Canine Stretch Goal

We chanced a trek today to a free outdoor concert on the Square, with dog-aggressive Inez in tow. She was skittish and overstimulated the first half hour, but then she calmed down, rolling over in the grass, snuffing out food scraps, and flirting with any pierced or
skinny-jeaned kid who glanced in her direction. What a thing it must be to have such blind faith in humanity.

Open Your Eyes and You May See it Too

Back in 2003, I worked on a team with this guy to help re-vision a problematic traffic circle in the heart of our neighborhood. I realized then he wasn't your average bear.

John's role was designer, and he painstakingly moved from ink-on-paper sketches to AutoCAD renderings that removed or simplified every last conflict point for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. It would've cost about $10 million -- worth every dime -- but it was a tough sell for a cash-strapped ward. Fortunately my role was pest, and I was able to convince the alderman he owed it to the community to do at least a portion. We got our bump-outs at Wrightwood and Kedzie. Within the next two years, we may get the closure of the slip-lane that feeds Logan Boulevard into Milwaukee Avenue. That unsightly piece of asphalt would expand the green space for an apple orchard slated for the site.

In all the ensuing years since our planning, as I've been floundering around trying on new jobs for size, John's been incubating a vision: A zero-waste, fully energy-efficient vertical indoor farm in one of Chicago's own manufacturing districts. With the purchase of a former hog-processing plant about a year ago, he's already started to bring this vision to fruition.

As we speak, an aquaponics program uses fish waste to fertilize indoor organic greens. A craft brewery has taken up residence on the first floor, and discarded barley, hops, and yeast will be converted into energy to help heat and light the building. A timed lighting system for the indoor farm will allow wattage to be maximized at the cheapest hours of the day, and vegetables will adapt to a growth cycle accordingly. All usable materials from the former version of the building will be reused in some capacity for its next iteration. The acres and acres of outdoor land will become raised-bed gardens and hoophouses, farmed by the formerly homeless and incarcerated for a living-wage job-training program. Organic bakeries, chocolatiers, and cheesemakers are already lined up as tenants, and all their waste material will marry with other sustainable energy sources for the building in something called a "digester."

Zero waste. Fully sustainable. A closed loop.

On any given morning, I might pass John on his bike, saying goodbye to his affable wife and kids, as he rides the 10 miles from our neighborhood to his own personal Wonka to the south. He may be hauling drywall rescued from the alley, compost worms, or beer for his army of volunteers for the day.

Somebody get this guy a MacArthur Genius Grant, stat.

Open Books

I've noticed that my blog entries have become a little more personal lately. I've let my guard down a bit, reached my arms out wider, then cursed myself for allowing too much exposure to the sun.

But I'm realizing this all probably means something, and I've been dully but tenaciously obsessed with those signifiers. Why such a short fuse these days for things that should only be mildly irritating? And why such indifference to the things that used to bring such joy: A clumsy but warm exchange with one of my Spanish-speaking neighbors; a piece of funky public art hung covertly in the alley; a poignant moment at the grocery store with the morning produce guy.

Meh.

In the midst all this ennui, I've rediscovered reading. Lorrie Moore. Miranda July. And people I'd never heard of before, like the incredible Samantha Hunt. Their characters are like friends who, for those generous moments we're together, demand nothing of me.

Maybe it's because I spend so much of my life these days facilitating meetings, delivering talking points, negotiating, fielding people's questions. My voice is in overdrive -- so ramped up in volume and frequency the words are like chewy, marble-sized bits of cartilage I have to break down, atom by atom, till I can swallow them down or spit them out.

So I've rediscovered the library. I've also renewed my verve for movies -- just sitting in an air-conditioned matinee, sometimes all by myself, letting the scenes and minutes wash over a rapt and passive me. Perfection. These days I want to watch, look, and listen. I want to respond privately, quietly, and keep myself from lapsing into the words, words, words that seem to be my habit lately.

It feels right somehow. Like this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my time. Now if I could just find someone to pay me a decent salary for peace and quiet, I might get my pluck back a little.

More Fun From the Portrait Studio

I walked past my favorite shop window this morning and noticed that the proprietor, a portrait photographer, had changed his display. I can only imagine what he must have said to this poor couple -- lovely people who care for each other, no doubt -- to capture this particular moment in time, then tack it up proudly to attract new business.

"Saying 'cheese' is such a cliche. Say something more clever, like 'obituary' or 'bubonic plague' . . .

"Now, think of your last argument. That's good. Perfect. Imagine your partner has just eaten onions. Many many onions. Yes, just like that."

One of these days John and I are going to drag Inez over there and order up a family portrait package. I'm just telling you now, so you can leave space on your refrigerator for our holiday card.

This Is What My Midlife Crisis Looks Like

I have a tidy, modest 1-bedroom apartment in Belfast, Maine that takes under an hour to clean. I wait tables in a nearby restaurant where I never have to carry more than two plates at a time. No one chides me about not having texting on my phone.

