The Edge of the World

The Shaws
6C
9:14 am
Diego! Diego! Go Diego Go!
(it's the penguin episode -- my fav)
Monday, March 6, 2006

The Edge of the World

Chicago is a beautiful, picturesque city, full of surprising vistas, stunning architecture, clear pure sunshine and all the modern beauty of a cosmopolitan town nestled in the heart of the Midwest. When you take the 55 to 90/94, right when you first merge onto 55, all of sudden! Chicago! bursts through the warehouses, the traffic and there it is in all it's towering glory. I remember being greeted by that skyline when I came to prospie, knowing that that view, those buildings would one day mean I was home.

This summer, Lauren, Alii and I were driving North on Lake Shore for reasons unknown when suddenly, we came around a inlet, and we all started hollering. There it was: Chicago skyline, blue sky, Lake Michigan. Perfect summer. So, here we are, driving along, SCREAMING because the beauty was more then we could contain.

But sometimes, Chicago is cold. Chicago is forbidding. And on days like that, the edge of the world becomes apparent and I fight the urge to throw myself off of it. When the fog rolls in, the snow clouds stick around, where there once was the edge of the Lake, there is instead a bank of nothing. A gray, nebulas expanse of the unknown, tempting explorers, intimidating those who are too comfortable in their static existence. Today is one of those days.

As I pretend to write a paper on Leibniz's concept of Space and Time, I gaze out the window of the Cute Baby's apartment window. Six stories up provides a pie slice view between buildings, ending in a bank of ash colored emptiness. Usually I can see the curve of the shore as it continues North, water tumbling over the breaker, cars whizzing by on Lake Shore.

Today, there are trees, the beach. And. Then. Nothing. It's rather difficult to write about the nature of Space and Time when the edge of the world is so close at hand. Explorers have died for it. Heretics have burned for not believing in it. Scientists have wasted away in Purgatory for revolutionizing theories about it.

And me? I throw Cute Baby in the air, pace around the apartment, starting out the window, imagining dashing across the traffic, heedless of the fog to hurl myself into oblivion - spiraling downward, cartwheeling into whatever is next.

(Ignoring the fact that were I to do that, I would in fact, only end up wet.)

But if I did that, who would make hot dogs and turn on Diego? Caroline comes and crawls into my lap, asking why I have Mommy's computer, slapping a damp wad off pink Play-Dough in my hand. Since I can't abandon Cute Baby, I might as well stick around.

That's one of the many luxuries of being three: you're just not threatened by the eminence of the edge of the world.