Relative Wealth..

I am not sure how old I was that horrible afternoon...somewhere between 7 years and 9 years old? My family had spent an eventless day grocery shopping and weighted down with food, we trudged up the stairs to our pretty little apartment on the second floor of an old farm house. While my mom's boyfriend, my older brother and I plopped down in front of the TV,  my mom began putting away groceries. Seconds later, the quiet air was pierced by my mom's terrified, astoundingly loud screams. We stared at her as though she had suddenly sprouted horns for precious seconds before her message sunk in.. "FIRE!!" A thick dark smoke had begun billowing out from the cabinets below the kitchen sink and we jumped to our feet, racing back down the steps from which we had just come..only this time with nothing in our hands. 

We lost almost everything, most notably our home, and what wasn't ruined held a bitter smell of smoke as a permanent reminder of that day.  As my family has never been one to save for a rainy day, we had no savings or resources to fall back on and relied on the charity of those in the community who had read about our poor unfortunate circumstances in the local newspaper. In the days and weeks following the fire and before raising enough money for a security deposit on a new apartment, we lived in various sketchy motels.  My memories of that time are restricted to teaching myself to swim by jumping into the deep end of the Motel 6 pool (my backstroke technique is still severely flawed) and sitting on the bathroom floor at the Dekalb Motel, tracing the path of the ants meandering across the cracked tile.  Life had fallen into a strange sort of purgatory like existence.

However, we were so blessedly rich. We had walked away with our lives and amazingly, even our pet mouse, whose cage had been conveniently located next to an open window, had survived.  The same could not be said for the occupants of the downstairs apartment.  The young mother, after drinking through the day, had passed out  on her bed, leaving her two little boys unattended to play with a lighter. After starting the fire, the fearful little boys hid in a closet where the firemen later found them.  They had not survived.  The mom, suffering horrible effects of smoke inhalation and burns held on mere hours longer...long enough for doctors to realize that she was pregnant. Her devastated husband had lost his home and his entire family while he was at work that cruel day.  As I said before...my family was exceedingly rich.

Many years have passed and as the fire has become a vague shadowy memory, so too have the lessons learned.  I have had lapses in my perspective on wealth, foolishly thinking that I didn't have enough or needed more, be it a bigger house, a more expensive car etc..  But each time I feel as though I am losing touch, I find myself knocked rudely back into the knowledge of my relative wealth.  Rather than comparing myself to the wealthiest and coming up woefully short, I have begun comparing myself to those in need.. thus forcing myself to examine the tenuous thread of circumstance that separates us.  People are sleeping under a bridge two blocks from my home, how dare I feel as though I don't have enough..?

I have visited the people under the Wilson/ Lakeshore bridge three times now. The first time, I dropped off cookies and bananas and shook the hand of a friendly old woman tucked under approximately 30 layers of old blankets.  The second time, there were no people there, but their piles of blankets remained, waiting for them to return from their wanderings for the night.  I tucked baggies of cookies into each pile of blankets, got in my car and headed north on Lakeshore to teach.  The last time I visited was Christmas Eve.  Earlier in the week, I had visited a few resale shops in search of like-new gloves, scarfs and fleeces.  After hitting the jackpot at a local thrift shop called "Unique," I raced home with a pile of fleece jackets (and a 'new' pair of awesome black rain boots for myself..) loaded up the washing machine and ended the night with ten brightly wrapped Downy fresh smelling Christmas gifts.  While on our way to midnight mass, my husband and I stopped to hide gifts within the blankets under the bridge.  

Uptown has been nice, quiet and gunshot free in the past week...as far as I know.  However, I have still felt the overwhelming need to roll up my sleeves and get to work.  Providing me with an outlet, Cornerstone Community Outreach is an organization that has undertaken the enormous task of feeding and sheltering Uptown's homeless population.  Each day, approximately 400 men, woman and Yes, children, eat and sleep under CCO's benevolent roof.  Tucked away, just a half a block from Truman College's front door, Cornerstone differs from other shelters in that they have separate floors for separate needs; a floor for single women, another for single men and even 35 private family rooms.  While most shelters tend to separate, men from woman and children (men being defined as males over 12 years,) Cornerstone strives to maintain the integrity of the family unit, keeping men together with their partners and their children.  Despite being run by the christian organization, "Jesus People," Cornerstone does not force the gospel on those it helps.  Rather, each person is fed, clothed, given a bed and assigned a case worker.  I volunteered for a few hours yesterday, unloading a truck of donated food alongside high school kids from Green Bay, A Logan Square man with his daughters and granddaughter, Philip, a master organizer, and a group of the usual kitchen staff.  While chatting away, I asked a strong black man who was constantly taking cases of canned green beans from my hands, how long he had been working at Cornerstone. He responded with a broad smile while nodding towards the people waiting for their food, "I used to be in that line."

For the love of Brownies..

This week, my students have been granted a reprieve from their pianos as I have been trapped at home with a nasty bout of a perfectly timed Christmas flu.  After a few days of NyQuil induced sleep, I find myself stuck in a chair, wide awake and plagued by words warring with snot for the precious space inside of my head.  (I am truly lovely, I know..) 

Btw, I realize that this particular post may disqualify me from ever attaining public office and may also result in mild disapproval from some readers.  However, I implore you to read to the end for evidence of my possible redemption...

Weed was a constant presence in my undergrad, not necessarily in reference to my own use as I was too afraid to jeopardize my tenuous position in the voice studio to risk a puff.  I actually believed that my teacher would hear the weed in my voice during warmups and would immediately proceed to toss me out of the program. However, weed was a part of life for most of the musicians I was lucky enough to be surrounded and influenced by, many of whom have since gone on to become some of the strongest musicians on the Chicago scene (and elsewhere.)  I never questioned or knew where it came from...weed was simply there.  About six months into my freshman year, I found a wrapped stash tucked away on a bathroom shelf while cleaning my boyfriend's apartment. (yep, I have always been OCD enough to clean the apartments of past boyfriends..) He responded with glee, while sheepishly admitting that he had likely hidden it away shortly after smoking and had promptly forgotten.  Soon after that, I decided it was time I try.

