• The White Winter Sky

    by  •  • LifeStuff • 0 Comments

    first few

    Whenever winter occasionally visits Albuquerque and dulls and bleaches the sky, I am regularly transported back to a few specific memories from my Chicago days. You know- those stills that get burned into our heads of particular moments, particular images.

    When I lived in the city, after my brief attempt at marriage failed, I resided in a small brown walkup in the little pocket of Buena Park in north Chicago. Life then was mostly holing up in my little studio apartment or hanging out somewhere downtown near work- in part because being downtown near work was a lot more interesting than being holed up in my studio apartment.

    Most people seem to know how to put a life together, and at that, manage sizable things. While most of my friends at the time were married, in mortgages, raising kids, thinking about promotions and pensions, there I was, in my early 30’s, trying to figure out how to survive on my own. Lessons others had learned 10 and some years earlier finally kicked me in the shins. Chicago was a dazzling teacher and life coach, but often unforgiving and harsh as well. “You have to learn these lessons somehow.”

    And so, carless after essentially abandoning my little pickup truck to the city streets several winters before, I spent a lot of time on buses and the L heading to and from work.

    Employed by an internet service provider that then was purchased by a cable company, my homes away from home were two downtown locations- the first, the Old Colony Building, a landmark structure with turreted corners that reached for the sky beside the massive Harold Washington library downtown, and later, the RCN facility that sat off of the main corridor near the river whose address I now can’t seem to recall. It was a jog west from downtown proper, away from the glitzy shopping streets. I remember the oddity of that location because it was an area filled by immense buildings, manufacturing and warehouse monstrosities in their day, and yet now barren of people.

    Because I worked for a while in the Loop, I also spent a lot of time walking downtown. It was easy to do because, well, everyone did it. Downtown is made for walkers.

    Each year after Thanksgiving, the base of the already luminous cathedral of marbled and metallic buildings would be amped a little more with colorful window displays featuring gold strands and tinsel, richly adorned trees and colorfully bowed packages behind showcased products. And when it rained or snowed, moisture on the walls and streets echoed the festive lights.

    For some reason, I often return to a specific memory, too, of standing at a bus stop.

    I remember it because it was late one evening deep into Christmas week, and for once, the streets were relatively bare. I had decided to walk up Michigan that night from work, and after I passed Water Tower Place at the north end of the Magnificent Mile, the sky quietly opened its clouds, and thick giant snowflakes began to densely fall. I stopped at a corner beneath a tall, austere, and buttoned-up marble building, and looking up, I could see the big flakes slowly falling down for a great distance in the sky by the white glow of the corner street light above me. No cars were driving on the empty, wet streets, and everything went quiet. I looked north, into the neighborhood of residential buildings near the lake ahead of me, and moist crystals kissed my face. A deep Silent Night filled my heart for the next few moments as I watched and waited for the next bus to arrive.

    A little moment of peace and holiday for me that night, while standing on a street corner in Chicago.

    It’s stayed with me ever since.

    Image Credit: ‘The First Few Snowflakes′ by Darren Gantt via Flickr. Creative Commons license.

    About

    A web programmer by day, I somehow still spend a lot of time thinking about relationships, God, and the significance of grace and love in daily events. I am old school in the sense that I believe in the reality of sin, and in the need of each human heart for deliverance to the Divine. I am one of those who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that you can find most answers to life's pressing issues in Him and His Word, the Bible. I ain't perfect, and a lot of the time I ain't good, but by God's grace and kindness, I am forgiven and free.

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