Gifts on a Shelf, YCA Challenge, Day 1

In four years, he gave me a shelf full of gifts, none of them things you could pick up and touch

A city, blues music, slam poetry, tacos at Big Star, tamales in Pilsen, Vance Kelly at Kingston Mines and Promontory Point.

He gave me a city I only knew from the suburbs - driving in on 290, driving in on 55, he gave me a city he knew as a resident. He gave me a glimpse, moving around on El platforms and CTA buses, being stranded in Hyde Park because the 6 bus never comes.

He gave me Hyde Park and Pilsen, two neighborhoods where he lay his hat

He gave me parking tickets and parallel parking and don't park here if it snowed and God help you if you don't have a permit.

He gave me love. Set against the backdrop of a beach at sunrise in a March that was so warm I didn't even need a jacket.

He warmed up cold winter nights after I finally found a parking spot that didn't have a chair in it for someone else who had shoveled it out.

He gave me art. Standing at the Art Institute staring at that painting for longer than I should have and still it was not long enough. I wish it would come back.

He gave me the Museum of Science and Industry where we were members. Together. The mail kept coming to my house long after we were an us.

He gave me open mic nights at a dive bar in Boystown. Neither exist anymore.

Tours of a brewery where he got my serving because I'm gluten-free and don't like beer anyway

I gave him architecture tours on the river after I donated money to WBEZ.

A trip to the top of the Sear's Tower because it was my resolution to do one thing every year that scared me and on New Year's Day, I was going to conquer the fear of standing in a glass box

I gave him late-night restaurants that were sometimes limited to Mr. Submarine and Taco Bell.

I gave him train rides to Joliet, train rides to Forest Park, blue line to the girlfriend he loved but not enough.

We gave one another theater. Red Moon, Jazzin' at the Shedd, "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind."

And love. We gave each other love.

And a year later, watching slam poetry by an author who was one of his favorites, I am walking back to my car in tears because I just miss him. But that sadness is colored by gratitude. Shelves and shelves of gifts that you cannot take down and touch.

He was my soft place to land and a compass for me to find myself. Who I am today could not exist if it had not been for him. Who I am today could not exist if he had stayed.

He gave me resilience and grit and sobbing on the bathroom floor.

He gave me memories so strong I thought I could taste them.

He gave me a chunk of the south side and the words - 'I know where that is."

He gave me a piece of the city, his city, and now I could claim some of it as mine.

Girl from the suburbs now can parallel park like a champ, girl from the suburbs pays the meter and hopes for the best, girl from the suburbs looks for the signs that say you need a permit to park here.

Girl from the suburbs knows her way on the streets of the Chi. Girl from the suburbs knows her way on the streets of her own heart.

There will always, always, always be a piece of you that lives there.

#Chicago #Louderthanabomb #Poetry