In Every Building a Story

I wasn’t looking to buy another two-flat, but a flier came on my doorstep in August of 1999. A two-flat a couple of blocks away was up for sale. It was a greystone, rather classic style. And the price was unbelievably cheap.

I drove by the building and then went and called my realtor.

“What do you know about the building?” I asked her.

She didn’t even know it was on the market, but quickly got some information for me. The price was so good, I wanted to see it right away. She arranged it.

The owner was a 91-year-old who had just been admitted to a nursing home. She’d lived in the house for over 50 years. The family was from out of town and wanted to get rid of the property.

The building was badly outdated and in need of work.  But structurally it was sound. I made an offer, stipulating that it was my only and final offer and that I would be happy to clean out the owner’s unit, which was left with furniture, clothing, and even food in the refrigerator. The other caveat was that I had to close in less than a month.

They countered. I stood my ground. And I closed in less than a month.  I had two weeks to ready one apartment for rental.  I spent that time, plastering and painting, alone, sometimes late into the night.

It was a good time. I felt the presence of my deceased father, watching me, smiling. I had, after all, learned a few things about plastering from him.

It was a little less pleasant when, during my late-night painting, I heard noises in the unit below. I was alone. It was an empty building—I called the police.

Nothing. No one there. But the police officer who did the walk-through told me a story I would have not discovered otherwise. The old lady who’d lived there had needed a caretaker in the last few years. A live-in caretaker.

One morning the caretaker did not come around at the usual time to get her out of bed and dress her.  The old lady yelled for the caretaker. No answer.

She managed to get up and find her walker and inch down the hallway to the bathroom.

The door was party open and the caretaker (an obese young woman) was sitting on the toilet. The old lady yelled at her, taking her to task for her laziness. When there was no response at all  from the caretaker, the old lady pushed the young woman’s shoulder to make her point.

The caretaker fell off the toilet onto the ground. Dead. She’d evidently died on the toilet.

So the noise that night? A ghost, I decided. As a few weeks later when I moved into that apartment, I started to hear things at odd times, started to see movement now and then in the distance.  The caretaker still there. Some unfinished business.

Every space has its own story.

I think of that because I have just moved into a building that is over 100 years old. I know nothing of the history of the place.

But I wonder who lived and died here? Who was born here? Whose heart was broken here? Whose dreams were smashed here?  Who fell in love here? Who . . .

I do not know the stories. But I will make my own.

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE

I saw her mouth moving. She was saying something.

There was my neighbor, in her open doorway, saying something. To me?

I looked around. Yes, it was to me. And I was shocked because this woman who lives right next door has pointedly not spoken to me for years. Even when I offered a cheery hello, nice day greeting.

And here she was, speaking to me.

“What?”  I asked.

“Asshole. You’re an asshole.”

The words shot out at me like bullets. I think my mouth may have opened in surprise.

This wasn’t the greeting I was expecting.

She went on. I was walking over her lawn, wearing down the grass.

This wasn’t true. I was walking on the grass of the parkway, going from my car to my building.

I mentioned that the village owned the parkway, not she.  Very evenly, almost cautiously I offered this information.

“Asshole,” she reiterated. “You do it all the time.”

Then she presented her argument. She took care of the parkway in front of her yard.  I assume that meant that she felt entitled to restrict people from walking on it. Especially this asshole.

I said I didn’t think I’d injured the lawn in any way and I apologized if I had.

She continued her expletive-rich diatribe for a little longer. I walked away.

And her door closed.

And then I felt good that just two days earlier I had moved out of the building to another place in the next town. Presumably a place where neighbors will talk to me pleasantly. Where neighbors will not tear out plants I put in at the edge of my lawn. Who will not mound up garbage and recycling canisters (which aren’t used) so I can hardly make it to the alley.

Yes, it was a good thing that I have left Oak Park. To have left the neighbor on the OTHER side of me who had yelled at me so aggressively that I was afraid to leave my house, and considered calling the police. (On that occasion I was charged with being the reason their house was going into foreclosure.)

I am not sure what it says about me, that I don’t fight on occasions like these. In fact, just last weekend, in a much different arena, I was yelled at (unjustly and without reason) by a young woman. And I chose just to leave the situation. Not be in a place where it was considered acceptable to communicate that way.

I could fight. Yes, I think I could yell back. Most certainly I could respond with some very well chosen words that would attack the very essence of the person. I am good with language, I know. I could rip a person apart, without ever raising my voice.

I choose not to. And I choose not to put myself in situations or with people who rely on anger, raised voices, and expletives.

I choose peace.

And aren’t wars started from little things like walking over contested real estate?

Yes. I choose peace.  I wish also that my country did.

About Desire

I want THAT.

This is something I never learned as a child. To want something. In fact, I learned the opposite.