My friends had never exhorted, nor applied even one ounce of pressure on me to partake with them. However, upon my word, they began endearingly planning my 'first time.' We picked the Friday of a three day weekend and one friend, another voice student a couple years my senior who never had less than a kind word for anyone, came up with the perfect solution to my smoking dilemma...Brownies.  However, in all of our careful planing, we had overlooked one very important fact... I really love brownies.

That Friday night, I sank into an overstuffed frayed couch whose past life probably involved someone's grandmother.  Surrounded by eager friends shrouded in innocence and excitement that only youth provides, with the smell of incense and baking in the air and Michael Jackson alternating with Jamiroquai in the backgound, I picked up a brownie and took my first bite.  

The problem with eating rather than smoking is that one cannot necessarily gage the amount of weed taken in.  When one smokes, one can have a puff and then wait for a slight effect before deciding whether there is need to continue.  When one eats, one can simply be hungry, possibly taking in more than needed or anticipated.  After my second brownie, my fingers and toes began to tingle and my body felt comfortably weighted down, (thus proving that I would never be one of those musicians with the ability to perform enhanced by any sort of drug.) I turned my head, my eyes stubbornly focused on one point, only to have the room swivel to catch up seconds later.  Shortly after that I mentioned to my boyfriend that I needed to use the bathroom, but I needed him to remind me.  And not long after that, I asked him if I told him that I needed to go to the bathroom or if I had merely thought it.  My brain had become utterly useless and it became clear to everyone that I had had too much.   

After that night, weed played a miniscule role in my life, a mere puff every couple of months in the company of friends, or a peaceful presence in the face of a brutal migraine. Weed had proven a much safer alternative to accidently overdosing on Advil or to the suggestions from doctors of increasingly stronger and addictive pain killers. A few years later, a close friend, overtaken by curiosity, sat on my couch, a tiny joint in her hand and her husband within reach. Upon taking a small puff, she turned to me and immediately said, "I don't feel anything."  Her husband and I laughed while quickly taking the joint from her hand. 

I had never had cause to fear weed.  After all, weed had not caused my mother to be pulled over for a DUI with her kids in the backseat... Alcohol had done that.  Weed had not caused my mom to disappear for days on end... Alcohol had done that.  Weed had not torn apart my family and filled my childhood with fear and dread... Alcohol had done that.  However, that being said, my overly liberal view of weed is fast being altered.  I live in Uptown and am surrounded by what is rumored to be a gang drug turf war and while I am not naive enough to think that Marijuana is the strongest drug fought over, I also recognize that it is a healthy part of the sadness afflicting this neighborhood. I do not fear weed, but as I hear gunshots and read the news, I am beginning to fear it's social costs and am loathe to contribute.   (I find it ironic that I had to use spell check for the word marijuana..) Recently, I have called friends who enjoy their weed.  I have asked pointed questions, not necessarily wanting names or specifics, but finding that the trail of bread crumbs, despite the degrees of separation, almost always led back to a dark corner, a gang, a contributor to mine and many other neighborhoods current troubles. The ease and availability of weed in my college days lost its naivety.  In the concept of supply and demand, in my younger days, I had been a contributor. 

Uptown has made the news these past few weeks which would be fantastic were a hostage situation not needed to reach that end.  We have had multiple shootings, a couple in the same exact spot where a broken police camera captured nothing.  The hostage situation was amazingly resolved with no shots fired and a few arrests though very few details have been made public.  The Uptown Update blog has become home to much bigotry and hatred, many posters marking 'low income' and 'criminal' as interchangeable and posts becoming extremely personal and in some cases, quite unkind.  As usual, no one seems to know what to do that could be considered even remotely constructive.  However, one citizen has managed to take the chaos as an opportunity to set up volunteer slots at the local soup kitchen, Cornerstone. 

This past Tuesday, I loaded up on DayQuil and nose spray and headed over for a quick lunch shift while praying that in my haste to help, I wasn't infecting Uptown's entire homeless population with my cold. 

In the midst of piling food on trays and teasing men into taking the green beans and not just the fries, I began talking with my fellow volunteer, a well spoken black woman with strong opinions of her home Uptown.  As she had lived and worked in this community and knew far more than I, I wanted her opinions and ideas.  As she talked, she mentioned the ineffectiveness of activities such as positive loitering as it merely drives a bigger wedge.. after all, what good can a group of white people standing around do.  What could they possibly know, when so many of Uptown's problems are rooted in race and poverty?  While she had a strong point, I felt as though I was being lumped into that group of clueless white faces, unable to understand poverty and pain.  I resented that because while I no longer wear my childhood disfunction as a badge of bitterness for all the world to see, I resented the fact that one might look at me and simply see a little rich white girl who hasn't a clue of the surrounding pain.  I resented in much the same way a black man would resent judgement, merely for being black rather than being judged on his own merit.  I had, after all, kicked, screamed, cried, begged and fought to beat my past and I refuse to have that struggle disappear under a pale visage.

As I walked home Tuesday afternoon from helping to feed a few hundred hungry people, I walked past bird poop and graffiti, under rusted el tracks, past sad aimless people and I searched,  ...Oh how I searched for a spot of beauty in this neighborhood. Wonderfully, I found it in a returned smile of a little girl, swallowed whole in her puffy coat, mittens dangling, hat askew...  

