I don't usually entertain guest writers here, but I've not done a very good job keeping up with current posts lately. When my daughter read the following aloud to me on Skype, an assignment she'd completed for a class in Chicago where she's in college, I asked her if she'd mind my posting it here. As a writing teacher, I see a lot of student work, and it does my heart good to encounter something she's written that, unlike so many others, taps into a deep, emotional place where she's not afraid to tread. I am moved because I see in her the qualities of a good writer, and I am moved because the person who stitched the words together is my own kid.
To Dad,
I've lived in the city now for almost a month. I'm still getting used to the idea that I'm used to it here. I've become familiar with the streets, and the trains, and the buses. I've become familiar with the steady jingle of a few cents rubbing together in the bottom of an old Dunk'n Donuts cup - a cup held by a man even more familiar with this place - and life - than me. I feel safer here than I do back in our old little railroad town. I feel safe in the detachment that swims through the streets. I'm not a face with a name and a history; just another body waiting for the light to turn green. I feel right. The rhythm of the sounds fit that of my heart, and the pace of my feet matches all the rest. I feel at peace here, because I know you did. I know there was something in the glow of the lights and the hum of the traffic that pulled you in. Just as it has done to me. I believe, in another time and circumstance, you would have thrived here. You would have made it in a way that home had no hope of offering you. Maybe that’s why I'm bound and determined to make it here. Make it for you. Live it for you.
I remember a few years ago after you came home from a trip here, and the majority of your pictures were of, or with, the "Bean" - one of every angle and side. I've been there many times now, and it's always your reflection looking back at me. I see you behind every man in a suit, and I smell you on the escalators of Water Tower Place - slapping the shooting drops of water as I ride up the floors. I hear you behind every Cub fan - angry, but no less devoted than last year.
I'll be a success here. I know it because this place is limitless. The streets run on for miles and miles, and the skyscrapers stretch high enough to meet the clouds. The rules are different here. It isn't narrow-minded and flat. It's cultured, diverse, and worldly. It's creative and loud and intense. And I'll make it. For you, and for me.
Love,
Your Second Chance
