In The Pines

I walk off the bus from Detroit directly into the midst of Chicago winter. It's not what I'm expecting, to tell the truth. When I left town it was still coat-and-hat weather. This temperature, on the other hand, requires the full breadth of winter accouterments. But I haven't packed those. So I shoulder up my burdens, trusting the strain of walking to keep me warm, and stride headlong into the wind whipping down Canal Street.

As I move south tiny snowflakes begin to fall and I think of whiskey and fireplaces, and my current demonstrable lack of both those things. Whiskey and fireplaces feel like home. My apartment does not feel like home, it feels familiar. Which is not at all the same. Eventually I make it to the train and there is the picking-up and putting-down of bags that always accompanies travel through public transit systems. And there is the waiting, and the avoidance of grifters and homeless and con-men and guitar players. But parking tickets are too expensive, among the many other reasons.

My key turns in the lock, click. The bags go on the brown thing. The mail goes on the desk. The clock says it is too late to be awake when you have to go to work tomorrow. Here it is, me and the cats, same old life. I sometimes cannot believe I have been here three and a half years. Other times I very much can, and it makes me want to rip things apart. But. Keep calm and carry on.