The In Between: A Girl Walks Alone At Night

I.

A List of People I Observe on the L at Rush Hour While I Pretend to be Listening to Music

1. Two older bald men sitting side by side in their seats discussing the theory of multiple universes and debate the moon landing
2. A very fashionable older woman in an all black outfit is reading a thick paperback book leaning with her back against the door of the train.
3. Two young men discuss what kind of anti-depressants their friend Carrie is on, they suspect Zoloft. She just got recently broke her wrist in the back of an Uber
4. A red headed man in a collegiate sweatshirt is talking to a despondent girl sitting in the seat across from him. He is swearing a lot. She’s looking at her phone

II.

It is 5:45 pm. For the most part my car on the L train is quiet except for a couple low conversations scattered throughout the car. I’m standing shoulder to shoulder in between a man with a crocodile skin shoulder bag and a girl wearing Ugg boots. I am very claustrophobic. Underground trains are not my forte. Despite this I am very cautious to not occupy too much space in my corner by the exit doors. I assume that most people have the same reaction out of courtesy but soon I observe they do not. I am never not thinking about the space I am occupying. I have been taught accommodation. I remember a quote from 1001 Afternoons in Chicago. ““Fogs do not devour us,”…“We are the ones who do the devouring. We devour fogs and people and days.”” My lineage is marked by taking. I think about how easy it must be for some to devour, how easy it is for some to be. It is not in my DNA. My body sways with each curve around the buildings. I hold on white knuckled so the people around me aren’t aware of my novice train riding ability. With every jostle of the tracks, with every shift my rookie rider feet make I mutter a “sorry” to the man next to me I bump into. He’s taking up two seats, one for him, one for his briefcase. He doesn’t look up from his iPhone.

III.

A List of People I Observe While Walking Down Residential Streets in Lincoln Park

1. A youngish woman is coaching her friend on how to parallel park in front of her apartment
2. A little boy walks down the stairs of his apartment with his tricycle in his arms. His helmet is already on.
3. A pair of boys ask me to help them lay out their parachute in the park I’m sitting in

IV.

My phone tells me it’s 64 degrees. I get a text message from a boy back home and I check and it’s 66 degrees and raining in Detroit. The sky is getting darker and grayer and I dread the upcoming days when the sun sets earlier and earlier in the night. I hear the hum and flicker of street lights as they turn on like dominos down the street. After being on the train it feels nice to not have to worry about how much space I’m taking up. The sidewalks are wide and mostly empty. It is the in between of when people are for the most part out on the street to start their late-afternoon migration to kitchens and living room couches. I put in my headphones and turn left and then right out of the Fullerton station. It’s freeing to walk and not be noticed. Everyone I pass expects that I am on my way somewhere so there is no need for niceties. I have places to be and so do they. I don’t even think that they don’t look at me because now I look like one of them. I don’t know if I consider one of them yet. I ignore another text from the boy back home.

My Walk In Lincoln Park

V.

I walk 2 miles without even noticing. I’m enjoying it so much because I can feel the briskness in the air and I’m wearing my favorite scarf. Fall has always been my favorite season but even though it’s official start has come and gone, the leaves on the trees are still green and bodies are still scattered around the parks I walk by. It’s still softball season. The 7/11s I walk by still have bikes parked out front from groups of boys getting Slurpees. I can still hear the sizzle of a grill and the smell of hot dogs as I walk past a row of houses, but I have a sixth sense for these things. I can feel fall like how my grandma says she can sense in her bones when it is going to rain. All my favorite memories are in fall and they all come flooding back to me with each gust of wind that picks up the hair off my shoulders. I have only known Lincoln Park in the summer, with people playing frisbee in the Quad and families of kids on their bikes riding past me as I walk to class. It’s still the in between of summer and fall, but I can feel the change coming in my bones.

VI.

A List of Things That I Observed While the Sun was Setting

1. I hear an owl hoot across from Lynns Hair and Spa
2. I walk by multiple 7/11s, 7/11s are so mystic in the summer, R.I.P
3. I walk by multiple dogs, Lincoln Park dogs are some of the happiest dogs I have ever seen
4. I’m at the crossroads of Wrightwood and N. Sheffield. I walked here with my mom and we got lost. I walked here to get to a party.

VII.

It is 6:53 pm. It is the in-between of day and the dark darkness. Not quite sunset just a sort of blueish haze prevails over the city accomponied by the orange glow of street lamps. The streets are getting emptier and emptier and the wind is slowing down with the people. I like the in-betweens, sunsets and sunrises, the time it takes to get somewhere. I don’t like the implication that this in-between however is only a means to an end for something better. I wish I could just sit in this in between for a while and not feel like I have to choose where I want to be. We talked about in class how we want to destroy the pre-disposition that walking is only a means to an end, an annoying in between. I get another text from a boy back home. It is 7:53 pm in Detroit. 57 degrees and raining. I am in the in-between. I think about how easy it is for some people to be in one place at a time. I think about how it is embarrassingly cliche that I’m sitting at the crossroads of an intersection right now.