Leaving Chicago, and then, suddenly, not leaving Chicago. The book planned for my return flight, titled ‘The Paris Wife’starts off in Chicago. Set in the first chapters, somewhat unexpectedly, on the exact streets that my over used feet walked their daily 20,000 steps last week. I bought the book in Toronto because it promised to take me to Jazz Age Paris. 20 pages in and I am in Chicago and in Chicago. Two weeks ago the streets would have just been abstract names but now I have a real feeling for the geography of the early plot. This is the most delightful surprise and, as so often happens will take this blog somewhere entirely different to the planned destination.
The funny thing is that the book was chosen because it is a book written about Ernest Hemingway and his time in Paris, two subjects I am familiar and comfortable with. Already I am hoping the characters will make a visit to the Drake Hotel, a beautiful survivor from the Jazz Age.
And just like that the characters have moved on to Paris and I am in an Uber to Wimbledon.
Flying day. Toronto -Chicago-London. More paperwork and electronic permissions than would be imaginable pre-Covid. No matter how much we have there is always more needed. 3,000 very slow steps in a variety of queues. Once again crossing borders is easy. Curiously getting onto the beach at Crystal Beach on Lake Erie took far more effort and paperwork. This is so not a moan. Lake Erie was our destination of choice we plan to swim in all of the Great Lakes, 4 out of five done, then we start on the Finger Lakes. North America you have been fabulous. Normal blogging will resume very soon.
And just like that, August is over. We saw August out immersed in Canadian family. Having spent our entire North American experience taking daily swims in lakes, today we had a pool day. It would have been a tremendous shock if this had happened at the beginning of our holiday because we have become very used to swimming in the salty water of the sea over the last couple of years. But 8 days of fresh water lake swimming has made us used to not being able to float so easily.
Swimming in a pool is a fabulous place to ponder, I was as immersed in water as we have been in family for the past 5 days.We are very lucky. The cast of individuals has changed every day but there has been chatter, reminiscing and food ever since we arrived on Saturday evening. It will continue until we leave. Just being with people who are kind and generous of their time and homes is so very good for the soul. Soon enough we will be standing on our own two feet again nurturing our own family on the other side of the Atlantic.
Covid robbed us of so much family time on both sides of the Atlantic, and further afield. This summer we have had some wonderful moments, lets hope we never have such big gaps between visits ever again
Getting High in Toronto.The CN Tower Toronto, no we did not go up it. Our Toronto visit was brief and we were very much feet on the ground for the 24 hours we were there. More than 40,000 steps, type of feet on the ground , but you can’t get away from the CN tower, it is iconic and features in art work as above and the Cityscape as shot from Ward’s Island. There is a whole other blog to be written about our adventure to the distillery district and even there the CN tower sneaked into view.
We have nothing against the CN Tower but I dont feel we know the city well enough yet to be thrilled seeing it from 342 metres height. Somehow as tourists we get our kicks from seeing the CN tower in context with other landmarks. Travel is a funny old thing, wherever you travel someone will always tell you that you missed the best bits. Or maybe we didn’t miss the recommended best bits but those ‘best bits’ failed to ignite the same passion as something random does. Being up high in the CN Tower was not on our schedule this year but a very different high took us very much by surprise. Unknown to us Canada has legalised the use of cannabis. Our late Friday evening walk was accompanied by the familiar sweet smell of dope. Not so unusual on a Friday evening and not something we thought was particularly worthy of comment. But our early morning Saturday walk had almost the same ratio of fresh air: dope. Now that did suprise us, how can a city that smells like that on waking get any work done? Is it possible to be doubly high in Toronto?
Back to Chicago, in the blog, for a fabulous blast of unexpected Contemporary Art. The Museum of Contemporary Art was showing a major retrospective of Nick Cave an artist completely unknown to me.
Nick Cave is an American sculptor, dancer, performance artist, and professor. He is best known for his Soundsuit series: wearable assemblage fabric sculptures that are bright, whimsical, and other-worldly, often made with found objects. Born: February 4, 1959 (age 63 years), Fulton, Missouri, United States
His Soundsuits are phenomenal. A garment that disguises everything about a person. Wearing one makes a person larger than life and yet invisible, culturally and ethnically unreadable and genderless.
I need to read loads more about this artist, but a hand luggage holiday does not permit buying the weighty tome that I need to fully digest his work.
The works that really connected with me were his assemblages of domestic objects. My responses were not as complex as his motivations but that is often the point of Contemporary Art. It is made to make you think. I know that once I get home and can give this artist plenty of reading time my reactions will be different but for now I thought I would share my thoughts.
I am not an ornament person, my father was not an ornament person, in consequence my mum chose to moderate her ornament ownership. When they died I kept one ornament as a memento mori. My dad, an entirely liberal person with no special requirements of life could not visit over ornamented homes, they set off something in him which he couldn’t tolerate. I am the same, but living a generation later the problem is not as acute. Nick Cave is the same age as me and creates assemblages of the over ornamentation of his parents generation. My immediate reaction was an almost physical dislike and yet they are things of unsettling beauty.
As an aside one of my recurring dreams is in an ornament shop. Lladro brand. In the dream, I break up everything to virtual powder and feel jolly proud of myself once the ornaments are rendered down. A similar feeling of discomfort settled on me during parts of this exhibition.
Caves other work that hit a nerve with me was his Spinner Forest. Garden Spinners are another personal dislike. Three videos show this form of ornamentation in such vast numbers and out of context. Another form of a nightmare dreamscape.
Beyond his nerve jangling, concsience pricking art there are also some quieter pieces. Still hugely thought provoking.