Part X

Written on Monday, December 5, 2011 at 1:25pm

At 12,000 feet in the Andes, skin becomes simultaneously burned from the intense sun and chaffed from the cold. A lack of oxygen causes simply walking to seem a huge effort, and a fine reddish-orange dust coats everything in sight...including one’s clothing,  hair, nose etc..   By my last day in Puno, my hands had become dry and cracked, I had callouses under each eye from wiping away wind induced tears, and I had dropped about 15 pounds.  I clearly had not acclimated well.. I had said goodbye the night before to my adorably snot filled students, hugging each one tightly, and was taking my last moments in Peru to walk around, to feel and to memorize.  I walked through the bustling Plaza del Armas to the beautiful Catedral de Puno. Finding relief in the cool interior of the cathedral,  I dipped my hand into the holy water, made a sign of the cross and bid a silent farewell to Puno’s Jesus.  As I headed out of the dark and into the blinding sunlight, I heard the voice of a tiny leather skinned old man asking for money. I responded with an embarrassed “Lo siento, pero tengo nada.” I am sorry but I have nothing.  I had been robbed my very first week in Peru, my accounts cleaned out, and as a result I only had enough soles left in my pocket to pay my airfare tax on the way home. I had nothing to give this man.  

A day later, after countless delays, cancelled flights, and a full 24 hours without food, an american couple in a miami airport handed a five dollar bill to me.  While hunger warred with pride, I humbly accepted. 

Had I faith, I would have given my soles to the man outside the church.

This last week in Uptown has been just horrible.  We have had so many shootings that I can’t even keep them straight to list them. On Friday around 5pm, shots were fired near the incredibly busy Sheridan/Wilson intersection..right next to a McDonalds full of kids excited to start their weekend.  One boy (potentially gang involved) was hit in the shoulder and another girl, merely working in a local shop, had a stray bullet graze her leg. As a result, Friday’s Positive Loitering was advised to loiter a bit less. There have been multiple gunshots since then, with many bullets thankfully missing people.  However, early Sunday morning one bullet found its mark, leaving a 20 year old man lying on the ground as his life quickly poured out of him.  

As normal after an incredibly active weekend, Uptown residents flooded internet blogs and facebook pages with anger and helplessness, in some unfortunate cases, more upset over their own lost sleep than another’s lost life. People are blaming the government, the alderman, CeaseFire, the police, the gangs, the parents, section 8.. and anyone else they can think of. Unfortunately though, no one has any solutions and as usual, most people upon posting their angry comments, will simply go about their lives.  Some have even blasted CAPS and Positive Loitering as pointless efforts.  And while I may agree that Positive Loitering may not magically change the neighborhood as a whole, it has changed the neighborhood for ME. I now know my neighbors and have new friends, I now have a community. I can only hope that this community will expand with more people being pushed to the point of getting involved. 

Despite my minor role with Positive Loitering and in light of the recent violence, I still felt frantically helpless and desperately in need of some form of action.  So I did the only thing I know how to do.. (no, I am not singing on a corner in Uptown...though don’t tempt me..) I turned on the oven and began to bake.  

Last week after a particularly late rehearsal, a friend had driven me home, taking the Wilson exit from Lake Shore Drive.  As he turned on Wilson and drove under Lake Shore, he looked quickly at me in horror, “These people sleep Here?!?”  ..Yes..  I had seen the homeless people bundled up in the underpass before but due to driving by often, they had quite nearly become invisible to me.  They had become my huddled Peruvian man to whom I gave nothing.  So I baked. I filled little sandwich bags with cookies, grabbed a bunch of bananas and am now headed out the door to the underpass.   I will smile and feed and hopefully be gifted with a smile in return. 

Part IX

Written on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 5:06pm

“You could cook your breakfast in the morning with that knife and still bring it back tomorrow if you don’t like it,”  the sales clerk informed me.  I stood in the middle of the aisle, perpetually indecisive, surrounded by pocket knives and their larger samurai-like counterparts. I held a small knife in my hand, becoming familiar with the cool steel bite against my skin while reconciling it’s weight with durability.  ‘I’ll have this one,” I said, instantly becoming the proud owner of a tiny lethal 3 inch blade made by Gerber, (no known relation to Gerber baby food..) Up until this point, I had been carrying an extremely sharp serrated steak knife in my purse. I had often amused myself with thoughts of getting mugged. An unfortunate thief would sprite away with a purse full of wonders; broken pencils, approx. 39 cents, Jewel and Dominicks member cards, a crappy 6 year old phone without internet access or ease of texting, tampons, a stolen dessert spoon from Julius Meinl and chapstick.  If said thief happened to be overly eager, he, with a girlish shriek, would quickly retrieve his newly bloodied hand from my purse after encountering the unexpected open knife. (much like my husband did...) While in Uptown, I truly doubt that I am in danger.  However, arriving home nightly between 10pm and 11pm, and boasting a towering height of nearly 5 feet, I have chosen to refuse to be an easy target. I park my car each night and before opening the door, I retrieve my trusty little knife with my right hand, allowing it’s comforting weight to accompany me safely home. 

Throughout my days’ lessons in the north shore, I leave my sharp little sidekick in the car. However, I have often thought it would be truly fitting were I to be accosted someplace seemingly safe, like Wilmette or Winnetka. Ironically enough, just two days after my knife purchase, I showed up at a students lovely Wilmette home, situated directly across the street from a school, only to hear how this pretty house had just fallen victim to burglary.  The thieves, in their haste, disarmed the security alarm, yanked pillowcases off the bed of the youngest daughter, and proceeded to fill them with Ipods, jewelry, laptops and other pricy goods, before likely patting the peaceful friendly dog on the head and escaping back to where they came from.  The mom, in relaying the story, shook her head at the fact that they had just moved from Chicago to Wilmette just a few short months before.  She momentarily lamented the loss of her engagement ring..  However, her true despair was focused on her hard earned stolen marathon medals. (If any of you come across a Boston Marathon Medal, please let me know!!) Luckily, no one was home at the time of the robbery, rendering all loses merely material. 