We had very little money. My father, with three children, a wife and mother-in-law, was struggling to keep food on the table and bills paid.

And in that environment I learned to only want what I could have.

I learned from an early age on that desire was bad. Bad. BAD.

Desire actually would have been considered a bad word. Desire was often associated with illicit sexual affairs. Or with overblown quests for possessions.

But desire was also connected with wanting something that wasn’t affordable.

I learned without asking, that when we were in the grocery store with mother, I couldn’t ask for things. After all, she was trying to feed a family of five on very meager earnings that came once a month. And that is when we would go to the grocer and stock up.

But there was no slight extra amount available for candy. I remember eyeing the Pez candies and those charming Pez dispensers. I never asked. I knew. The answer would be no.

And then there was the ritual every fall.  My mother would attempt to clothe her brood well by making the clothing from raw materials.  By the time I was grown up enough to notice, my brother and sister were mostly gone. And then it was September and me entering a new grade and a whole year’s wardrobe that my mother would need to create.

Could I want something? Yes. If it was in the Butterick, Simplicity, or McCall’s pattern books. But I didn’t like anything I saw there.

My mother, in a valiant attempt to decipher desire, would pull  me through the local department store. She would ask me what I liked there.

What I liked? What a question. I didn’t know that it mattered. I had learned to close my eyes, close my heart.

No way I was going to have the nice navy blazer or the kilt skirt that my classmates might be donning.

So I would say nothing, leaving it to my mother to decipher fashion and desire.

And I borrowed inside myself with the unexpressed desire.

So as a child, I learned to mask my desire with what was possible.

And as an adult that has presented problems. What do I want?  Sometimes I do not know. I am often more stuck on what I can have, rather than what I want.

The word want was a bad word. One that never learned to look down. And we quenched it in our own hearts.

I want . . .

This is sentences I never learned to say or finish as a child.

Something I need to learn as an adult.

Another Bike Trip

Okay. I did it.

I biked all the way downtown and back.

On a week day.

During business hours.

Now I wasn't as cute as Ashley was.

Yes, I have a very boring old Bell helmet.

But I rode, pumping away of my light green Trek hybrid, feeling extremely self righteous. I was saving 10 miles worth of  gas.

And although I recently posted about the dangers of bike riding in the city, I made a discovery.  There are streets in the city with well delineated bike lanes that feel pretty comfortable.

Yes, and motorists seem to know how to navigate around bikers on that street.  A happy discovery as I was pedaling down the street, on my way to a meeting.

So, since I was feeling pretty comfortable, I started noticing restaurants and shops as I was whizzing through the neighborhood. And even though I felt jealous of Ashley's headgear, I also felt like I was kind of hip.

Yes, hip, as opposed to hipster. Far too old for that and not ironical, even though the irony of living with my daughter when I am "homeless" is a fact I note daily.

 I also enjoyed the newly opened protected bike lane and discovered that in addition to the pylons that separate car from bike, they had also laid down large plates over the metal grid of the bridge, making for a very smooth ride. Heaven. Almost. For a half mile.

The ride home a few hours later was a slightly different tale.

Still pleasant but with a few more obstacles in the way. Including a Chicago Streets and Sanitation truck park obnoxiously in the protected bike lane.

But that made me think about a video that went viral on YouTube about a month ago.  And if you haven't seen it, here it is.

            

More infuriating than the obstructions to the bike lanes, however, was encountering bikers who were riding against the traffic--even in the bike lane.

I wished for an air horn I could blow near their ears.  Instead I just yelled at them. And wished for a cop to come around and give them a ticket.

But I am not even sure if they ticket bicycles in Chicago. What do yo think? Should they?

Tales of the City, Part 4

Bicycling: it’s a bit more harrowing in the city.

Now my daughter seems to take it in stride, charging off on her blue hybrid, seemingly afraid of nothing. (Although I must add, that two years ago she was hit by a cab driver and thrown off her bicycle. Clearly she recovered on all levels.)

So when we ride together on the streets, I am the one 15 to 20 feet behind, gripping my handlebars and being very alert, and a tad bit slow.

But it’s different from what I was used to in my almost-city suburb.  I usually felt relaxed , and knew which streets to take and which to avoid.

Granted, there are some very clearly marked and well traveled bike lanes in Chicago.

Sometime last week I was driving downtown in rush hour and saw clumps of bike riders tooling down the bike lanes. Six or seven at a time, and not together. On their way to work.

Just a few days ago a protected bike lane was officially opened.  And Mayor Emanuel is promising 24 more of these.

I haven’t biked it yet, but I am sure I’d feel safer.

But in the neighborhood I am living in, I am reminded almost daily of the danger of bike riding.  Just three blocks from me, at one intersection, across from each other, are chained two white bikes, with memorial plackards.