And that, until I am better read about Nick Cave,is that. Knowing that once I have read deeply I will wish I could walk back and enjoy the whole thing more deeply and with greater understanding.
Here we are in Ontario trying to find our place as numbers 14 and 15 in a family we have not seen for over 3 years because of Covid restrictions/ lack of passports and annual leave constraints. Just like marbles in a jar there has to be a little movement in all directions for us to settle. The walking of many miles on our previous of four days was just a training exercise. Now we are all about the food. You know you have landed in the heart of an Anglo-Indian family when the welcoming meal is a belly bursting curry. Nothing like a curry that is painstakingly recreated from a recipe book or created by a restaurant chef, but one that has evolved over many years at the hands of an Aunt who knows her recipes inside out and creates intuitively and with love.
There are a lot more blogs in the store cupboard from Chicago and there will be an equal number, I’m sure from Toronto. Today we left our days of city visits, we have averaged a little under 20,000 steps a day for four days of city exploration. Thats a lot of walking and a good bit of blogging inspiration too.
Todays blog was inspired by bobbing. Our bobbing friend Gilly suggested Ward’s Island as a fine place to spend an afternoon.
We love an island hop, and this one turned out to be a little piece of paradise. It was so paradisiacal that We got lost in the moment and forgot to take many pictures, blogging fail but sometimes being lost in gorgeousness is overwhelming.
A cute cafe moments from the ferry, and a glorious beach to swim from.
With a very picturesque boat. Ward’s Island was suggested by Gilly because her old school friend lives there. When we wondered the few street of Ward’s we saw somone sitting in the garden of the house where Gilly had last met her friend almost 20 years ago.
It was with such pleasure that we had found the right person, who also is an “Essex Girl”. Immediate Whatsapp messages were shared with Gilly and then we had to hasten off to catch the ferry ready for our next adventure in rural Ontario. The views from the island are spectacular.
I love this quote from Vietnamese/American poet, Ocean Vuong.
We were taking a trip to an eponymously named Chicago Diner. Famed for its vegan and vegetarian cuisine. The church was at an intersection close by and it was such a boost. We had been caught in a huge downpour earlier in the day and perhaps not feeling as gorgeous as we might but this simple quote was a real perker upper. Just by being,we are gorgeous. Have a gorgeous Saturday. More on this tomorrow. We are moving cities and countries today.
Wordle reminded me of the irony of my travel plans. Long haul travel is one of my great undisturbed reading moments. Prior to this North American adventure I had a physical book planned and three on Kindle . My physical book is of the heavy duty variety.
The Kindles are more recreational. Crossing the Atlantic I made a good enough start on it. Then I watched a film, Belfast by Kenneth Branagh, leaving me three hours or so to doze or crack on with history. My fingers however had different plans and took me to the TV section of the entertainment screen. Heading for Chicago my eyes were immediately drawn to a series based in Chicago. Hmmm well, Chicago Meds is about as medically accurate as a childs play set, the actors are super easy on the eye and the storylines delightfully improbable. Livers were transplanted with barely a wash down between donor and recipient. Doctors pondered over how they could possibly have missed Coronary Artery disease on a chest X-ray. Confidential data was shared and improbable blood tests were performed with instant results that cured patients of racism. Three hours was not enough, I was hooked.
What I had hoped for was some location filming of iconic Chicago architecture. Each episode featured the same 10 seconds of the Loop. The overhead railway. I know this because I watched all of the five episodes available, American History got the brush off. I was seduced by attractive actors and something intangible. I laughed, hugely inappropriately, in moments of high drama and was completely hooked half way though episode one. As I write this I am hopping across the border to Canada, there is no in flight entertainment. Belatedly I am returning to American history just as I leave the country. With some intellectual integrity left I have to admit that the first thing I do when I get home is check the TV listings for Chicago Meds, some comedies are less amusing.
A funny thing happened on our way for a bob. I have never written a blog from a significantly distanced holiday before. I didn’t truly imagine I would become an instant travel writer but I thought there may be a slight change of flavour to my daily ponderings. Instead I find that the ponderings continue on in much the same way with different stimuli.
We are in Chicago because Hannah worked here 25 years ago and had never been back. Her time here formed part of a misspent youth with bars, friends and adventures but her working life was not a particularly happy one as an au pair to a wealthy Anglo/American family.
The men of the family, a husband and ex-husband were kind but the woman who was her de facto employer was quite a dreadful person.
The family and Hannah lived in a large apartment on Lakeshore Drive overlooking the beach, looking towards the Drake Hotel.
25 years on Hannah thought it would be a fine idea to book into the Drake Hotel and cleanse the memory of an unkind person from her memories of a spectacular location. I suppose that is the core of our travel plans here and within hours Chicago has put new memories in place, but as is the way with ponderings, not exactly as we planned.
Coming out of our room for a swim/bob in Lake Michigan we spotted some comfy sofas
They looked like the perfect spot for weary travelers to spend an evening reading books. The view was great even if the windows were a little mucky.
We wandered about a bit and were overwhelmed and surprised by the decor of the space and facilities that were available. It was only when we stumbled on an unmade bed that we realised we were not in a palatial lounge area .
The area next to our room was a massive suite, with double doors so huge that when they were left wide open they just looked like an area of paneled corridor. The mirror picture at the top of the blog was snapped as we left.
When we returned, after our bob, the door was firmly shut and our room was once again at the end of an unremarkable corridor. Just a label on the door suggesting why we thought the sofas looked especially comfy.
In other ponderings, the baby seagulls here are epic and unbothered by being close to humans.
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