There have been a few reports of Uptown shootings in the past couple weeks, though things have calmed considerably since the chaotic Halloween days. (which thankfully, only resulted in minor injuries..)  Amidst the shootings, people angrily and frantically posted to the neighborhood website ‘UptownUpdate,’  stating that things should be done and people need to get involved. However, a few days later, my husband reported that merely a handful of concerned citizens showed up at the neighborhood CAPS meeting. There are clearly many people in this neighborhood who demand things to magically change, yet see no correlation between their own efforts and the healing of a neighborhood. I find it prudent to mention that their efforts or lack thereof will be reflected in their drooping property value..  However, there have been many positive going ons in Uptown, the greatest of which has to be a planned 135 million dollar rehab/rebuild of the local dilapidated Wilson redline stop. This weekend, Uptown is also playing host to Chicago’s 2011 book expo (I am SO there!!) And recently there have been many endorsements from Chicago’s new mayor, referring to Uptown as Chicago’s musical center.  Perhaps things are looking up?

 My husband and I have made fantastic friends through our neighborhood networking. We have taken part in a tequila tasting event with Amy (Clarendon Park coordinator and glee club singer) and her expert event planner boyfriend.  This activity would have been much more entertaining had I not been needed to sing for a funeral the next morning.  We have made pizzas with Jan and his pretty and brilliant wife Laura, both Ph.d students at University of Chicago.  We met Jan at our weekly positive loitering and discovered that his doctorate in sociology involves observing peacemaking efforts in the Uptown and Rogers Park neighborhoods.  A couple of weeks ago, a new face showed up at our Friday night positive loitering. JW Hughs, a well spoken attractive black man shared bits of his story as a young gang member, who despite having been shot was left with his life.  Years later, he has returned to his neighborhood as the Uptown face of CeaseFire, with a mission to change a horrible ingrained cycle of disfunction, drugs and violence ..or at the very least, change one simple life.  CeaseFire is a slightly controversial group, comprised almost exclusively of ex gang members with horrifying stories who have risked their lives to turn themselves around. Once they gain back control of their own lives, they then seek to step in between gang conflicts, allowing time for tempers to cool and guns to be put aside.  They are also instrumental in setting up other activities to get kids off the streets, such as sports, arts and tutoring. Uptown’s branch has only recently been implemented this past summer which saw quite a spike in violence.  Critics of CeaseFire quickly point out the correlation between the start of Uptown CeaseFire and the flare up of summer violence. However as Jan, our resident sociologist pointed out to me.. There is no way to know how much worse the violence could have been had CeaseFire NOT opened shop.  There are also rumors and criticism that CeaseFire is anti police and will withhold important information, but as this is just hearsay, I will reserve judgment and simply add, “Where do I sign up?!” 

Part VIII

 Written on Monday, October 31, 2011 at 5:25pm

“Enough is Enough..” a reporter cited Uptown residences as saying a year ago today, after trick-or-treaters were sent screaming and ducking for cover, in a shooting incident that injured three teenagers occurring at 515pm the evening of a 2010 Halloween.  Later that night a 35 year old man was shot to death in what was said to be a gang related incident. 

It’s Halloween a year later and while I would like to report that everything in Uptown has been calm and peaceful, I see no point in lying. We may have a new alderman and the police are now driving lovely new SUV’s but beyond that, nothing has changed.  I am currently sitting on my balcony watching a corner full of young frightening looking men mingle amongst themselves while tiny children in witch and bee costumes obliviously wander gleefully by on their way to a candy infested evening. 

There have been countless shootings these past few days.. Thankfully though, no one had been injured (besides the guy who was shot in the ass yesterday a block from here) ...till today.     At approximately 230pm gunshots rang out two blocks from here, tearing into the beautiful sunny afternoon as well as into flesh. No one seems to know any details or the extent of injuries to the person shot, but there are horrifying rumors that due to the rapid fire succession.. there is a strong chance that an automatic weapon was used.  The amount of guys currently on the corner has me nervous as well as the thought that at the time of this afternoon’s shooting, I was out for a walk. Only my need to go to the bank steered me out of the line of fire, though my intent had originally been to walk in that direction to take pictures of the lake in it’s fall colors.  

Last night, my husband and I went to see Joan Baez play. As I listened to her, I couldn’t help but be amazed by her ability to put the entire world into her voice.  This amazingly strong woman had marched with Martin Luther King Jr, fighting the civil rights war.  She stood with migrant farm workers demanding fare wages and a safe job, she helped form the American branch of Amnesty International, and has spent her entire life loudly opposing human rights oppression.  I, in contrast, am currently hiding in my apartment peering out the window while the kids whose civil rights she fought so hard for, are gunning each other down in the streets.  Life simply has no explanations. 

My husband and I have done our best to be involved.  He has been going to caps meetings while I have merely been talking with whoever I happen to see walking by. I am not sitting outside as much now as the cold temperatures have set in forcing every one indoors. We have taken part in the weekly positive loitering, but to be blunt..our efforts seem naive and pointless.  One shooting leads to another, leads to another, leads to another and so on and so forth... I just hope no one dies tonight.  Happy Halloween and above all, be safe!!

