Sigh....... homesick, again.

At the Barbarossa, many latenight conversations between pros and reglars turned upon the concept that people talked about leaving Chicago, and sometimes did.... couldn't WAIT to leave that GODDAMN PLACE, they'd say.... and sometimes did.... but... they always came back.

You could really think you had left... and sometimes did... but you knew, in those conversations, that it didn't matter who was talking or being talked about... who had left or just come back... it was accepted with some degree of bitter acknowledgement that one would inevitably be back.

You'd wish the one announcing impending departure all the best, say goodbyes sounding like forever, and then grin a twisted grin. That LOOK would pass between youse two, because... everyone knows Denial is just a river in Egypt.

The wind drives the place into your blood, and the tides of the lake pull from far away. Living in Chicago-- it's the booze in your hand as well as the 12-step program you have to maintain to live.

So when you are gone from it--whether you were from there or had just become from there--it was home, and the scent and touch of being there can come over you of a sudden. You ain't left at all.

You're stuck with it! Cuz like it or not, you just gotta love Chicago!

Fred... remember coming back from your trip north? Was it the boundary waters? Let's see how long it's been.... it was in the year just before I went and got knocked up, so, hmmm, 1977-78???? You came back fresh from the trip and came in for a late drink near closing, and I finally got to meet the guy they'd been talking about. (He tended bar and performed there.) Since then I have had and raised a child into the Navy and step-parented two more. But the light of the bar is like right now, right now.

~Susan