A Gray Day in Chicago

10/26/2009

Thirty-first floor of the Hyatt Hotel near The Navy Pier in Chicago, and I am looking out the window in my room at a myriad of tall and some not so tall buildings, the taller stretching high enough to touch the gray clouds streaming across the Illinois sky.  I cannot help but wonder why anyone wants to live in this brick and mortar jungle? 

There is an apartment building across the street and it is at least fifty stories tall.  Through some of the windows where the drapes are drawn I can see toys scattered on the floor beyond them.  Yesterday as I was looking out at the rain and the fog (that has been here since last Tuesday) I noticed a child looking out an apartment’s window at me.  It mad me sad for him, and I couldn’t help to think it has to be a crappy place for a kid to grow up.  Don’t know about you, but I have no desire to ever have to live on the thirtieth floor of any building anywhere for more than a few days.  I might add I have even less desire to ever live in a metropolitan area even a tenth as large as Chicago.

“Farm living is the place for me.” When I leave my home heading out of town, I hate to see my mountains disappear in my rear-view mirror as I head eastward toward Dulles Airport or BWI, and it sure doesn’t take very long for me to get homesick for them.  Once you live in the placid quietude offered by country life, and having grown up in a large metro area and knowing how utterly hectic it can be, there just isn’t a desire to go back to that chaos unless you have totally lost your mind.

I suppose there are many people who call Chicago home that will tell me living here is “the life.” I also suppose quite a few of them would think me crazy as hell not to want to live here in their “paradise” of concrete, exhaust fumes and wall to wall people.  I truly suppose 100% of them are wrong.

And that is all I have to say about that…