Never Seen The Sun
Wandering while sleepless.
There’s something to be said about walking the streets after a long night. The air seems crisper, less clinging. Even late into the day, the clarity of the early morning follows you, needling at the rips of your perception and pulling at each unwinding thread. It simplifies things. The tired mind notices, on many occasions, only what is obvious. Despite this, the most astute of observations can be made when reaching a different sort of perspective.
Forewarning: I wouldn’t suggest pulling an all-nighter after a long day and then proceeding to have another long day. It’s very exhausting and can be extremely disorienting. Immediately after completing my walk I passed out in a library window for twenty minutes and woke up thinking hours had passed. The aftermath of any entertaining action tends to be unfortunate, I suppose, but it is what it is and that’s how it will continue to be.
In this walk, I followed the colors of two paint swatches: Sky’s the Limit and Medieval Wine. I started my walk with a friend. We’d had a chemistry lab together and really clicked. Originally, I’d been walking her back to her dorm, but along the way, I’d spoken about the way I’d be conducting the walk and her interest led in a pleasant stroll through the neighborhood. I’ll admit to babbling a bit, but I was enthusiastic to share the experience.
Funnily enough, both of these colors felt a little bit difficult to find; it was something like a scavenger hunt. I would hold up my swatches and compare them to our surroundings, mumbling and bumbling along, and search my surroundings for a match. Doing this led to a bit of confusion as to where we ended up, but using street names led us back on track. The first picture that was taken actually captured both colors at once. The blue of the sky contrasted a purple sign that said “APOLLO”. This felt more than a little bit perfect, and as I took my camera out for the first time that afternoon, I was really excited to explore more.
I’m sure that we weren’t really lost, but as we idled and stepped along the sidewalks, I got a little twisted around with the directions. Down the same street as the sign, we found an outdoor dining area with some potted plants. They had a dark reddish-purple coloring, which nearly matched my Medieval Wine swatch. The street felt very wide and empty. An echo seemed to latch to our heels, each footstep loud and assuming.
We meandered down what was probably Fullerton, taking note of street signs and interesting colors of spray paint on the concrete. One notable sign was a bright red real estate sign labeled “JAMESON”. Low-hanging fruit for a joke, I think. Along the street there lied puddles from previous rain, sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. One large puddle reflected a sky blue,
The carbonation was leaving the energy drink I had put into my water bottle, causing it to come open with a ‘pop!’ every once in a while. It was some cherry flavor, and it seemed to clog my nose with its artificial sent every time I took a sip. We took a couple of turns, wandering aimlessly, where I got a bit lost again. Halloween decorations have begun to take the streets. Houses are littered with skeletons and cobwebs, a cheesy sort of haunting that everyone can enjoy. There aren’t a lot of decorations yet, but those that are already up are certainly enthusiastic.
As we wandered in front of the DePaul performing arts area, the topic of music came up. I’ve actually made a habit of taking interesting lyrics from songs that I like and slapping them on as titles for my Medium uploads. It had gotten a bit cloudy outside, but it remained very bright out despite the coverage. I found that there weren’t a lot of inorganic things that held the colors I was looking for. Most of the time, I saw plants or flowers that matched, so those are mostly what I took pictures of.
Eventually, we looped back around to reach the DePaul main campus once more. This walk, while probably not very productive, was a lot of fun. I got to make a new friend and chat about a lot of different things while exploring more of Lincoln Park. I’m happy to have gotten more of a feel for the area that I’ll be living in for the foreseeable future, even if it was a bit hard to pay attention to my surroundings. We discovered that, while we had some trouble finding blues in the beginning, it was harder to find good examples of the purple. In the end, there was a bit of frantic searching for a decent approximation of the color; some dark purple flowers did the job well.
Krygier and Wood define a map as a proposition, not a representation; a map proposes an idea of an area, rather than representing the real world. A map has a purpose in being made that is shown in how it proposes the world it is meant to depict. People make maps to communicate ideas. Looking at the different maps of Chicago, I feel like I’ve stepped into a world of perspectives. There’s a different world that is proposed and digested as a map is viewed because the author of the map is trying to put across their own ideas and impressions of an area. Some people think in images, while others form their ideas through labels and language. These sorts of thought processes come across in mapmaking. There is an element of personality that comes across in the making of maps that identifies the author by showing their ideas and opinions. By analyzing these maps, you can find more than just where something is in an area; you get the perspective of an insider, the struggles they face, the opinions that they have formed of their surroundings. You get the places that the author has and has not been, their frequented spots and no-go zones. Maps give a sense of exploration and a suggestion to the viewer to find that world for themselves.
(Response Length: 223 Words).
(Title from Shamir — On the Regular).
