I am sorry, but I cannot hear you over the siren of the cicadas. It’s like a beat getting funky in your head phones, the right side on, then the left. Not at the same time, usually, both sides, but they respond to each other’s echo, playing a game with their percussion melody. The loud siren fades out, only to come back stronger again. The symphony of their song overtakes the neighborhood, leaving a dent of solitude when they lull into silence.
The banana peppers are hanging out like two chartreuse hammocks. Lazily they sway in the wind, unaware of the battle cries of the cicadas raging on all around.
The collard greens are building a metropolis with their towering height and visual domination. Collards always seemed so calm to me, but they certainly are focused on supremacy and upward mobility.
The kale is crazy with curls, filling in vacant spaces between the monstrous collard greens, mimicking a city block.
The squash vines are threating to lace over even the neighbors yard, to twine each living thing together like a raft lost on the oceans waves.
The ruby red gems of the tomato plants are quickly stolen by the garden robbers, with traces of their juicy insides strewn about the yard. Red pieces of dead soldiers dot the green grass.
The herbs are like a buzz cut covering their wooden container beds.
I work in a very strange spot, where old industry meets new technology. It’s at a crossroad that sounds more like a metaphor than a real spot, an unassuming corner that brings old school Chicago together with business for the new millennia.
You cannot even squeeze a tiny bicycle down Fulton Market street during the early morning to late afternoon. The street is packed with tall men in long white coats, running to and fro, bringing stacks of brown boxes to idling trucks and muscular forklifts. The street is littered with men and machines, anxiously filling orders and ready to scurry at a moments notice. It is a public street, but there is no room for cars, pedestrians, let alone bikes. Enter at your own risk, you will be the frog leaping, the chicken wondering if it can cross the road.
The meat-packing district of Chicago is an industry staple, and this intersection is where it was born. This trade formed the identity of this Midwestern metropolis, molded it into the meat-centric, gastro-destination of the nation.
At the end of this meat-packing row, at the corner by a stop sign, sits a small restaurant, serving up Brazilian influenced and locally inspired food. It’s quaint, it’s unpretentious, it strives to make good and simple food day in and day out. It is innocently unaware of the power struggle raging on outside, blissfully happy in the crossfire between the old world and the new regime.
After the stop sign, past the meat empire, sits the new google building. This will be the hub for the technological overlord that will be the new master of Chicagoans, representing the new direction in industry. These modern offices will shape Chicago in many ways that are just as meaningful as the meat-packing legacy, but oh so completely different. This is not the physical labor of men in uniforms, trucks almost running you over in their physical hurry. Here, the work is conceptual, all the running around will be done with fingertips instead of fork lifts.
The restaurant is the twilight of these two worlds, and I am caught in the transition.
I am caught at a strange spot in the development of technology and its use in everyday life. See, I feel extremely blessed that I am living in a time where there is digital photography and the internet. Bus tracker, train tracker, online shopping, online appointments, a dictionary at my fingertips, a map that will talk you through directions. All of these things are nothing less than magical.
I remember when the internet was invented, how cool is that?
Well it’s not really that cool. See the thing is, when I was in high school, we did not even have computers outside of computer class. We were supposed to get new computers in the library, but the school had to put in video surveillance instead because they couldn’t figure out who kept pulling the fire alarms everyday.
I used computers in college, and now I own a tablet. That is about the full extent of my technological knowledge.
Computers and exploiting their use is important not just in everyday life, but integral in the professional setting. They are everywhere, and I know that my life could be greatly improved if I knew how to use common, everyday tools that children are learning in elementary school.
It’s not like programs are user-friendly, they make no sense. Honestly, I just erased a full paragraph with a touch of a button, and I have no idea how to get it back. Its gone forever, my thoughts are now with the wind.
So what do we do? Us adults who are expected to know information that is being taught to the children, that are all of a sudden necessary for success, when I basically know how to turn my machine on and off?
Its frustrating, not knowing how to use these powerful tools that operate with the smallest touch of the fingertips.
