Vanishing Point Chicago

Yearning for Chicago

I am torn, at home in two places.

I wrote these lines after completing a pastel drawing of a sunset. I was a teenager whose friend cancelled plans, and I was not brave enough to venture into the city by myself. In short, I missed out on going to Venetian Night in 1999 because I was too chicken to take the train and go alone. Living in rural Crete, my real home was in Chicago; I longed for the adventure of city life.

I felt a strange gravitational pull towards Chicago. Living in the city was more important to me than marriage. Other girls dreamed of their wedding; I dreamed of my city life - the places I’d go and the cool people I’d meet. Other girls plan their wedding colors; I planned my future apartment (bay window, walkup, claw foot tub). It took longer than I expected, but eventually, step by step I moved to the city.

I started working downtown and got the daytime view of Chicago. I would sip small tastes of city life when partaking in afterwork drinks. Occasionally my friends and I would go to dinner and a show at Navy Pier and feel cultured. But even I knew the city had more than Navy Pier to offer.

Living in Chicago

When I finally moved to Chicago, the struggle commute of getting into the city dissolved into a faint memory. A phoenix of possibility emerged. I lived life at warp speed, 24 hours, seven days a week. The greatest change was inside; I became independent enough to take a risk. To go to places alone.

Chicago no longer consisted of convoluted parking and disorienting streets. Chicago became my backyard playground. To celebrate, I bought a fancy camera, started a blog, learned to network and became the girl of my sixteen year old dreams. I attended independent movies with wine discussions; I partied in furniture galleries, art galleries, tile stores, libraries, nightclubs, churches and loved every second.

Or so I told myself. In reality, I would come home feeling empty and climb under a blanket of guilty emptiness as my manuscript gathered dust. I was exhausted to the point of declining events. I barely wrote on the blog. As an artist, I withered, yet the fun was too steep not to fall.

Then COVID hit.

COVID Living

I was attending two events, one at Coach and another at Hugo Boss on Michigan Ave. I stopped to pick up some groceries and felt a sense of foreboding. Slighty tipsy from the parties with glitter crusting in my eyes, I blinked in disbelief at empty grocery shelves.

There was nothing to do. Day by Day, brought new rules. Like dominoes of fun collapsing, my playground of museums and art galleries, shopping and bars closed, halting the momentum of the city to a complete standstill. Spring clouds of uncertainity covered the city. Life seemed to be impromptu and unbalanced.

Time stopped. I never thought I'd walk through empty streets, visit empty attractions, and see such desolation. I would traipse through streets without traffic, uneasy at the stillness. I walked suspended in encapsulated disbelief. As a habit from blogging, I brought my camera with me everywhere. It helped confirm what my eyes did not always believe.

Through the shutdowns, the riots, and the unrest, I immersed myself in photography. It was a way to get fresh air and exercise physically. But mentally it provided a way to reconcile the reality and history occuring throughout Chicago. My art has strictly revolved around writing and drawing. Photography became my therapy. There were many days where my expression was stunted; frozen in disbelief. With photography, I could still communicate.

At times, photography was the only proof I possesed to describe the chaos around me. I found another parallel Chicago. As the people disappeared overnight, I entered an alternate version of Chicago. It still felt like home, but the buildings stood a little taller, the architecture seemed more detailed. I noticed dimensions of the city that I'd never witnessed before despite walking past them daily.

My home settled into a quasi-normalcy. As I adjusted to the alternate reality of COVID times, I became slightly obsessed with mirrored images and reflections. I feel that the mirrored image captures the divide and duality we are currently living.

These reflective pictures depict what no words may illustrate. In the present, the empty deserted streets shock me into reminiscing about pre-COVID life. To live in the present Chicago is to exist in the vanishing point of a parallel horizon unknown. The old adage dictates I can never return home again, but home and the moments that built both pre and post COVID Chicago will return in memory, reflected in my photography.