Thoughts from Chicago: The Bean

The Bean. I always come back to The Bean, so this time I'm going to start with it.

First off, The Bean's real title is the Cloud Gate. It's another Gateway, much like the one I am moving towards (which coincidentally is also represented by a large metallic tourist trap). I know this name, and yet, like millions of others, I call it The Bean, because that is what it is; there is no denying it. It is a large, reflective bean, in the middle of Millennium Park, overlooking Michigan Avenue. But it is just so Chicagoan to simplify something so complicated as this (you don't think it's complicated? Please keep reading, I'll get there). We do it all the time. The Corn Cobs. The Tower. The Lake. The Marilyn. It's practically second nature and it makes the most sense with the Bean. There is only one Bean and everyone in the city can point you towards it.

But this is what I love about the Bean: its complexity, despite being so simple. It is a Bean. It is a sculpture. It is a tourist trap. It is a piece of art. But it is so much more in all of that. What I love most about this piece is that it holds the city inside of it. It is in part a sculpture, but it is also in part, a mirror. The city of Chicago exists in the reflection of its surface and so within the Bean lies the city, but more than that, it also holds the people of the city. The amazing thing about this piece is that it invites the viewer to become a part of the art. If humans are anything, they are vain. You give them a giant reflective surface and they don't think wow I wonder how long this took to make and how did they shape the metal in this way—they immediately look for themselves and anyone they know.

This art is literally a reflection of the viewer, and so the viewer becomes the art. And to me, that is just so indicative of Chicago. We are a city of tall buildings and bipolar weather, a city of art and culture, but we are also a city of people. And more than that, we are a city that opens its arms to people all around the world. The Bean doesn't only show Chicagoans, it shows people from Bangladesh and England and Mexico, from D.C. and L.A. and middle-of-nowhere, America. The Bean welcomes those people and says come here, be a part of what is happening here, in this city, in this moment.

The Bean holds the city inside of it. It holds the people and the culture and the open-armed welcomes, it holds constant change, and it holds the viewer. It holds so many complexities of life, so many overlapping edges of the human condition and urban living and growth, and yet it is, in essence, only a bean.

Parting from my One True Love

To most of my readership, this will not be news, but I am soon moving southwards, to the great Gateway to the Midwest. I've always thought of gateways as places or objects or metaphors to pass through, but never live inside of, and yet this is where my life seems to be pointing me. Hopefully this will not end as badly for me as it did for the Doorman, who spent his life in another such gateway. I am very excited to start my new life in St. Louis, where I will live in a lovely apartment with my best friend and play out the dream America has prescribed to every twenty-something in the country, which is to have a place of your own, have a "real job," and hopefully have adventures taken from sitcom scripts. And I have to tell you, as clichéd as these aspirations may be, I am truly looking forward to this move and I have never in my life found hand towels and toothbrush holders and shower curtains so infinitely interesting.

But there is one thing that's bittersweet about it all, and that's leaving Chicago. Deep down, I know that no matter where I live, Chicago will always be my town, my city, my home. It's not something you can take away from someone and I will certainly not let anyone do so either. I have fallen in love twice in my life and one of those times was with Chicago, and that is a love that has lasted. I can't tell you when it started, just that it exists. And I know that no matter where life takes me, I will always want to return to this city, because it's not the people or the places that I will miss, but the very essence of the city itself: its life force, for this is most certainly a city that is alive. I know now that no matter how much I will come to love St. Louis (and I will; it is the only city I have ever missed outside of Chicago), I will still be doing whatever I can to claw my way back to the Windy City. That's my goal now: to become successful enough that someday I can return to Chicago and live here, for real.

I have a massive collection of photographs taken in and of Chicago, and many of them are not the touristy pictures that most expect (though some of those exist, too). I am scrolling through the documents on my computer right now and thinking about how there is so much I need to say about this city, so much I want to express to anyone who has never visited it and more importantly, to the ones who have and never understood it as I understand it. I could write a novel on all the things I feel for this city, it would be my Love Letter. Maybe someday I will, just because I can. For now, I will settle for writing a few blogs that will not come close enough to touch the way I feel, but perhaps close enough to see waving it in the distance.