Walking Chicago

Published in

walking chicago: history in footsteps

6 min readOct 26, 2022

Growing up and living in Dallas, Texas my whole life, I was not utilizing walking in a way that I would be here in Chicago. Through an intense first few months here, I have learned how to transform my walks into a tool to help guide me through all these events that have happened, and my responses to them. I have also used these walks as a way for me to relax and relieve a lot of the stress I have been facing. This course has also allowed me to reflect on challenges I am facing, as well as look back on my own meaningful memories.

Tracing back to the very beginning of my big move, which was around late April of this year, 2022, I had been dreading it ever since I committed to DePaul. Growing up in Dallas my whole life and planning on moving to the Pacific Northwest after graduation, Chicago was completely out of the question to me. It was the opposite of what I have been dreaming about growing up; The lack of football, lack of game days, public transportation and no real sense of community from being in a big city without a large designated campus, I was the opposite of ready. The lack of normality to me when I am going to be living in this new city pushed my mindset in the wrong direction, and I dreaded the thought of coming. I knew that I was going to deal with being homesick, but I did not know how it would affect me at such a high level.

By the time August rolled around and with immersion week starting, I felt hopeless and trapped in my situation. Exploring these neighborhoods and hearing all the stories rooted in the city only brought back memories of back home, not making my transition easier. All I could think about was my friends at big state schools or at their dream schools living the life they have dreamed of for years, while I was alone in a completely new city, and I struggled heavily my first week here on these trips. As the course went along, we were asked to go on different walks each week. Through these walks, they gave me the ability to really reflect on everything in my life, especially as things started to happen while I was here.

When DeCerteau said “haunted places are the only ones people can live in”, this stuck out to me the most compared to our other discussions. These places are “haunted” with the memories of the previous people, and they will forever be there even when they leave. When I walk around Chicago and notice certain things, they strike memories to come up in my brain, just like how they would for anyone else. These places are all essentially being haunted by everyone’s memories, making interpretations of sights and of events different and unique to everyone. The memories and thoughts that come up for me differ compared to my classmates, or anyone in general. These memories do not leave with the people, and would forever stay, making them “haunted”.

Another one of the discussions I feel really connected to was from one of the readings from the week we were told to follow a stranger. “Rebecca Solnit quotes Walter Benjamin who writes, “But to lose oneself in a city — as one loses oneself in a forest — that calls for a quite a different schooling” (p. 255). What is the meaning of “losing oneself in the city?” Have you ever lost yourself in this sense? If so, describe your experience. What do you remember?” For this walk, I decided I was going to follow a tourist to see what it would be like to be in Chicago for the first time again and see all the sights for the first time. During this walk, I immediately thought about how I felt when I was exploring Seattle, my favorite city, compared to the countless amounts of cities I have been to. This is when I am able to experience what they call “losing oneself in the city”. I was able to feel so connected with the city to where I felt calm and at peace. I took in everything I was seeing, hearing and smelling. Being in this magnificent city again brought so much joy to where I felt truly happy. The gorgeous streets with views of Mount Rainier shining down onto me made me feel at home, a feeling I didn’t experience back in Dallas. I felt safe and at peace with every step I took, like nothing could hurt me. Being able to reflect on this memory while on this walk shows how walking allows you to make connections, even though the experience of others. It was not the architecture or the scenery, but rather putting myself into the shoes of the strangers I had decided to follow.

For my walk that was due the week of September 28, I had experienced some pretty traumatic events a few weeks prior, and was so lost in myself and everything going on around me. When Lauren Elkin said in Radical Flaneuserie, “We all, deep down, want to detach from our lives.”, I related to what she said on another level. From having to be in the hospital twice in the span of one week, there was nothing more that I wanted than to detach from my own life, and I had never been more ready to go on my walk. This week’s walk was our multimedia project, requiring us to walk for around two hours. I started along the river downtown, and made my walk east towards the lake. Walking along the riverwalk and noticing all the bridges, the view along the water started to give me a sense of calmness, and the feelings of worriness slowly started to fade as I focused on the architecture around me. I enjoy the bridges and how they are structured; I find them fascinating as I wanted to be an architect when I was younger, but found my love for finance as I grew older. While these bridges are not commonly considered public art, they are intriguing to many people. The way they move “ to accommodate the entry and exit of sailboats and other tall vessels, to and from Lake Michigan” is so interesting to me, as we did not have anything like this back home in Dallas. I ended up finding a nice and quiet residential area in the city. Walking through this area allowed me to clear my head from everything going on, and relieve so much of the stress and anxiety that has been slowly building up over the span of many weeks.

Not only did this course allow me to become more comfortable with the city of Chicago and familiarize myself with the city, it gave me a deeper insight on what I have been dealing with these past few months. It taught me how walking is more than just a form of transportation, and there is so much more you can get out of it. Chicago is a city full of adventure and stories, and while it may not be my dream city or where I wanted to end up, walking has allowed me to cope with everything I have been dealing with and give me an escape from my everyday life.