Thursday, July 9, 2009

Swoon

So yesterday we dropped in on one of my best friends. She and her husband moved back into downtown Chicago with their two small children about a year ago. He is working on a Masters in Design, with a special interest in self-sustaining structures. She has degrees in photography and Chinese medicine, and is currently working to renew an acupuncture license. They don't try to be, but these are really cool people.

The place they are renting is near perfect. It has fifteen foot ceilings, bedrooms for everyone, storage, a finished basement with a separate office, a lovely deck overlooking a cute little postage stamp yard, and a mudroom. While I have sworn off envy, I certainly had a moment where I felt certain that their apartment is the place where I am supposed to spend the rest of my life.

I must confess, I have always had a thing for Chicago. Yes, the weather is a disaster, but the people are warm and more than make up for the frigid air. Chicago is like New York's kid sister zipped up in a snowsuit. Quirky, but still undeniably attractive. All the sex appeal with none of the intimidation factor. Wrap that ongoing fuzzy feeling with my fantasy about living in a city and I suddenly found myself in the midst of a full swoon.

I told my friend how much I loved her place and she laughed, reminding me that finding it had been such a fluke. She said they looked at 37 places before landing on that one by accident. She mentioned that her upstairs neighbors are college girls who manage to party like it's 1999 every few months. She said that the back yard was covered in all kinds of trash and odd bits of things that she spent months picking up before letting the kids step foot out there.

Okay, so maybe the place isn't perfect after all, and my friends aren't moving out anytime soon. I will probably live a full and bountiful life, even if I never get to live there. And fantasizing about something you don't have, even while loving what you do have, is a sure way to make yourself crack up. Still, as I drifted off to sleep, I couldn't help arranging my furniture in the identical place I will rent right next door to hers.

1 comment:

latisha said...

wow. cheri. this was amazing! the break is doing you good!!