Sheecago

There are a few things that I was not expecting this summer in Chicago: rats at night, extraordinarily high taxes and rain storms that have such powerful currents that they seem to paralyze the entire city. There are lots of other things that were unexpected, for better or worse, but mostly these three stand out right now.

The rats. They’re weird. They’re everywhere. They’re unafraid, they’re blatant and they most certainly are not confined to dumpsters and dives and dark barrios. They scurry around when the sun goes down — around good apartment buildings and bad ones, too — and just exist without the humility that’s often associated with finicky rodents. But they’re easy enough to get used to.

The taxes are pretty lousy and annoying. The Tribune printed an article the other day about how outrageous taxes all over the city are. From sales taxes, to traveling tax, to all those other myriad taxes that are tagged onto important and unimportant things — Chicago is one of the highest-taxed cities in the country. But considering all the good things that go on in this place, it’s justified and easy enough to get used to.

The rain though. That’s what’s most remarkable to me. Maybe to admit surprise to weather patterns here in the Midwest is a statement replete with naivete. It rains a lot here? It pours and pours and pours, and the skies rumble with such tremendous chaos that tornado sirens can ring, and buses can stall and you can literally be trapped inside wherever you are because the doors are unable to open because of wind currents? Those big spires and spikes sticking on top of the Sears and Hancock and Trump Tower — those are lightning rods to protect the city against the magnificent lighting shows that break out more often than not? These questions, I feel, are kind of asked in that same annoying tone of pillowed shock people express when you tell them that California isn’t all Beach and OC. Yup.

Yup. Yup.

I had no idea it rained/stormed/pre-tornado-ed/lightning/whatever-elsed so drastically here in the summer. Somehow I was tricked into believing it was all sun and games and mild summer humidity and tickles of occasional sweat droplets. The winters were the extreme time, but the summers. The summers were perfect. Oh lord. No.

The rains here — whether these of late are an aberration or not — are incredible, they’re outstanding; they, like those in New Orleans, captivate you, hold you, suffocate you, drench you, make you horribly annoyed and entirely enthralled at the same time. Storms like the one that happened today victimize people. It makes you helpless, hopeless against staying dry. Umbrellas, rain boots, jackets — all rendered totally useless once the winds kick in and the sheets start falling. And how remarkable is that? It’s a cool perspective thing, I think. To realize something as organic and pure as weather patterns can disrupt our daily lives so makes us feel a lot smaller than we tend to inflate ourselves to be. That’s cool.

In California, I always associated rain with gloomy winter and fall days. Rain is what happened on the days where it was perpetually dark and cold and you wanted to wear flannel and drink something hot. But here, and in New Orleans (and in so many other awesome places too), rain has different connotations. It’s a hot thing. A summer thing. You can feel it coming. It’s personified as an ‘it’ because it’s so darn controlling. It doesn’t always linger, as it does on those blue October days in California. It bursts in and tears around violently, usurping all control from the clouds and then the sky. And then it’ll clear. Just like that. Gone.

Everyone at school has rain boots, and they do serve a purpose. The streets flood when it rains in New Orleans and you usually have to wade to class when it gets bad. They’re in storage now, away, because who would think to bring rain boots to Chicago? (probably not the same people who ask if you can see the Hollywood sign from Sacramento…) I’m glad I don’t have them though; glad I never have an umbrella when I should, or a rain coat when it’s pouring.

To be caught ‘naked’ during these storms has an incredibly powerful effect. Because nothing is more refreshing than nature — rats and rain included.