am taught about the highest buildings. The oldest. The largest. I am told the giant post’s story. I am explained all those who owe the sky above giant buildings so nobody shadows their balcony, creating stupid conflicts between those who owe stones and others who owe air.

Frozen by the wind, tired by the cold, I finish my visit in the Loop, The L* like Chicagoans call it. I gaze at the skyscrapers shining one by one, immobile in the storm, I enjoy the view leading me to Morgen’s. I glimpse at invisible life on summer balcony, only neighbored by the subway sound. And I end my day listening to Chicago movie songs, forever memory of my first steps in my Theater School.

And already, my last day in the Midwest! I visit the Irish Heritage Center since Chicago is one of the biggest US Irish communities. They even dye the river in green for St Paddy’s day! I glance at the Green Mill instead of having spent my Saturday night there, I walk North Broadway. Loud work in progress. I wander in Wrigley Village, around the famous Cubs baseball stadium. I am filling my wait for the traditional Deep Dish Pizza at Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria to celebrate my stay with Morgen. We eat and drink for three days. I am full until our next reunion wherever on Earth.

I leave Morgen a bit early for my upcoming train but I need my special farewell with a city before going, I like to wander in the known streets one last time in order to understand them better, in order to drown them better in my memories. Thus, despite the freezing wind of the day, despite my 30 pounds backpack, I get a last loop in the city lights.

I wouldn’t utterly know what I felt here. I got lost in the urban crowd and I wasn’t really me anymore, I became Chicago without knowing who she truly is.
Yet, I think about my friend who, in front of my American cities postcards, said they were all the same. Yet, she has never walked throughout because each of them wanders differently, each of them has its own identity. San Francisco goes up and down to the end of the world in a cool Pacific sun. Portland is reachable by feet and heart with its blue craft market, with its cool breweries full of books. Seattle hangs in between my summer and my winter memory, defined by its waters wherever they come from in the sun and the rain. Denver is my American Toulouse, this town of nothing like a lucky charm, this town of nothing which has everything. History layers are not deep but they colors city walls with such a unique mood. San Francisco talks about gold and Californian dream. Portland draws endless paths arrived from the East with the Oregon Trail. Seattle speaks about the end of the West, the last frontier falling in the Pacific. Denver pictures Cowboys and Natives after Cowboys and Natives because the Rockies prevented them to run one after another. Chicago, even if none of my visited districts looked like that, travels me in Prohibition and Speak Easy times, when the bloody city was at war with mafia. Maybe the touch of fantasy remains, maybe immortal thousand of lights still shine in the night…
The place makes a peculiar noise that I remember even if I have never heard it, the L sound, when it vibrates in houses, when it matches cars sound, when it throb above pedestrians, under passengers. It is moreover unbelievable to think this old piece of iron has survived American modern rush!

I wander and land at my destination, in Union Station waiting room. In a decor worthy of Anastasia’s Winter Palace. Where even the music sounds like Tchaikovsky. I truly love train stations, those rooms where people wait and meet each other, where their steps sound like another time. I love bright and old chandeliers, endless brown mahogany benches, specific to Chicago Station. In such a place, my journey finds its own jewel case. In such a place, nothing exists anymore. Only this music and this light. Only my hazy memory of Chicago.

Only the freezing bones wind, running from Lake Michigan toward the River walk, drawing some changing and majestic architectures.