I recently returned to Chicago on a secret mission…after many years away. While I grew up in the leafy Chicago suburb of Highland Park, I wanted to quietly revisit the big city I always associated with having a multitude of blessings: deep dish pizza, hot dogs, chic sophistication, amazing architecture, fine arts, and of course “elevated” food, ie. “The Bear” versus “Da Bears”. 

To be clear I wasn’t searching for a sublime or extraordinary cultural experience by taking in all the priceless Renoir, Van Gogh, or Gauguin paintings at the Art Institute or feasting on the no doubt glorious tasting menus at Oriole, Alinea or Kasama. I will however tell you that Kasama was Filipino fantastic in its refined simplicity and the burger at The Loyalist was beyond amazing. Instead I was on a stealthy mission to remember my childhood. I was intent on recalling some of the peculiar and unforgettable people, places, and things that captured my imagination as a boy (picture skinny kid with crewcut and missing both front teeth) and may have inspired my extreme curiosity and quirky hyperactive mind (think Young Sheldon with a much lower IQ). Going to the Museum of Science and Industry and taking the tacky tourist tour through the captured German U-boat (U505) was one item on my backwards in time bucket list as was walking into the lobby of my parents former condo residence at the Park Hyatt Hotel on Michigan Avenue. Watching a wide-eyed little boy with his Dad pushing all the verboten “DO NOT TOUCH” buttons on the now stationary WWII German submarine and looking intently through the mock periscope made my day. The entire four day experience in Chicago was a bittersweet mixture of “Now THAT’s an amazing burger!”, “ahh, wait..now I remember!”, “boy that looks a lot smaller than I remember” and finally “i guess they’re right when they say you can never go back”. 

Honestly I never even made it back to Highland Park where I was told my family house on Brittany Road which my parents built in 1966 on an empty forested lot and lived in until they like many empty nesters moved back to Chicago was for sale after being updated and “customized” several times over the years. From the sales listing photo gallery online I barely recognized the house or the original floor plan. I no longer saw or felt the contemporary FLW style that my mother intended only to be replaced by multiple room additions and the personalized imprint of other homeowners I knew not.

I did however like the impressive collection of sports memorabilia in the now fully furnished and completely built out basement. Where I wondered did they put the all important basement “sump pump”? I remember blowing up and lighting on fire my brother Neal’s meticulously put together Revell ship models down there. Also whatever happened to the ginormous 1960’s era waterbed I dragged in pieces down to that mostly unfinished basement in high school just to be “cool” and to no longer have to share a bedroom with my goody two shoes brother? Finally I had mixed emotions about the miniature Lionel train running around a looping railroad track attached to the cove ceiling in my upstairs shared bedroom. In some ways it reminded me of the “interactive” model train exhibit and “hidden” miniature scenes installed on the main floor Transportation Gallery at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Consistent with my mixed/mixed-up feelings and bittersweet experience revisiting the Windy City I did notice that many of the “PUSH HERE” interactive buttons on the 3500 square foot Continental Railroad “Journey Across America” exhibit, ie. lift bridge, blow up tunnel boulders, make pine tree fall over while recorded voice yelled “Timber!!” no longer worked. Who knows…maybe subconsciously that’s why I installed a completely inoperable BIG RED BUTTON in my reproduction of the Titanic’s Communication Room in my pirate basement in Atlanta. Every time I go into that clever but creepy CaptCliff room I push that stupid red button that does absolutely nothing. I cant help myself (see video).

These are the kind of highly personal signs, quirky clues, queer symbols and hidden messages that our child self leaves us like some psychopoetic treasure map with “x marks the spot”. In time and with the sands of time slowly running out of the metaphoric hourglass we are beckoned to follow the clues and remember who we authentically are as well as reconnect with the joy, beauty, imagination and innocence of who we once were. By consciously choosing to do that not only do we create a sense of wholeness and self acceptance within ourselves but perhaps we are also more able to face and embrace the inevitability of change in the world.