I foster broken dogs. There are fewer broken dogs.

Only my alarm clock or the sun wakes me up. Screeching tires don't wake me up. Boom boxes don't wake me up. Wailing car horns don't wake me up.

No one is afraid of tree roots messing with their foundations. Shade lines the streets.

I have a newly discovered talent such as calligraphy, perfumery, or needlework. I put this talent to use.

I have a better memory for world events, but I rarely talk about them.

Numb becomes sad. Sad becomes serene. Serene becomes a good night's sleep.

It's June, and you come to visit.

Sarajevo post script

I hadn't written a poem in probably twenty years, and I was never much of a poet anyway, but I was sobered by our trip to Sarajevo and somehow found myself compelled. Especially when we ended up with two hours hours to kill at the bare-bones train station (the only real visual perk being this guy to the right), our train to Mostar delayed without explanation. As one of our innkeepers had noted, "This isn't Japan."

I guess I offer this as one last memory of our trip to the Balkans, and an important contrast to photos that may have made the region seem of sunny climate and disposition round the clock. It's very much that way, but there's weight there as well.

The Loneliness of the Sarajevo Natural History Museum

No one comes to the museum anymore.
Maybe a family on holiday from Frankfurt
A lone traveler from Kyoto
A handful of American tourists on their way to Prague,
who complain of the heat on the second floor
as they tire of the exhibits of woodpeckers, thrushes,
and so many swifts.
Ideally they’ve carried their own toilet tissue.

Paid staff outnumber customers by three lab coats to one
A woman behind a locked glass door prepares a sparrow for taxidermy,
emptying its insides,
placing it in a room full of predatory beetles
who will finish the job, tissue and all.
Then she’ll steady her needle and thread.

A man with a nametag follows visitors from room to room
as closing time approaches. He speaks quietly in Bosnian:
“Do not touch the cases,” perhaps.
His face has a mild disfigurement,
maybe from birth, maybe later.

And the handsome woman who tears tickets at the door,
who wears her hair tightly back in a bun,
professional,
efficient,
explaining which rooms are open
and which are off limits,
offers in a baritone,
“Enjoy your visit.”

But she says this only three, possibly four times a day
As cases full of mice, pumice, jackrabbits, scarabs, walking sticks, bears, travertine, moths, and mollusks
turn to paper, dust, and skeleton.

Reflections on a Balkan Vacation

Some of you know that I just spent two weeks in Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro with my husband John and some of our closest friends here in Chicago. I've been fascinated with the region since teaching in Prague and Budapest with the Soros Foundation back in the mid to late 90s.

I failed to keep any kind of travel journal this trip. I left that documenting to John, who does it far better and makes of it a kind of ritual for us: He writes as I drift off to sleep, then he reads to me over morning coffee as we put our heads together to catalogue small moments he may have missed, but still hopes to capture for posterity.

With my own ailing memory, though, I try to write down at least a few details -- just some random memories I don't want to lose -- on the back of travel itineraries and boarding passes, stuffed into my bag for archiving later. I haven't tackled that assortment of pages yet, but I'm guessing they'll trigger things that have already faded as I immerse myself back into the tedium of work.

So, how to capture any of that here? I could retell some of my fondest moments -- the perfect cevapcici taken in the heart of Sarajevo's Old Town one morning before John had even woken up; watching a diver finally take a plunge from Mostar's Old Bridge, reconstructed after total destruction during the Balkan war; an impromptu evening with our Mostar innkeepers, who opened a bottle of housemade brandy to share with us while telling stories of Bosnian life during wartime; buying homemade wine from a front porch, packaged for us in a reused two-liter Coke bottle, in a tiny unnamed village in Croatia; hanging out with our friends in our flat in Split, musing over how we would have been different had we been born in this part of the world; climbing fortifications and bell towers for panoramic views of tile roofs and turquoise water; witnessing evening prayer services -- men on one side, women on the other -- at a Sarajevo mosque; wading shoulder deep into the Adriatic Sea as John dove from rocks and swam as far as the barricades would let him.

I'm not sure any of this really gets at what was so powerful about the visit, though. I said to John I've never visited a place with a more profound sense of its own living history. This was probably truer, at least in our perception and experience, in Bosnia than either of the two other countries. But even in Croatia and Montenegro, you can't help but feel you're in a place that has struggled, suffered, and lost -- then rebounded with a resiliency I'm not sure we Americans would harness as readily.

So we walked, we drove, we swam, we ate, we eavesdropped, we photographed, we toured, we climbed, we overheated, we imbibed, we paid admissions, we got lost, we bargained, and we lamented the deficiencies of our own historical knowledge, all with a humbling sense of our good fortune to be in a place that essentially came back from the dead, then reopened its doors to the world.