How to be Alone in Lincoln Park
On our first walk in small groups I was drawn to this woman on the bench. She was sitting alone on a bench across from the statue of William Shakespeare. The area she was in barely qualified as a park and there was traffic rushing by on either side of her, yet she seemed completely at peace in the space she had made. Similarly, this man in the shadow of the Picasso sculpture was a gravity point for people sitting by themselves. This man who caught my eye was simply sitting and observing, with his legs crossed and hands in his lap. There wasn’t a sense of urgency to either him or the woman on the bench, they didn’t look as if they were waiting for something but simply taking it all in. As an introvert, finding those little moments of quiet amid chaos is necessary to my daily sanity, and I’m drawn to cities because of it. There is an easiness to being by yourself in Chicago, whether it be taking a leisurely walk down Michigan Ave, sitting in Oz Park or the lakefront, you can be alone but the hustle of people around you never leaves you lonely. For my final project, my goal was to map the places where I found people sitting alone in Lincoln Park. It’s a useful goal in a number of ways, both therapeutic in finding where people go to find peace and logistical in city planning of where people gravitate to and how to design such a space.
It was a beautiful day on Sunday October 23rd. The last sunshine warmth of summer was forcing itself through the clouds and it seemed as if all of Lincoln Park was out to enjoy it. I stepped out onto N. Racine within the crowds of families riding bikes, women pushing strollers in tandem with their friends and couples walking their dogs. 73 degrees and the wind was still. I planned to visit the parks of Lincoln Park as I assumed that’s where most people would be on a day like this. I first passed by Trebes Park in my search for people enjoying their solitude. It’s around 5:20 and the sun and the yellow leaves it’s shining through give everything a goldish tint. It’s a small park behind the elementary school that qualifies more as an area for recess than a park. It was primarily families playing on the baseball diamond and girlfriends with their heads resting on their boyfriends stomachs in the grass field next to it. The smallness of the park didn’t allow for very much alone-ness except for one girl sitting cross legged on a bench in the far corner with a book open in her lap. I moved on
The quad in Depaul’s main campus was a different story, it was speckled with students mostly sitting and studying alone. The shadows of the late afternoon sun outline the splayed bodies of students, contorted and posted up in all different ways. There were students hanging from trees in hammocks, students lying on their stomachs on fleece blankets and on their backs with folded paperbacks high up in the air. I think most campuses are welcoming of this sort of activity, it is unrealistic and not expected for college students to always be with other people. We spent our days in classes and our nights with roommates, finding that moment of quiet in an open space to study or just be alone for a while is deeply needed for any college student.
It’s 5:45 pm and I moved next to Oz Park, the busiest of all the places I visited. The light is softer here as most of the trees are still making their last hold on to their green leaves. There are pick up teams on the basketball court and families running amok. The sounds of dogs barking, children shrieking and swing sets creaking all coalesce into a suburban soundtrack. The neighborhood has turned out to pay homage to the dying days of summer and Oz Park is the place to do it. Similarly, where there is the greatest concentration of people, there is the largest concentration of people sitting alone. A girl in an orange jersey sits on an blue and white polka dotted fleece blanket writing in a journal. In the gardens a girl lays on her stomach reading a paperback with the front cover curled up underneath and a man sits on a bench a couple feet away on top of a hill with the early evening sun glowing on him in the most picturesque fashion imaginable. He looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. I get closer and see he is reading a book on economics.
Each place I visited to map had a different air to them, and the mood the lakefront emitted was the most palpable. Everyone seemed to be in a state of rest and calm more than anything. Whether it was the sound of the waves crashing against the concrete or that everyone was either about to go jogging or just got done jogging, the park surrounding the lake was quiet. It was the most contemplative spot because we were laying in the shadow of the skyline, our calm contrasted with its busy streets and honking traffic. An almost ironic symbol of alone but not lonely. The sun was in the beginning stages of setting and a purplish haze cast over the patrons of the lakefront. Everyone sat facing the water and its reflections as if watching some kind of invisible movie. Barely anyone was talking but we were all in agreeance that this was it, the final chance that we would be able to witness something like this in a place like this with amazing weather like this for a long time. As the sun began to set further into the skyline we could already feel the brisk winds of the changing seasons hastening us along back home.
The process of making this map started out very personal. I wanted to find a place where I could be alone, an eye of the hurricane that is Chicago, but inadvertently it became a kind of study on where people go to be alone and why. The mood of each place I mapped was a big influencer on why I believed it was more welcoming to those looking to be alone. I found throughout my walk that it’s easier to be alone when there are more people around you and also more people alone around you. It’s easier to be an island in a sea of people than simply an island. It was also interesting to map what the people of the different places were doing while alone, The Quad and Oz Park, the most open of the spaces I observed and had the highest amount of people sitting alone while reading or writing. It gave the impression of a destination for these people rather than just a place to pass through and sit down for a while. However, that’s not to say the importance of place to be alone in passing is not significant to the function of a public space. Of all the places, the Lakefront was the most tranquil and also had the highest concentration of people sitting alone in general although many of them weren’t reading and writing but simply just sitting. It was a place to contemplate and reflect, an equally important purpose in being alone.
We talked a lot in class about “reclaiming space.” How it is our duty as citizens of an area to make sure that that area is being utilized to serve the best purpose for it’s citizens. Finding a place to be alone is arguably the most important and simplest ways to reclaim a space. To be alone in the city takes on many connotations. Specifically, the historical impact of a woman walking alone in the city is one that takes on a lot of political power, a power that I take for granted. Between the prevalence of cat-calling for the woman of Mexico or the strict religious and legal sanctions that prevent women from walking alone in Iran, to have the ability to walk freely as a woman while feeling safe in my neighborhood and with enough time to do so is a luxury many woman in Chicago and around the world are not granted so easily. Like so many aspects of being a woman, the private becomes political when women take to the streets alone, whether by walking or as this map observes, sitting alone. It is not shameful to not be accompanied by a male companion or imply you are some kind of old maid, to take a page from Carrie Bradshaw (as we should from time to time) it’s important to take yourself out on dates, reading a book in the park, eating lunch alone or taking a walk. An act of self love can so easily turn into a political act.
This map began as a personal search for space but I also wanted it to be beneficial to others. We discussed in class the many physical and psychological benefits of walking, and especially walking alone. Being alone in general allows us to check in with ourselves and gather our thoughts efficiently and purposefully. We notice different things when we’re alone, there’s no ego involved, you’re simply walking or sitting and observing, getting in tune with the earth and the community. There’s a psychotherapeutic benefit to observing alone, to go sense by sense, touch, to smell to hearing, with no judgement just discovering. To pay attention to what our senses are feeling reminds us where we are in the moment and to appreciate it and gain some clarity. We need to dispel the stigma around being alone, whether by ending up alone in a public space by chance or design, the benefits from it can reach far beyond just being adventurous. You may be alone but in a city like Chicago, you’ll never be lonely.