I hate autocorrect with my whole heart. Seriously why do I have to retype a word 3 times for it to come out the way I want? Also, if you change the punctuation at the end or accidently press space, next thing you know I am retyping the same word 7 times. Its exhausting and really hard not to loose your chain of thought. The automated corrections are so demanding and intrusive. I don’t even know you, autocorrect, back off. Get a clue. Why are the corrected words not underlined anymore?
The red line speeds its way through the tunnel, creating a machine roar that echoes through the bustling city. The train’s loud cries are a part of daily life, it is the sound of progress, of facilitating hard work, getting it done as that saying once went (years ago when the red neck movement was hip)
The train is affordable, reliable, and sometimes very speedy. Except of course, once the red line passes the Addison stop, all of this modern progress and hype is simply thrown out the window. Once it passes that last stop of dignity, the train simply gives up on life. It moves slower then a grandma towards a sale at target. The hustle in the step is so quickly forgotten, and the monetary unfortunate are left to the fumes that the train has left to unjet us home. It moves so slow that it is just a little bit faster than walking.
The wealthy people who live further north of the select downtown and midtown stops, they take the purple line. That train was invented for rich people. The purple lines runs right next to all the stops north of addition, but will never ever stop at any of them.
In this slow desert of transport, I sit impatiently waiting for the most unambitious train to heave me home.
Third time is a charmed chance for a mundane train ride to work. I hardly take the train with the option of riding Turnip, but I have been lucky enough to have experienced an acapella song from two young aspiring singers 3 times. Of all the passing trains, of the long line of train cars strung together for the journey across town and back, of all the varying times in the late morning, these two musicians have chosen my ride 3 times now.
They introduced themselves, sing an oldie but goodie song, filling in the beat with snapping fingers and the thump of a tapping foot. These two young men look nothing like the part they are singing. They don’t dress the part, they don’t look like a typical musician, and they don’t demand anything. They have a cd, 4 songs for $5. They give a short spiel about themselves, and then sing a song.
Three times on the short green line train ride for the 3 quick stops, they have serenaded me, started my day out brilliantly, delighted me with their talent, their inspiration to sing in front of strangers, and to passively ask for money to in order to pursue their dreams. They have a great song, I hope they keep on singing, and I hope they keep on finding me on my short green line journey to brighten my day with their muse.
Deconstructing a known food dish has been very popular in restaurants for years. You take something, say a carrot cake, and you put apart the components to recreate a new eating experience. With the carrot cake example, the raisins in the cake would become a purée, the carrot a sorbet, the cake a fluffy microwave cake, the rum a caramel sauce, the brown sugar would be crystallized for a crunch. The spices would be an aroma.
Why don’t we call it a reconstruction? You are not simply tearing down, you are recreating. A reconstruction has endless possibilities. In order to create you first must destroy. This we know. But after that epic destruction of mayhem and feelings of regret, overwhelmed by everything that must still happen, you must rebuild. This is twilight hour, let’s reinvent, don’t stop early now.
Spotify knows me WAY better than google.
Get a clue looser, it’s not working. You don’t appeal to me, or Marinara, Mari Mari, and we all know Marigold’s stance on google’s impression. Nobody is dazzled with your understanding of any of my personalities. I would say that I give you a lot of material to work with, but you are only appealing to… I don’t even know. I don’t understand your angle, google.
That Spotify, though, has it going on. It has my taste down better that I even know. I thought that I didn’t have a type, with my wide range of personalities, but Spotify does not see this Gemini trait as restrictive. It works with my wide open field of musical tastes, and comes up with recommendations that I love even more I could know on my own. That is what we call boyfriend material. It will recommend to me my favorite songs that I have forgotten about, new ones that I cannot live without.
Google is a creep, but Spotify is super cute. Probably strong too.
The cicadas are singing although the summer’s sizzle remains silent.
The wind’s whistle has wound down to whispers of forgotten wonders.
The clamorous children have chilled down to cool calm, keeping clandestine clues of their company.
The people parade past peacefully, particularly predisposed to participating in practical partying.
Sleep should be sound, but my psyche is still spinning swiftly, severely sidetracked from the summertime slumber.
marigolds forever 