No Destination
My first class on September 24 ended early. I wasn’t planning on taking the walk for my Multimedia assignment just yet, but something jumped into my mind saying that I should. So I quickly grabbed my phone charger and took the train down to the Jackson stop and started my walk at the DePaul Center in the loop.
The Time now is 10:16 and the average dB is 77. The air around me was very cool probably due to how close I was to the lake. Trucks and cars going by dominate the sounds around me. A man’s keys jingle behind me, a businessman walks in front of me with a pace faster than everyone else, and students walk into Barnes and Noble ready for class. The street in front of the Depaul center is always moving. There’s a different truck, car, or person passing by almost constantly. Each one on a set path to their destination, but not me. I had no destination I was just going wherever my mind took me. I was walking just to walk. I decided to take a right coming out of the Depaul Center towards Millennium Park and the lake. I began walking and see a line of people at Starbucks patiently waiting for their morning coffee. A man in an all gray suit looks impatient while holding his black suitcase. As I walk towards the lake I see window cleaners. Stories above me and wonder how their view of the city is like. They are wearing gray pants and shirts with strips of neon color running down their backs. Their belts are filled to the brim with necessary tools to complete their job. While crossing the street over to Millennium Park their is a small concrete oasis between both streets littered with black pieces of gum. This oasis represented a dividing line between the city and park. While crossing the bridge over to the park I take a moment to look back at the city and realize that the last time I was here was at lollapalooza. This sparked an idea in my mind that I should walk the route I took during the festival. My goal was to compare it to how I saw it then with thousands of people and now where there is very few. The noise of trucks and cars start to fade and the sounds of rushing water starts to pick up. As I get closer to the Buckingham Fountain the noise engulfs me.
The time is now 10:36 and the average dB is 83. I closely look at the movement of the water flowing through the fountain. It’s different every time you look at it. The water keeps its normal color with a few white bubbles to remind you that it’s in motion. I take a sharp right off of the fountain towards where my favorite stage would be. The smell of freshly placed brown and black mulch makes my nose uncomfortable. As I get closer to my favorite stage I see that there’s a fence wrapped around the entire grass area. Making it impossible to walk into without trespassing. The companies sign pasted on the links of the fence tells me who’s working there. I keep walking along the fence and see a small gap. I contemplate whether or not to go in. A few minutes pass by and I find myself in the middle of the grass area looking at where the stage would be set up. The only things that accompany on the field are a flock or brown and white ducks. The time is 10:45 and the average dB is 70. The smell of grass and dirt is prominent here. I start walking towards the main street again in which case is Columbus and the sounds of cars begins to grow again. As I cross the bridge back into the city I see a view that is very new to me. The breeze starts to pick up and I see how the city looks as if it’s wrapping around me like a blanket. There are silver trains parked on the rails just below me. I keeping walking down Columbus and pass by some brown sculptures that look like the bottom halves of people walking, I go up and touch it. It feels very rustic, worn down, and dirty. As I walk towards S State Street I walk past a golden brown dog with some small patches of white peeing, a man smoking a cigarette with the bud end barely lit, and two people painting on a wall. Their shirts look as if they came from a warzone. The man painting seems to be struggling with keeping his outline on the wall patting it down a few times hopefully to get it to stick. I keep walking down and see a huge mural covering an entire wall that was around 2 stories tall. The mural was of two deer looking through some sort of dimensional triangle with a sprinkle of twinkling stars in the background. A few blocks down I see workers protesting in front of the Hilton hotel. As I get closer I can see the emotion on their faces. They are clearly angry and in want of some sort of change. Some of them are sweating and still pacing around in a circle. Others sitting after most likely hours of marching. Once on S State Street I walk towards the Depaul Center again. The smell of garbage is gone when a woman wearing jeans and a red shirt passes by me having her perfume hit me like a truck. It is still cloudy and the windows all look a tint darker. From a distance I see a building with green figures looking down on all of the streets. I have always wanted to check the building out and I felt now was the best time to do it. I open the door to the building and I get a gust of cold air. Looking around I see a sign and realize I’m in the Chicago Public Library. I decide to explore a little and make my way up to the third floor. Once there I see thousands of dog tags hanging from the ceiling. The light reflects off the tags and onto other ones. Creating an interesting light affect that makes some tags vibrant and others very dark.
The time is 11:30 and the average dB is 62. Exiting the library I take a left towards the Depaul Center passing by red, green, purple, and orange flowers all planted next to trees. A siren out of nowhere scares me and takes over all the sound for a moment. Coming up on the Depaul Center I decide to grab lunch at a place close by where my dad and I always go. As I walk their I pass by what looks like an alley, but is actually a coffee cafe. Their are people drinking and chatting. The floor is all brick and the coffee sign is lit up by a string of fluorescent light bulbs.
To get to the restaurant I walk towards the Trump Tower which always seems to have the same blue affect whether or not its light or dark out. I also pass by countless shops each selling their own unique product. Small bursts of smell from each of the restaurant’s makes my hunger increase. Freshly baked bread, a savory chicken, and peach-strawberry tart are the smells I pick up. I keep walking down S Wabash Avenue the brown line train is above me screeching like a mad cat. While trucks, cars, and people are around me move on with their daily lives. I reach the restaurant Halal Guys, there sign a yellow and red one gives me a sense of familiarity. Reaching this restaurant not only concludes my walk, but makes me realize how important it is to walk the city. The time is now 11:53 and the Average dB is 80.