Part VII

Written on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 1:00pm

On any given Tuesday night, my college boyfriend and I would pile into the car, leaving behind our university, homework and other worries in order to brave three hours of rush hour traffic with the outcome of ending up on a soccer field in Elkhart Indiana. Having never had the opportunity to play an organized sport while a child, I was amazed when as a freshman in college, my boyfriend first included me in his Tuesday night ritual.  I followed him hesitantly, cleats dangling from his shoulder, as we made our way from the parking lot to the field and I stood in awkward shock as I beheld moms, dads, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and grandparents!!! I held back nervously while hungrily observing the easy banter, teasing sideline smack talk, and obvious comfortable love radiating from this family.  They allowed my awkwardness to last all of two minutes before wrapping me in their warmth.  Cleats were laced, bets were placed and play began.

Fourteen years later, with a few years of coaching, a few years working for the local MLS team, and over a decade as a referee under my belt, I laced my cleats, stepped onto a field once again, and blew my whistle, signaling the beginning of play.  By the end of the game, I was shaking with rage. After having spent an hour listening to parents cruelly taunt me and make loud snide disrespectful comments ... after having dealt with an out of line British coach who felt the need to shout at me as though I were a hated bastard stepchild, I had had enough. This was what refereeing a game of U9 girls travel soccer in the north shore had become. (that’s right, this game was to be about 8 year old girls..) I searched hopelessly for any feelings of camaraderie or happiness from any of the game’s participants, but only came away with perfect examples from parents and coaches alike of lessons NOT to teach young impressionable female players. Perhaps the time had come to hang up my cleats. I no longer wanted any part of this game.

I walked slowly to my car trying to shake off the nastiness of the game so to enjoy the rest of my day as it was a beautiful sunny afternoon. I tossed my bag in the trunk and proceeded to drive home via Sheridan road, past the massive mansions with their massive cars. I continued to drive south, clearing my head, and said mansions merged into the more humble city abodes. However, upon reaching home, my carefully built equilibrium was shattered by the knowledge that the corner a block away was roped off with police tape. While I was standing on a field in the north shore, shots had been fired steps from my house. (thankfully, no one was hit!) As it turns out, people are ugly..everywhere. 

The last few weeks have been very quiet in the neighborhood and it is thought that with the start of the school year, many of the kids are now thankfully occupied at school. Lately though, my husband and I have been fighting bitterly with a considerable amount of irony. He is dead set on moving from this area and is now fighting as ferociously as I had fought moving here a year ago.  However, in my mind, moving at this point is tantamount to taking a $50,000 hit and admitting defeat.  After all, where would we move..to the North Shore?  To Andersonville..where we can put our heads in the sand and ignore that just a mere twenty minute walk will bring us to where life is a mess?  

On a lighter note, I have had to reintroduce myself to many of the people I say Hi to as I recently cut off about 12 inches of hair.  I have had to transform from ‘that crazy long haired white girl who plays ukulele on her doorstep’ to ‘that crazy short haired white girl  who plays ukulele on her doorstep.’  I have also been gaining weight since my doorstep sitting time has directly replaced my workout time. Perhaps I could take a jump rope to the doorstep.. (or perhaps I could be institutionalized) Due to cold rainy weather and streets empty of people, I managed to take most of last week off from sitting. However, as lovely weather has blissfully returned this week, I suspect I will once again sit outside.  I have been watching for the young woman who sings beautifully though I haven’t seen her in a while. My hope is that she is back in school, studying diligently.  I am still hoping though to work with her and her voice at some point.  Our weekly Friday night positive loitering has continued and is resulting in some good friendships and as always..cupcakes and cookies.  The weekends are still a little busy though as usually at least one weekend night is spent watching out the window, counting how many corner kids are stopped by the police to be searched.  C’est la Vie. Through all of this, I am having vague feelings of homesickness, but oddly enough, I have no idea of where I am homesick for...  

Part VI

Written on Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 12:36am

I have been brainstorming recently about ways to potentially get arrested. I am not serious in my desire for a criminal record, rather, I am enjoying a simple day dream as our neighborhood is the beat for a certain aesthetically pleasing police officer. Once while I was attempting to find words to describe this man’s fit form, his shiny dark hair and thick lush lashes, my husband (who, mind you, is NEVER jealous..) exclaimed “I have thick lashes too...SEE!!”  He then proceeded to wildly blink in demonstration (my husband..not the cop.) 

We have had a busy weekend in the neighborhood. There have been no shootings nearby (that I know of) and the weekend began with the usual Friday night dose of positive loitering  (group gossip/therapy session.) Saturday was community filled, beginning bright and early with our humble neighborhood yard sale and morphing throughout the day into a fantastically successful block party complete with face painting, tango demonstrations, dog contests judged by our esteemed alderman, cool skateboarders, and a couple local bands. I spent the earlier part of the day trying to force kids to take my yard sale clothes (as I have the height of the average 11 year old..) and I spent my afternoon attempting to befriend every neighborhood dog and dog owner.  Coming from Andersonville where I would run into friendly familiar faces every time I went for a walk, I was thrilled to bits to be a part of the block party where for the first time since grudgingly moving to Uptown, I felt part of a community. 

Through my daily sittings and neighborhood loitering sessions, i have been so fortunate to meet so many truly kind and unique people..

There is the small frighteningly organized and dedicated speech therapist/ Clarendon Park organizer/face painter with her studious looking glasses.. (I have fabricated that my husband has a crush on this woman in order to justify my recent ‘cop ogling’ problem..)

There is the thin black woman with the mile wide smile who lives in the row houses across the way from my home and who turns on her sprinkler when too many kids are loitering nearby. Due to watering frequency, her small patch of ground is soon to resemble the emerald hills of Ireland. She has one daughter making her way in the world beginning with the Southern Illinois University campus and another daughter of about twelve years (I think) with cute puffy hair, a gorgeous shy smile and a pink bike that nearly ran over my foot.

There is my aforementioned neighbor, the father of four, who upon running into me the day of the block party, immediately asked, “is there a baby coming yet?”  SHEESH!

