Lakefront memories... (and I swear I won't post any more Plinky crap today after this!)

Today's Plinky prompt: What's your favorite beach or lakeshore?

I'm not much of a beach person. The sun and I have a hate/hate relationship. My friends and family use me as a comparative when talking about other people who have pale skin. If I had a nickel for every time I heard the phrase "almost as pale as you," I'd probably be able to buy a new computer. Not that I'm complaining. I mean, I used to hate it, but then the whole goth thing became cool and strangers stopped commenting on my apparent lack of sun exposure.

Anyway, the idea of spending time on a beach doesn't really appeal to me. In general, I'm not much of a nature person. I like nature, I'm all for preserving nature, but I don't want to spend a lot of time out in it. And I love swimming, but I'd prefer not to share the water with non-human swimming companions or have to walk on rocks while doing so.

That said, my favorite beach or lakeshore would have to be the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago. In the three years I lived in Chicago, I think I only visited the beach twice. The first was for a corporate beach volleyball tournament. The one game we played was pretty fun. Okay, so we didn't "play" so much as "lose quickly so we could get to the bar for the afterparty before all the other losers ate the free appetizers," but it was still fun.

The second time was when some friends from college came to visit. We'd gone to the Lincoln Park Zoo one afternoon, and as we were wandering around we kept seeing people come up over the hill with beach stuff. My old roommate asked if there was a pool or something nearby, and couldn't believe that there was an actual sandy beach that far north (she's from Texas). So we left the zoo for a stroll on the beach to prove that it actually existed. It was May. The weather was beautifully warm. The water was fucking freezing.

There was the time that the company I worked for had a dinner cruise for its Christmas party. The boat cruised along the shore for a couple of hours while we had dinner and got drunk at the open bar. I think I had five cosmos. I don't remember much about the cruise.

I may not miss hanging out on the beach, but I do miss living near it. I liked having a view of the lake from the roof deck of my apartment. I loved having the lake breeze blowing through my apartment in the summer. I missed going to Navy Pier with visiting guests. If I still lived there, I'd totally take advantage of the miles of paved trail along the beach for my fitness walks.

But you'd never catch me laying out on the sand.

If money were really no object... Chi-town. Big house, lots of cats.

I'd probably move back to Chicago. Get a nice brownstone on the Near North Side, open a boutique and gallery in the neighborhood, and get a bunch of cats.

I almost said that if money were really no object I'd move to Paris. But on second thought, Paris is more of a nice place to vacation than a place to relocate to, for me. I'm kinda fond of American culture in general, and I'd have to be flying back to the States all the time to see concerts and visit friends and family and such. What a pain in the ass that would be. Plus, Kourt would have to learn French (and I'd have to do some SERIOUS brushing up) and then we'd have to get a whole new social life... Too much work.

So yeah, Chi-town. Big house, lots of cats. We'd leash train them all and take them for walks through Lincoln Park and let them beat up on tiny dogs. I'd spend my afternoons in my art studio doing sketches of naked women while drinking coffee and Twittering. I'd fix up part of the house like a bar, stage and all, so that when friends want to go out and party we can just stay in and party and avoid all the stupid people.

In my spare time, I'd finally put together a band and play shows on the weekends for fun, even if we just play in my home bar with the cats for an audience. I suppose in that case it would just be me singing karaoke, but whatever.

I'd still keep my business back in MO, though, and let somebody else manage it. I'd probably fly in once a week or so to make sure things are being done correctly. Oh, and to get some cashew chicken and Andy's. I can't live without periodic doses of cashew chicken and Andy's.

I Wanna Go Back...

The question: Paul Simon was going to Graceland, Toto blessed the rains down in Africa – what place would you write a song about?

I lived in Chicago for three glorious years after I got out of college. I'd only been there once, and that was only for a weekend, but for some reason after that I was completely in love. Before that, I'd had this idea that I'd stay in Missouri after graduation and set up a nice quiet faux-suburban existence, but that one weekend convinced me that I really belonged in the city.

So after graduation, I moved. By myself. I didn't know anyone there, didn't know my way around, had no idea what I was getting myself into. And it was fucking fabulous! Had a tiny little shoebox apartment by Lincoln Park, got me a job out by O'Hare and commuted on the train everyday...

God, I miss it. Even thought it damn near bankrupted me to live there and I ended up getting dragged back to Missouri and into my parents' house under duress after I fucked my life up, it was the best time of my life. I feel like I turned into the person I am today while I was there. That's where I finally took the first few steps towards making a life as an artist. That's where I sorted out a lot of stuff in my head about who I was and what I wanted in life.

Actually, I did write a song about it a long time ago. Not so much about Chicago itself, but just my desire to go back to it. To go back to the way my life was there.

But I'm not ready to share it with the world at large just yet.

I went back for a visit a few years ago, and I was actually kind of scared to go back. I was afraid to go back and find that it didn't feel the same, that things had changed while I was gone and that it would kind of ruin the memory. Either that, or it would be exactly the same and it would make it hard for me to come back home and be happy with the way things had turned out. Because by that point I'd made peace with the fact that I'd fucked up and that even though I didn't like having to leave, that the life I'd built back in Missouri was good in its own way.

I was pleasantly surprised. Most everything was just how I remembered. It felt the same. I still felt connected to the city somehow, like we belonged together. But it wasn't a depressing experience. It was like this little reminder that there wasn't a time limit on things -- that if I someday manage to move back to Chicago it'll still feel the same, but that I don't have to feel rushed to do so. It's not the right time to go back right now, and that's fine. The city will wait for me.

