Aperture

The plane descends into the over-built hell that is Los Angeles.  Less than an hour ago it took off from the heaven of Seaside and the peninsula.  As we lose altitude, I slide the window shade up and the difference is so stark, I take a picture for a tweet.  The first of three planes today, this one followed an F-16 in Thunderbird livery down the runway at takeoff, and then headed out over the ocean.  Turning south, it floated over the rugged beauty of Big Sur as I tried to pick out the places I’ve been, and still need to go. 

The places I’ve been, and still need to go.  The second plane will take me home to Chicago, and the third home to Davenport.  Places I’ve been, and still need to go.  A hot dog at O’Hare, and cookies not exactly round, not made in a factory, at home.  Cookies no two the same, made from scratch, made with love, in the home where we raised our children.  If there’s one home, that would be it.  It always will be, even after some other family lives there. 

Say hi to some Davenport friends, up to Madison to hike up and around Devil’s Lake with Colin, back to Davenport for the night, and a corn-enveloped drive to Kansas City for the ICMA Annual Conference.  With a ziplock bag full of cookies.  So that’s five homes between Friday and Sunday, not counting the small circle of terrazzo I claimed as mine to watch an inning of the Cubs v. Cards game in my half-hour at LAX.  Guy at the bar asks if I need anything and I say “No thanks” and then increase my volume to advise “I’m just watching my team WHUP on the Cards”.  It’s been a good year at 1060 W. Addison, and watching “The David Ross Game” on Sunday only added to the charm.  Otherwise, the re-introduction of television to my life for a few days just reinforced what a tragic waste of the human spirit the medium operates at.  Campaign ads.  Ick.  Drug ads.  Who knew?  Candidates hatched in Mordor.  No thanks.  Political pundits, like mayflies smeared over your windshield.  Have I used “ick” yet?  It's not so much light entering your eyes, as lightness drained from your soul.  

So, anyway … Seaside, Chicago, Davenport, Madison.  That’s four homes, not five.  The fifth is the day job.  I’ll wait here for the laughter.

Day job.  Night job.  Lovely time with Marcia and the Quad City Times calls job.  Weekend job. Amanda’s winning an award and a citizen calls job.  Colin’s stepping in to bat and the Chief calls job.  Dawn, dusk and equinox job.  Took a call in the middle of a Council meeting and Dad just died, return to my seat and finish up the meeting, and the closed session following it, job.  Alderman Matson asks in closed session if the call was a headhunter and I simply say no (there’s work to do) job.  Holiday job.  Three o clock in the morning and a solution to a problem wakes me, and I lay silent and still for three hours so I don’t wake Marcia before the alarm goes off job.     

None of that’s a complaint.  Even the bits where months or years of work to open some new horizon for a community get closed by circumstance or the timidity of others are hard to complain about.  They’re just more learning and service opportunities, and I’m grateful to have them. 

I live, like the other few thousand ICMA members currently collected in Kansas City, at the intersection of Learning Street and Service Avenue.  The profession is as much my home as any physical structure I’ve inhabited since 1985.  The home has rooms, with place names.  Seaside, Davenport, Douglas County and Vernon Hills.  The home has a wrap-around porch with more place names.  Libertyville, Grayslake, Grayslake Park District, Lake County Forest Preserve and NIPC, now CATS.  It has a workshop where projects of all manner are sketched, built and sometimes even polished before being pushed out the door.  Prairie Crossing Charter School, Davenport Promise, Seaside Scholars.   There’s sideyards that run from the Gulf of Mexico to Pugent Sound, with paths to wander, boulders to trip on and other things to learn, and friends to make.     

Every fall, we have our Thanksgiving.  We come together round the table to talk.  To tell stories.  To catch up with old friends and make some new ones.  To learn some new tricks, and forget some old ones.  To dream about the places we’ve been, and still need to go.