There is my downstairs neighbor from Singapore who upon watching a kid carelessly toss garbage on the street, commented that if only public floggings were allowed in this country..our neighborhood would be much cleaner..

There is a tiny, old, cranky, white woman with a mean looking muzzled dog, but upon closer inspection, one merely finds a dog happy to have a good petting and a woman who really just wants someone to listen to her so that she can ramble and talk about Jesus. (of course this is the same woman who vexes the local police with constant calls about mildly noisy parties and other non-threatening issues..such as my downstairs neighbors..)

There is the messy looking sweet middle aged white man who having lived his whole life in this neighborhood, has turned his courtyard into a beautiful garden with the tastiest tomatoes. (I can attest to their tastiness.)

There is the strong willed black mom with her incredibly shy college age daughter who dreams of becoming a vet as she works her way through one class at a time.

There are the corner boys who, having gotten over their shock of being singled out for a hi, now respond with a sly cheeky “Hey Baby..” I find it prudent to remind them that I am old enough to be their mother. (their very young attractive mother..) When I feel that a scary amount of these kids have gathered on the corner, I occasionally torment them by singing outrageously loud renditions of Shubert’s lieder or Gounod’s Faust from my balcony. I employ this technique to clear the street sparingly, as I suspect my other neighbors viciously hate me..  (I have also been known to get out the ukelele to sadistically butcher top 40s songs..the street clears of kids in seconds..) 

Today, in the wake of a successful weekend, I was disappointed to find myself feeling nervous and jittery. There seemed to be a tension of sorts building as many slightly intimidating looking kids spent the morning pacing up and down the street in front of my house, shouting into cell phones, all while our resident sketchy white van circled with its ear crushing bass vibrating the sidewalks. (not very subtle.) I immediately worried that something was on the verge of happening..a drug deal? another shooting? So, as any rational being would do, I calmly sat on my front step with a folder of music to look through.  Within a couple of minutes, a group of 6 mildly menacing looking guys walked by in their baggy dark clothes and matching dark expressions. I nodded my acknowledgment and smiled before turning my attention back to my music. As the guys continued on, one broke away and headed in my direction. This thin black man of about 20, bedecked in red and black with a black doo rag approached me and said with a smile “You’re not from around here, are you?” I replied that I was originally from a couple hours outside Chicago.  He  responded with..”I see you all over this neighborhood and every time I see you, you always have this smile.  What are you smiling about?” I told him that I smile because people occasionally smile back.  He shook his head in amused bewilderment, “Man, people just don’t do that ‘round here.”  He gave a friendly goodbye before heading on his way.  Unbeknownst to me, my husband had come home unexpectedly and was parking his car when he saw this guy walk my direction.  Apparently, his heart had started working double time..

A few minutes later some of the same guys walked by but with the addition of a couple of girls. One of the girls in particular, I had been hoping to run into as I had heard her a couple weeks ago walking past my house singing. What I heard was ridiculously good. I nodded to the group as a whole and upon spotting her, I got over myself and bluntly asked if she was the girl I had heard singing. This pretty girl in her late teens/early twenties with a lovely dimple and Rihanna styled haircut complete with shocking red highlights, shyly responded yes and as her friends wandered off we began chatting.  I told her that what little I had heard her sing sounded fantastic and asked if she was singing anywhere with anyone. She said no but admitted that she loved gospel. She asked if I was a singer (as my music was still on my lap) I admitted that I was the annoying neighborhood woman belting out classical music at whim and she laughed saying that she actually liked opera. After a couple minutes, we said a happy goodbye promising to watch out for each other. As she raced to catch up with her friends, (who were most likely Vice Lords..herself included)  I watched her with growing hope, fully knowing that she has the potential and the voice to make her way happily in the world. This lucky girl has a way out...if she so chooses...

Part V

Written Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 3:31pm

Citysitting part V

There has been another shooting..

The Black P Stones started up around the same time as the Vice Lords back in the early 60s headed by Jeff Fort (Chief Malik) and Eugene Hairston (King Bull.) While the Vice Lords were getting their start running around the city’s west side Lawndale neighborhood, the Black P Stones kids (also occasional guests of the St Charles Reformatory for Boys and the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention center) spent their days and nights terrorizing the city’s south side neighborhood of Woodlawn. Up until the early 50s, Woodlawn had been a predominantly middle class white neighborhood (many of whom were employed by the University of Chicago,) but with a Supreme court ruling which outlawed racially restrictive covenants, absentee landlords divided large apartments into multiple smaller units, and poorly maintained buildings became overfilled with african american families. (Such events were the inspiration for the play Raisin in the Sun) 

By the mid 60s, Woodlawn had become predominantly african american as ‘white flight’ made way. The P stones had begun working with Reverend John Fry who was instrumental in helping the group receive government funding towards job training programs.  In 1966 they provided security for Dr Martin Luther King and the Congress on Racial Equality as they marched through hostile white Chicago neighborhoods. In that same year, Fort and Hairston met with a group of rival gang leaders, to offer them a truce, thus officially forming the Black P Stone Nation.  However, by 1972 Jeff Fort and a few others were brought up on charges of mismanaging government money (approx a million dollars in grants) and sent to jail. Upon his release in 1976 Fort attempted to convert to Islam and due to not being accepted into the Moorish Science Temple, he promptly formed his own temple. He then led a section Black P Stones still loyal to him into adopting his islamic beliefs and taking on the name EL RUKN. In 1983 Fort was sentenced to 13 years in jail for his connection to a massive drug shipment in Mississippi. However, he continued to run El Rukn, whose top members had gone so far as to make contact in Libya with Col. Moammar Kaddafi. In 1986 El Rukn travelled to Panama City to meet with Libyan delegates, arranging a deal to trade 2.5 million dollars and asylum in Tripoli for weapons to use in an assault against city police and governmental institutions. However, Fort and 50 other high ranking El Rukns were tried on terrorist charges and Fort was sentenced to 80 years in jail (in addition to the time he was already serving..) The name El Rukn died out and Black P Stones remained.  There are pockets of Black P Stones on the north side of the city left from Fort’s “friend,” Hairston, who surviving three bullets in 1975, fled to the relative safety of the north side.   