And maybe someday soon I'll get a chance to play with my songwriting again. That's something I started in Chicago, too. It's been on the back burner for quite a while now. But when I get a chance to get back to it, maybe I'll share.

Hard to go back to where you used to be

After four long years away, I returned this weekend to Chicago. Our stated reason for going was Pride weekend, but I knew that no matter what brought me back I'd end up having to face a lot of emotions and issues. When I moved back in with the parentals in 2002 I left a lot of loose ends unresolved emotionally. I never really said goodbye to my independent life or achieved any closure to the situation. I just left and refused to do much looking back. I didn't know it at the time we made our reservations, but this weekend really turned out to be the best time for this little foray into the past.

The very first time I visited Chicago I came home saying I had to live there. I've never quite been able to put my finger on why, but I just feel at home there. I feel like I belong there. And I loved living there. I don't recall a single day during the three years I lived there when I wanted to come back to Missouri. I didn't want to leave. I just couldn't afford to stay. After three years of being totally on my own in a place I loved, going back to a situation where I was dependent on my family again in a place where I often feel that I DON'T belong was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. I guess, to make it easier, I just emotionally shut the door and forced myself to make this new situation work.

I've always realized that it was my own fault I had to leave in the first place. I made big mistakes. Really, really big mistakes. I needed to grow up, I guess. I entered college as someone who was afraid to break rules because I was sure the world would end if I got caught doing anything that wasn't expected of me. I suppose somewhere along the line I'd become quite the opposite, and boy did that catch up with me. So the last four years, in a lot of ways, has been a long process of finding a middle ground. I've resolved a lot of problems financially, medically, personally, and spiritually and even made some big progress towards developing my career in the direction I wanted.

But I'm not WHERE I want to be. Four years ago I told myself that by the time I was thirty I'd move back to Chicago, and if that didn't happen that I'd make a sign that said "loser" and wander downtown Springfield mumbling to myself. Now I'm thirty. I'm hopefully going to be making a sign that says "Fashioned By Jaye" and wandering downtown Springfield as a bona fide entrepreneur. Kourtnie and I are talking about home ownership. Still, it's not what I'd pictured, and I was afraid that going back to Chicago was going to stir up all sorts of issues to complicate my life.

It did. Part of me hoped that I'd find the old places, the old neighborhood, the whole feel of the city to be different now. I can't say I'm the same girl I was when I left, and maybe I hoped that I'd changed enough that the connection wouldn't be there anymore. Maybe I even hoped that the neighborhood would be different. But it wasn't. Sure, little things changed. The Gap store near my first apartment is a bank now. The pancake house is gone and empty. I didn't expect anyone at Seattle's Best to remember that I used to come in every day for a triple grande supremo latte, but I was certainly surprised to find that it's an ice cream shop now. Whoever lives in the apartment I left has beautiful crimson curtains in the windows. But the routine of it all -- the bus trips and neighborhood errands and trips to the Loop -- it all felt exactly the same as I remembered. I didn't feel like a tourist. I felt like I'd come home for a visit.

It's as if I'd left behind a piece of that girl I used to be, tucked it away there in my old neighborhood, waiting until I could come back and be her again. And I've made the changes I needed to make. I've just also made some changes I never thought I would, leaving me in some kind of limbo between the life I still really want to have again and the one I don't want to give up. Would it even still be the same if Kourtnie and I moved to Chicago together? Will we ever be able to afford it? Would I have to give up everything I've achieved career-wise to get the lifestyle I want? The only thing I know for sure was that it can never be exactly the same. Things have changed, and they can't change back. Everything is a compromise, everything comes at a price, and sometimes it turns out that you gain more than you expected by giving up things you never needed in the first place.

Mostly, though, the trip was good. There are changes I still need to make, pieces of me I need to find again. There are even some changes I've made that I need to undo. And standing there along Broadway with thousands and thousands of other Chicagoans at the parade, watching businesses and churches and politicians who are willing to join themselves to the community, just underlined the fact that we're not accepted in Springfield, and never will be.

Most of all it was reassuring to go back and find the connection again, the feeling of being at home. Now I know that I didn't make it up -- that I didn't fabricate some feeling in my imagination to justify getting away from Springfield in the first place. And now I know that it will still be there whenever I finally get the chance to go back. I don't have to be afraid of change, neither in myself nor in the circumstances around me. And I don't have to put a deadline on my life, either. I've always said I believed that opportunities will present themselves when the times are right, but I have to admit that I've always been afraid that the opportunity to go back to Chicago might never present itself. I guess I'm not afraid of that anymore.

In the meantime, I don't have to be afraid of going back and facing the things I left behind. It was so much easier to leave the city behind this morning than it was four years ago. It felt good, actually. Sure, I would have loved to have stayed, but it felt really good to be coming home -- home to the kitty and my work and my family and my comfortable pillow. I felt like I'd gone back to check up on the life I left behind, found that everything was in order, and could go back to my life in progress with a sense of reassurance. We both want to go back every year, now. It's not the same as living there, but it's a nice compromise.

And until next year I'll work on my life here. I can't be happy if I spend all my energy wishing for a life I don't have anymore, but neither can I pretend I don't truly want to have it back. The only way to get anywhere is to concentrate on what I DO have, what I CAN have, and be happy with those things. And if having those things someday keeps me from going back to Chicago, at least I know that once upon a time I DID have that life. I did it, I loved it, and nothing changes that.

So yeah, it was a hard weekend but a good one. The parade was fun, we won lots of stuff at Dave & Busters, and we met some really fun people. And the long island iced teas at the Cheesecake Factory will totally knock you on your ass. Seriously.