On this day after Thanksgiving the lights in my office are sharp and fluorescent, while the light at the window is soft and clear, slowly darkening in it’s late-afternoon way. I had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner last night with friends who live in a 29th floor apartment condo overlooking Navy Pier and Lake Michigan on one side, and a small park surrounded by condo skyscrapers on the other. It’s funny – it was the same little park that my parents and I had stopped to rest in on a visit to Chicago a few years ago, before I moved back to the city. I was in town giving a talk and my parents drove up to meet me. We were sightseeing and walked just north of Millineum Park, across Randolph and down Field Street, and came across a small park meant for the residents of the area and not the tourists who crowded around the Bean in Millineum Park. We sat, tired from the heat, and I admired the tall buildings and worried a bit about my mother because the heat and walk were a bit much for her. I never imagined, while we sat and rested, that I would be spending Thanksgiving in one of those gleaming glass towers, and, now, I have. You never know, do you? How thankful I am for my amazingly kind and loving family, and friends, and for the beauty of this city.
(Now I’m listening to Jill Sobule. It feels good to be ‘updating’ this thing again.)
