I find myself piled down in front of my computer tonight, a chunk of memory from (and slight nostalgia for) Chicago. Memory of a moment of hauling my ass a few miles from my condo on my bike (in January) to go to attend a life drawing session. Short the drawing (writing some tonight took care of that craving), the nostalgia is calling forth a multitude of happenstance. The strong presence of the early winter chill fresh in my lungs and on my lips, my core warmed by the exercise but my hands frozen, the confidence of tackling something new in an unfamiliar place, and the slight fear and hesitation of it too (welcomed, with the follow-through of the act) - these things are gathered in my mind tonight. It was one one of the first times that I had a chance to play in a world so alien to me (millions of people, rough neighborhood - cheap rent for artists) and I knew no one. I was free to explore any path that I might choose, rise up or crash down, with no one local to fall on or share my story with. It was a unique freedom, and part of the promise I find in the frost of cold air entering my body.

There are small parts of the winter here like that, though not as many as I had expected. Routine is easy to find and though there is much to learn about the other fifty-nine folk here (hell, still much to learn about myself) we all share the same context. If we choose, we can walk easily with an assumption that we know something about everyone around us because, to an extent, we do.

What catches me are the glimpses of the unknown and the unexpected. The former comes most often in the setting sun - in shadows and colors I’ve not before seen here. It comes in temperature too, -79 F with a -118 F windchill tonight. The latter shows up in conversation, in the break of assumption as we grow to know those around us more completely.

It still blows my mind how simple it is to presume that the next several months will be like they are now, one month in. It hits me equally hard to know that change is expected, and in a community this isolated, this compact and protracted, interesting things will be afoot.

_________________

On a side note, my bike in Chicago? A used mountain bike purchased on the cheap from one of the most intriguing cooperatives I’ve come across yet. A slew of volunteers (grease monkeys, bike messengers, able passerbys) gather together donated bikes, repair them, and sell or warehouse them. When they get enough working bikes together, they (with the appropriate party and fanfare) pack a millvan (giant shipping crate) full of them and send them off to a country where a bike is worth a year’s salary or more to those that need them. If you’re interested (especially if your from around Chicago) you can find out more at www.workingbikes.org.