Yellowbird
I began my walk at about 2:32 in the afternoon, when the sun was warm and the breeze barely noticeable. Tired of the usual crowded scenery of Lincoln Park, I hopped on the Brown line to the Loop, my headphones in but no music playing, a backpack on, a cell phone in one hand, and a light blue and “yellowbird” yellow paint chip in the other. You might think that by carrying all of these things I am depriving myself of senses, but fear not — I could hear everything, as the city is always blaring. Secondly, I didn’t want to be harassed or bothered, and for whatever reason people don’t bother to make comments if they think you can’t hear it. Or if they did, I don’t have to acknowledge it.
Anyways, I sat on the train by the window, waiting for my colors to appear somewhere in my vision. Armitage and Sedgwick passed by in a flurry of colors and lights, but despite the numerous appearances of yellow and blue, my yellow and blue did not appear until, past the business of Lincoln Park, I passed two houses with my exact colors right before the Chicago stop. I hoisted up my bag and set off for Superior Street.
It was dark and spotty beneath the train, two men in baggy clothes smoking and sitting amongst a pile of dirty clothes and blankets beneath the stairs leading up to the station. It smelled of must and oil as it always does near the train, so I set off east on Superior street, towards where the sunlight hit (closer to yellow than the opposite direction) and found myself at a corner of much bubbling excitement. Each direction showed me skyscrapers and construction, the heaviness of smoke and burning asphalt burning my nose. There were few people on the street — a young couple passed by, but otherwise it was mostly people in sagging jeans, people in sagging jeans gathered in groups, or grey-haired business men. I held up my colors, squinting against the bright light reflected off the buildings, and headed south on N Wells street the moment I saw that on each side of the street, new buildings were being constructed in my colors (though, admittedly, not exact).
I wandered this way for quite a while, passing few people and being bothered by none, but I eventually had to turn because my colors were disappearing. I followed strings of lights on fancy little cafes and counted them as “yellowbird”, and headed in the direction where I could see the most sky. I turned down a street that was skirted in shade and parking lots, passing a note on the ground that was a remenant of the day before:
At the end of the street, things exploded into life in the sunlight: people were out and about, languages I didn’t understand were floating past, and restaurants had their doors open so that sweet smells mixed with the smell of garbage and gasoline. Construction workers hammered away behind a screened fence, a police officer rode past on a bicycle, and the sound of engines from giant cement trucks were slipping easily past my headphones. I reached a corner where it was impossible to go forward because of more construction, so I turned towards the color closest to my blue:
I went around the next corner and headed towards the blue buildings that reflect the blue sky and blue (kind of) river that runs through Chicago. I passed a restaurant with outdoor seating shrouded in so many vines that it looked like it didn’t belong on the sidewalk but rather in a park. There was a little plastic Italian flag folded and flattened by the hundreds of feet that had stepped on it since it was held during the Columbus Day Parade so many hours earlier, receipts and leaves in piles together as if they both came straight from a tree. Somewhere far ahead of me an ambulance wailed and traffic stood still for a moment, blocking my crossing of a street lined with nothing but expensive-looking bars that I can’t walk into business offices I didn’t belong in. But while I waited for the ambulance to pass, I looked down for a moment only to find a memoir of someone’s night that I will never know about but they, perhaps, will never forget.
Of course, the moment finally was able to cross, dangerously close to cars that waited expectantly for me to hurry past, I noticed a sticker on a sign with the perfect match to my “yellowbird”.
I walked straight for a while longer, constantly searching for the perfect shade to match my blue, but it was seeming to be fruitless. People passed by in blues much too dark, the sky was close but not on the street, signs were detailed with the baby blue that everyone seems to adore, and it seemed that every restaurant favored navy blue. I was on an inexorable search for a color that, I’m am almost sure of it, does not exist in Chicago. So after pushing my way across a small alley with potholes and red spray paint to guide whoever attempted to fix those potholes in the future, I noticed a sticker that was made to resemble the Chicago flag in the window of a store. I decided, begrudgingly, that this would be the closest I would get.
Slowly I returned to Superior Street, no longer bathed in golden sunlight and calm, but now with the trees rustling excitedly from the wind and darkened by the shadows of apartment complexes. The same people who wore many layers and sat on the front steps of buidings were gathered in groups or pairs now, and college-aged students had slipped out into the street to explore the afternoon. My legs were weary from walking, my forehead had a sheen of sweat, and the breeze was a relief. The students I passed discussed their professors letting them out early, a man in dirty clothes was telling a woman with a blue bandana that “if that doesn’t work, I’ll head there next”, and I made my way back up the dark and dirty steps to the Chicago station.
And there, finally, a man who spoke very little English asked me how to get to Fullerton. I pulled my headphones out, although they played no music, and responded.
Written Response:
Question: What is mappable? What is un-mappable?
In the reading by Wood, we are shown numerous maps that account parts of Boylan Heights in a way that modern people would not see as real or, in any sense, useful. Some might say that any land with a path is mappable, but I say that anything that has significant places, or “focal points”, is a place that is mappable. The ability to find one’s way based on sights, or in one case of the maps shown by Wood, sound, is something that is easy for people to understand and follow. If they have places to look for or notice, then they can use these details to guide them through to a certain destination. Contrarily, perhaps what is mappable does not necessarily have to lead people to a certain place, but rather represent what exists in that space so that one walking through can take in these “focal points” as well, even if they are simply walking. In my opinion, what is un-mappable is something that doesn’t have anything significant about it, or perhaps is too vast to map. For example, one can map a desert or ocean by certain hills or islands, but that is about as much detail one will get. Even if the maps are created, these two areas are constantly changing, and therefore might make the maps unreliable.
