silence

Once every two months or so I experience complete silence in the city.

This morning I was lying in bed for one last sweet second after my alarm went off when I noticed it. The fan was off. My incessant alarm was, thankfully, off. My thoughts were still groggy. All the 8:00 commuters had already left, so there was no creaking on the stairs or around the apartment. And most notably, there were no cars honking, speeding up, or stopping at the nearby lights, and there were no buses stopping with squeaky brakes, speeding up with noisy, dirty exhaust, or otherwise announcing their presence--the street or the route or the fact you can answer any further questions at www.transitchicago.com. Thank you for riding the CTA.

-----

I haven't quite decided if I like living in a big city. I like this city, I like its variety, I like its public transportation (even if it means I can't get to anything on time)--notice I DIDN'T say I like its weather--but big cities in general are horrible messes of places that are often exciting to visit but easy to leave. I think Chicago assuages (GRE word) the mess slightly by being sprawling and composed of 70-something different neighborhoods that each have their own feel: urban, suburban, European, gritty, clean, you name it. It still is a horrible mess, though. The public schools are bad, the north side is disproportionally richer and therefore better funded and maintained than the south and west sides, the sales tax--I just discovered--is over 9% and rising because of the transit system's budget and staffing and service woes... but there's a strange power to it all. I like working downtown, riding the train, craning my neck so I can try to see the top of the Sear's Tower (difficult), strutting across streets like I have something to do and like I know where to go (usually, I have both).

My friend asked me not too long ago if it bothers me that there are people everywhere. Before she asked I hadn't actually thought too much about it... there are so many ways to escape these days, from listening to music, to watching videos, to just plain reading. Then, sometimes, even with all these people, it's quiet. But when I think about the big mess and all the cars and people and hurry and bustle, I want to go back to my little bubble next to the Pacific Ocean, where I could hear the waves.