While my corner of Hazel and Windsor is listed as Vice Lord territory, Wilson and Magnolia (near Truman college where I took French from the best language teacher ever!!) fall under Black P Stone territory.  It is strongly suspected that the shootings plaguing the Uptown neighborhood are a result of a drug and turf war between these two gangs. It is also rumored that a certain higher ranking Vice Lord had recently been released from prison and has been busy organizing and coercing the local younger Vice Lords into following his orders thus exacerbating the tensions. One only has to watch the street for a few days to see him at work. However, in his particular case, the police are closely watching and it is suspected that he will slip up and be off the streets shortly.   The most recent shooting occurred yesterday afternoon around 4:30 pm on the incredibly busy corner of Wilson and Broadway. (4 blocks from my home..the corner I cross to get to Truman) A 20 year old man was shot in the ankle, and police were said to be chasing a black man with dreadlocks running westbound on Wilson. While one bullet found it’s mark, seven or eight additional bullets fired off into the Chicago air. One bullet went cleanly through the window of parked car where a little girl had been sitting. Her horrified father pulled her out of the car only to discover glass from the broken window tangled in her hair. 

As these events occurred, I was safely seated at a piano in Downers Grove.  I had done my day’s round of Hi’s earlier before leaving to teach. My husband and I had just commented the night before on how wonderfully quiet the neighborhood had been this past week. However, in the aftermath of yet another shooting, the neighborhood is on watch again, everyone looking for a way to be safer.  The website “Uptownupdate.com” has been a constant online venue for news and comments and many people are waiting to see what the newly kinged alderman will do. There has been a lot of advice flying around to call 911 when ever anything suspicious is seen and there have been just as many frustrated comments on the sheer audacity of the 911 operators to react with disrespect and lack of will to send responders. (I concur..) Unfortunately, all of our reactions are merely that...reactions to events which have already been allowed occur. No one seems to know how to combat Uptown’s issues from the other side of things. No one knows how to be proactive, how to prevent..myself included. 

In my daily sitting (and nightly observing,) I am becoming familiar with my neighborhood.  People who at first grudgingly said hi, are now stopping for a short chat or to let me pet their dogs. Though I have kept an eye out, I have yet to see the north african auntie again. I have noticed the shirtless man in the apartment across the way who spends an unusual amount of time in his bathroom..with his window unfortunately open, and I have felt each time a large rusty white van drives by with it’s stereo bass set loud enough to be heard and felt on the moon. Today, I quietly observed as my neighbor father of four pulled his youngest, a lovely sleeping little girl, out of his car and held her close as he carried her into his home. 

Part IV

Written on Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 1:36pm

Sitting Update..

The Vice Lords were formed in the mid to late 1950s by a group of boys from the Lawndale area who had gotten into trouble and were enjoying a lovely involuntary stay at the St Charles Reformatory for Boys. (surrounded by barbed wire, located alongside Route 38, my mother used to threaten to send me here when I was a young misbehaving child..) Upon their release, the boys unified North and South Lawndale into the Vice Lords and claimed the corner of 16th Street and Lawndale as their own.  Armed with the desperation of surviving in Lawndale’s extremely poor conditions (which have not improved much as recent statistics place the median income at approx $18,000 a year..) the Vice Lords became notorious for their violence. By 1964, 8 of the VL’s 26 groups decided to break away from the violence and attached “Conservative” to their names. (Ironic because one current gang saying is “If U ain’t Conservative, U don’t deserve to live..)

With the rise of Bobby Gore and David Dawley in the 60s, the Conservative Vice Lords turned their attention away from violence and towards promoting education and the betterment of the Lawndale area, even going as far as to secure federal grants for GED programs and safe havens.  However, in 1969, Bobby Gore was convicted of murder, federal funding dried up and CVL began its decent back into organized crime and violence. (Bobby Gore is still trying to clear his name and has continuously preached against gang violence..)

Today, the Vice Lords have turned up throughout Chicago, it’s suburbs and has spread like a virus to many other states. The Up-Town Lords claim the territory between east and west Montrose and Wilson, north and south Clarendon and Broadway, and have the corner of Hazel and Windsor specifically listed as their own (Guess where I live..) As the  Lords have been going strong for over 60 years, membership has become multigenerational with children blindly following in their parents footsteps.  Children of any age are recruited and used to carry drugs, weapons etc.. Kids join for any number of reasons; a sense of belonging, money, drugs, protection..(Though, due to the high number of kids hobbling around with bullets in their legs, I am not overly convinced of that last reason)  As a result, education has become secondary, thus closing a door on a means of escape. 

Uptown and it’s new alderman James Cappleman have responded to the recent spike in shootings with a healthy round of CAPS meetings, one even, with the focus of educating the community on gangs.  However, as these meeting directly coincide with my teaching schedule, I unfortunately cannot attend. In order to feel as though I am involved, despite the lack of meetings in my life, I am continuing my project of saying hello EVERY day.  Each day, as I sit on my front step, I become familiar with the characters involved in daily Uptown life.  I see the same pretty young girls, and comfortably say hi. I continue to be amused by the reaction of the black boys who always seem to be surprised that I would deem them worthy of a hi. I see daily a middle aged white woman walking her dog, which looks to be a cross between a boxer and a pitbull. I watch her and her dog as she takes a long drag of her cigarette only to  emit a round of chest shattering lung splitting coughs. I look on as a couple men glance nervously around themselves before pulling something out of their pockets. Upon spotting me, they nod to each other and quickly take their deal to the other end of the street.  I have seen my neighbor across the way with his two youngest kids playing outside and after witnessing the sheer energy of the kids, I am forced to agree with his previous statement encouraging me to have just one or two kids..rather than the four he has.. After happily watching him, I see an older black woman walk by with a stroller and a little girl of about four years and cute little braids ending in cheerful hair ties.  I see this woman every day and despite saying Hi to her every day, she continues to ignore me, turning instead to berating the little girl. “what the f*ck you doin’,” she’ll say, “Get your *ss over here before I beat it!” As I look at this little girl and her fearful tears, I realize that I am looking into the face of the next generation gang member.  

