Living In History

You can tell the natives in Chicago while walking beside them on the street. They never look up. They should. They really should. I can't imagine not being impressed on a daily basis simply by the architecture, let alone the convergence of cultures and flavors.

I'm sitting an an old hotel in Chicago. One of the distinguished sort of old hotels, rather than the run-down sort. I'm on the 15th floor, and my view overlooks a Catholic Seminary, which is breathtaking. Buildings climb above and around my window, each one a castle in its own right, be it strikingly modern or antiquated and stately.

Yesterday, I woke up in a suburb of Birmingham (Alabama, not England,) surrounded by antebellum homes and green spaces. Today, I'm amidst true urbana. There is green here, but it has to be carefully cultivated and maintained, or it dies. And, right now, it's covered in snow.

I miss my family-- I've been gone for a week-- but these views, the parallel views from the street and the 15th floor, distract me from that somewhat, as does the wide-sweeping arc of my trip: Birmingham to Chicago; south to north, rurality and suburbia to sheer urbana. History steeps both places. I wonder if people notice this daily...

My next venture into history is home: we live in a small town, created for a train stop in Indiana. Our home was built while Lincoln was alive. It has history in it that I can't really see anymore, possibly because I'm too close to the history we're making simply by living there.

I never look up when I'm home. I should. I really should.