Weekend in Chicago (Part IV)

I conclude the sharing of photos from my recent trip to Chicago with images from the afternoon of Saturday, August 11, 2012. This was when I met up with my friend Eduard (who moved from the Twin Cities to Chicago in 2005) and enjoyed a long walk with him along the shoreline of Lake Michigan.

We started at Thorndale Avenue Beach and walked south to Montrose Harbor, passing through a lakeside dog park, a nature reserve, a golf course, and a marina! Later in the evening we shared a delicious Thai meal and a bottle of Malbec at a sidewalk restaurant in Boystown.

Above and below: Thorndale Avenue Beach.

Above: Eduard and a new-found friend at Montrose Dog Beach.

As always, it felt like a real gift to spend time with Eduard. For reasons I won't go into here, such times, however, always put me in a strange and unsettling place in which I'm both reaching out and holding back; a place that draws forth from me feelings of hope and doubt, and all kinds of questions about our relationship, about my future, and about life and love in general. It can all feel rather overwhelming. Given this and the coastal environment I found myself in, it's perhaps no wonder that the following lyrics came to mind.

Too far out on the wilder shores of love.

Too far out, what I knew before

on the wilder shores of love . . .

– Marianne Faithfull

Above and below: Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary, where I think I saw a coyote! There are quite a few of them in Chicago, you know.

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves . . .

Don't search for the answers,

which could not be given to you now,

because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future,

you will gradually, without even noticing it,

live your way into the answer.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Weekend in Chicago (Part I)
Weekend in Chicago (Part II)
Weekend in Chicago (Part III)
Out and About – March 2008
A Day at the Abbey
Chicago (2008)
The Empty Beach
Photo of the Day – January 11, 2012
Photo of the Day – March 7, 2012
Out and About – Winter 2012

Images: Michael J. Bayly and Eduard.