Yesterday on my walk home from Jewel, I was shocked to hear someone say Hi to me. Standing just below my home, chatting with a younger man, was a lovely north african auntie holding tightly to her head scarf due to the day’s wind. She effortlessly pulled me  into a conversation, asking where I live and whether I have children yet.  (What is with everyone wanting to know why I don’t have kids!!) She told me in halting english that she lives one block over on Sunnyside and that her kids were not yet in the country, with the exception of her son who was currently standing next to us. She took my hand into both of hers and warmly said “It’s nice to meet you,” before going on her way. Perhaps I am not the only one with the idea of saying hi! 

Part III

written on Friday, September 2, 2011 at 2:44am

Day Two

I never took to drugs.  Sure, I smoked weed in college, but that is what music majors do. However, my control freak personality never allowed drugs to take hold as I found that I could never relinquish control to a substance.  I had watched my mother lose 20 years of her life to alcohol and a certain suicidal stepfather who kept guns in the house cured me of the desire to ever try anything harder than marijuana. I spent my childhood in and out of foster care and slept countless nights on the couch in the welcoming living room of my best friend’s family. I worked endless hours as a waitress through high school while attaining mediocre to poor grades and at the end of it all, I lucked my way into college with an ability to sing on pitch. I knew nothing else ..only that I could get away. 

Fifteen years later, I have stepped back into chaos all over again.  MY life is well and settled; I have a successful studio of hilarious young musicians, I am newly married to a good man (although he does spend a few too many hours playing video games..)  and I am addicted to taking classes even though I am well past my college days. However, I look out my window and I feel paralyzing helplessness.  I am torn between my bleeding heart liberal tendencies, which want someone to give these kids everything that kids should have, and my desire to shake each kid until they realize all of the potential that they are pissing away.  in some cases, I feel rage. I want to use a belt to beat the mother who walks around after 2 am with her sleepy children in tow and I want to punch the older men who use easily manipulated teenagers to do dirty work for them. As a child, I was lucky. I was in a small town, surrounded by normalcy, with the exception of my own home. I was shown examples of what love should look like. These kids are surrounded by chaos in such a way that chaos is the norm. I empathize even though I cannot excuse.

Day two of sitting started on a slightly darker note than day one.  I chose to forgo sitting on the balcony and moved immediately to the doorstep. Soon after settling in, I watched as a short mid 30s black man walked out of the building across from me, reached into his pants, pulled out a bottle of vodka and took a long swig. Upon noticing my (what must have been an amused) smile, He made a sad attempt to hide the bottle behind his back before walking a few more steps and taking another healthy gulp. I said hi and he shuffled away.  I watched as a boy around 13 (I would guess) road his bike by multiple times and I said hi to the middle aged white man who walks his corgis on average of 29 times a day. I talked to an older man with a strong accent who lives in the same building as ‘vodka man.’  I learned that the older man works every day from 6am till 2pm and that he shares his home with his four kids..the oldest 13 years,  the youngest 3 years. He asked how old I am, if I am married and why I don’t have kids. (If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was Indian..) He then told me that my husband and I should have kids soon, but we should have only one or two...definitely not four! Shortly after he headed home, A group of women, including the girls I had talked to the day before walked with a little one in a stroller, down the opposite side of the street and stopped to sit across from me, on the other side of a large SUV. They were shortly joined by another lady (and I use the term loosely..) 

I hold no affection for this woman in particular as I have seen and heard her many times before and her voice tends to precede conflict. She is a white, poorly kept, loud creature somewhere around 30 years, though I suspect that due to some heavy substance use, she is probably much younger than she looks. I first noticed her around midnight two summers ago when my husband and I had just begun dating.  I was at his house (my current home) sitting on the couch along with two other friends when this woman could be heard shouting obscenities...based on her volume, one can only assume that she was shouting at someone in Canada.  We all rushed to the window only to watch in shock as the man she was with punched another man, knocking him out cold in the middle of the street. We continued to watch while dialing 911 as she turned tail and ran as if Satan himself was about to give chase. ( I feel it prudent to mention that the 911 operator seemed disinclined to send anyone as she was sure the man was just drunk.. as if that was relevant to the fact that a man was lying bleeding in the middle of the street about to get run over..)  

I quietly observed as the women chatted away on the other side of the street, until another woman with the roots under her black hair dyed red, ran down the street chased by a man.  She shouted at him to get away, screamed that he was drunk and crazy, and shouted for someone to call 911.  I called, she ran the way she had come and the drunk man stumbled on in the opposite direction.  The police never came..

A few minutes later, a group of about 10 men/boys (including the kid I had seen earlier on his bike) approached the girls heading east. The girls stopped chatting.. in fact, not a single word was said as the boys passed, at which point, the girls immediately headed west. I have my suspicions of what might have happened that the SUV blocked from my view, but as they are only suspicions with no base in fact, I can only wonder at what may have been sharing the baby stroller with the baby..

After this incident, the street remained quiet for a few minutes until a woman was trying to get into her car while a man shouted at her to give him money for a drink.  I went inside.. I had seen enough.