Mystic chords of memory

First posted 7-23-04

"The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature."
- Abraham Lincoln (as quoted in the movie American History X)

The Chicago Diaries, Part I

Over the next few days I will post the writing I did while I was back home in Chicago this past week. The following passage I wrote on Friday, July 16, 2004.

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They say that scent is the closest thing tied to memory. This may be a horrible line to begin writing with but it may also be the truth. The first thing I notice upon stepping out of the airport back in Chicago is the temperature. I am used to the assault of Georgia air when stepping out doors, but as I brace myself for the attack, none comes. But the second thing I notice is as we drive the interstate with the windows down... The smell...the summer smell of Chicago. I didn't even know it had one. I didn't know it till I went away and came back. Wildflowers, dandelions their fluff thick in the air like perfume. Behind it the musk of cut grass. It fills my nostrils like memories themselves. The look of it, the tang in the air, the sounds of familiar but forgotten birds in the trees, the kiss of the wind on my neck. I am 12 again.

I sit here on a rock, on the sandy point of the small bay of Hidden Lake, of which I have written often and remembered more. My god, the smell of it. I had forgotten what a lake smells like. Dense. The beautifully fetid air of pond scum. The algal blooms. God, I know people who find that smell disugusting. But to me there is none better. If age and youth and time had a smell this would be it. To me it's poetry and wine combined. I think this smell must be unique to the lakes of the North, perhaps only to this area because I have found it no where else. How long has it been since I have felt a handful of solid stone, natural. Not paving gravel, not brick, not tile, not concrete. But God's own granite smooth and rough in the palm of my hand? I rest my hand on this boulder and I am the earth and I am belonged.

I stare at the waters edge that I happily splashed into as a youth. Without care for disease, contaminant or mud. Just play and fish. I see the algae and fungus and muck waving in the water on every stick and stone and I am at peace. It takes but a moment for my water eyes to come back to me. First I see the dark bluegill close to the shore, and then the smaller fry he is protecting. Then finally the small bass, fingerlings. Safe this young among shore until they grow large and become a terror. My heart races at the sight like it did when I was a boy and suddenly my hand feels empty without a rod or net in it.