A sobering reminder that not all motorists are cautious and careful about driving by and around bikers.

Visit to the Laundromat

I’ve been spoiled. Having owned my own washer and dryer for many years, I’ve been able to avoid laundromats.

But dirty clothing was mounding up, so it was time. Now there is a washer and dryer in the basement of my daughter’s apartment building. But it would take so long to do everything, that we stuffed things into the car and drove the four blocks (hey—it was a beastly hot day!) to get our clothes clean.

I do have a confession. I have been in a Laundromat recently—just not done my laundry in one. I actually visited the World’s Largest Laundromat in Berwyn, IL. Not sure if they actually deserve the title, but it’s a nicely laid out establishment. Far more impressive, however, is the fact that the hot water for the whole place comes from solar panels on the roof!

But the one I trekked to in Logan Square was no stellar establishment. It was moderately clean and moderately worn down.

We’d come prepared. A small bag of quarters, which disappeared quickly at $1.75 a load (these were double load washers). We got everything stuffed into, soaped, and coined to start. Time to sit.

I remembered a couple of unpleasant, but memorable, laundromat experiences. One wsa when Ashley was eight. And maybe the Laundromat wasn’t so bad, but having to take every bit of clothing, and all linens and wash them in hot water all at once—that was a task.

I didn’t know, the night before, when my head itches and I reached up to scratch it, what I would get started.  As I was scratching, something fell to the table. I picked it up. A tiny insect.

Somehow I knew, although I had never seen one before. This was a louse.

I transferred it to a glass and dragged Ashley (who’s been scratching her head a lot lately) to the drugstore.

“Is this what I think it is?” I questioned the pharmacist.  She nodded her head. And pointed to the aisle that had products for getting rid of head lice.

I went home loaded up with special shampoo, and upholstery spray, a very thin comb, and a panplhet outlining the steps and the order to follow for eliminating lice.

I don’t know if it was worse that I had gotten lice as well.  All I knew was that I had to get Ashley up early, shampoo her hair carefully and send her off to school.  Then it was my turn. And I took the day off work, loading up everything washable in the car, and taking it to the Laundromat for very hot washes.

Before anthing was unloaded I sprayed all the upholdstry and carpets.  And then prayed that I had killed them all.

I got a scare when I couple of days later Ashley was sent home from school, She had nits in her hair.  I hadn’t completed the job. I hadn’t gotten all those tiny eggs out of her hair.

So I shampooed thoroughly again and touch the fine toothed comb and start to pull out all the tiny dark nits. (Fortunately she was a blondie then so it was easier to see them.) She fell asleep while I was carefully going through her whole head of hair. And I learned the real meaning of the word nit-picking.

So my Laundromat trip of today was insignificant compared to the mountain of clothing and lined I took to a Laundromat years ago.  Today I had no worries that my ablutions would be not enough to eliminate those tiny lice, leaving way for a new infestation.

Still, I don’t really like laundromats.  The chairs are never comfortable,

Tales of the City, Part III

Well, there’s no way to be delicate about this. The city is dirty. At least where I am living presently. Littered. The sidewalks, the parkways, and the streets.

They clean the streets. Every so often. But the one I am living on seems to be overlooked. I see the streetcleaning signs on other blocks, other streets. But not this one.

Walking down the sidewalk, one is greeted with debris and detritis of life.  Oout front of the apartment building there is everything from an abandoned paccifer, several soft drink cans or bottles, fliers, and yes, even a dead bird, that no one has seen fit to move even after a week.

Down the street a ways, there are beer cans, small liquor bottles, fast food wrappers.

I have to admit it. I have been spoiled by living in the suburbs. Not as many people crammed together. And maybe people taking more responsibility for cleaning up around their spaces.

And I think of my weekly walks with my friend and neighbor Susan, who regularly stops as we walk, stopping to pick up a water bottle, a coke can, or other recyclable, and then keep walking, then drop it off in the next recycling canister.

That would be great, I thought, except in Chicago there are no recycling canisters—at least not in the neigborhood I am in.  So much for that idea.

But I know she also at times takes a bag on her walks (not with me) and collect litter, to later put in the trash. (And has gone on to write about it.)

So, why not me, I decided.  So I have started that.  I walked over to the store for a newspaper on Sunday and took a bag with me, filling it quickly.  And since I forgot to being enough money with me to actually buy the paper, I had to go back to the apartment, get more money, and yes—another bag for collecting more trash.

Two bags done, I finally made my purchase. A Chicago Tribune. And they put it in a bag! Score! So I was able to fill one more bag with garbage, as I chose a new route home.

A small thing, maybe. But done consistently. If more and more people did that, why, then the neighborhood would be exemplary.

It all starts with one trip to the Walgreen's with a bag to fill.