Day One.

With 2 months of freedom and limited plans in Summer 2012, it was hard for me to imagine this summer to stand apart from last. The agenda includes the same happenings and hobbies... with the addition of new summer reads and a 50mm lens with film. Biking & beach'ing are standard, as well as picnics and Music Mondays and visiting my friends with normal work hours.

Good eats, good friends.
And a projected movie in our backyard on Friday.

Activities seem linear, but this year summer life is strangely not the same. Perhaps it's new roomies or new Lily decor (?!)... 

but it's most likely that I have changed, opposed to environment or circumstances.

Although Chicago still holds some of the romance from when I first moved here... it also feels familiar, comfortable, and like home. It sometimes hits me that I am navigating the streets without being fed directions; finding shortcuts and noticing new ways to get places. I will go out of my way to shop at my favorite Jewel or Trader Joe's, and know which underpass is the best to get to the beach. I go to one branch of the Chicago Public Library for their biography selection, and a different location for their books on CD. I am eager to window shop on Southport, and real shop along North Ave. I recognize people from the gym or improv or Missio Dei... sometimes forgetting names, but mostly knowing faces. When we have people over, we know who will show up and who will flake. When I escape the city to the burbs, I long to be back here again because it is the place I have staked as Home, and sometimes it feels like it more so than Deerfield. My roommates are the family I come home to, and this street is my neighborhood.

Jessica & Ashley. Beach'ing. Everyday.

Last year, summer here felt like Vacation... the festivals, food, music, & patios all discovered with the zeal of new adventures. This year, I'm noticing summer feels more like regular life... with added free time.

Tiffany at all day vball on Sat.

No matter how hard you work at it, I think this happens over time. It happens when a place becomes Yours. It happens when you create a Home.... You have to work harder at the day-to-day delight and excitement that comes easily at first, but fades with familiarity. In a sense, the honeymoon with Chicago is over, but I am also entering a new place of rest in this city... a deeper appreciation and heart for this place. It is a Rest that comes with my first year of full-time salaried work complete, the peace of no longer searching for a church that feels like Me, and the intimacy of friendships that do not remain surface level, but rather feel like old friends. This is so much more real life than anything else. 

Ravinia people at the Metra stop. 

Iron & Wine show

The Walgreens photo lady was shocked to hear I wanted to keep the above images, assuming I would toss them due to discoloration and overexposure. (apparently the light meter is a necessary working part of the camera...).

But I kind of love them anyways.