While I was out running errands today, our maintenance guys adorned the deck- (I don’t think Mies van der Rohe would approve of my calling his Esplanade a deck) -with five chairs and three chaise lounges – newly released from wherever they hibernate when they quietly disappear on the first cold day every fall.
They sit there, lonely and waiting for the dozens of others that will join them for the summer. In a long line, they will be there for us, and our diverse derrieres, various tanning products, books ,laptops, and friendly conversations. My imagination takes me a few months into the future.
In the evening the chairs will rearrange themselves into cocktail party formation and late on certain nights into a fireworks watching theater. The lake will be alive with boats and people. Suddenly the trees near Navy Pier won't look dead, but ready to burst into leafy shade for picnickers and the sun-shy to enjoy. The backdrop for the chairs will be green grass, yellow lilies and over- abundant impatiens. (Unless our ill -advised board insists on keeping the ugly prarie grass they inflicted on us this fall. Prarie Grass for a Mies building? Really!)
I can visualize the water turning that wonderful shade of turquoise that I had in mind when I picked out my living room carpet. I can hear the music of the revelers on their parked boats. Tied together on a Saturday in July for easy party hopping they are quite a sight. I picture the seagulls diving from the seawall and I wonder, as I do each year, “where do they go in the winter?” Maybe they go to the same place where we hide the chairs, wherever that might be.
It doesn't take much to make me happy - the return of the chairs is enough for today.
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