following people
My walks have definitely felt somewhat aimless and automatic. I followed certain sites or people of interest, yet I’m unsure if I’ve learned anything from it or if that was the point. What follows are three separate attempts to perform this surrealist exercise. The first two involve me following two acquaintances from the Art Institute of Chicago. The third attempt is aimless and doesn’t involve anyone I know.
February 12
Today, I thought it’d be a good chance to try to follow R on her trip home from the Columbus building. Our studio sections are across from each other, but I’ve run into her more often since we got closer over the last month of last semester. Despite that, there’s very little I know about her. She’s a second year, an interesting sculptor, working under the themes of abstraction of found objects, and installations that demand human interaction. We both spent a good amount of our lives in Southern California. Although while I moved there to finish high school and college, she was born and raised there before moving out to DC for undergrad. I thought if I picked a subject that I knew little about, it would leave room for interesting observations, and today was a perfect opportunity as she doesn’t often work late into the night (like I do) but has been for the last week due to her thesis show coming up.
A little before 11 PM, I heard her voice from outside my studio talking to her roommate about heading back home. I was in my studio packed to leave and ready to go for a little less than an hour before I got my queue. While I was ascending the staircase, I heard the door on the first level close, and when I walked outside the building, I saw R’s bright orange beanie in the distance heading northbound on Columbus. It’s good that I had kept a distance, but I was worried for a second that I might’ve already lost her barely a minute into my following. After turning left on Monroe, she headed towards the blue line stop about three blocks away. I had been to her apartment before to spend time with her roommate, and knew they lived in Logan Square, and took the blue line every day. I recall how her roommate mentioned they liked Monroe’s stop because it felt safer than Jackson’s (which had confused me a bit as I get on Jackson’s stop every day and haven’t found it sketchy).
After entering the station, she didn’t walk too far onto the platform, so I waited just below the escalator in an attempt not to be noticed. Not too long after, the blue line showed up, and I boarded the car right behind hers. There weren’t as many people as I thought there would be, so I sat on the furthest end of my car. R’s head was about the size of my thumb from that distance.
40 minutes later, we had arrived at Logan Square, and nothing eventful had happened on the train ride up. I listened to music while observing R, but she didn’t do much. 10 minutes into our departure from Monroe, she got on the phone for about a minute or two. I assume it was with her roommate or her girlfriend. But since I was unable to listen, I guess it could’ve been anybody. I was listening to the new Viagra Boys single “Man Made of Meat” during all of this, a Swedish punk rock song made to make fun of the laziness of modern-day Americans.
It had just occurred to me how strange it was that she wasn’t with her roommate. Last semester, I often saw them leaving the studios together at the same time. She must still be in the studios working on her thesis show as well. I hope all is going well for both of them in regards to this.
After leaving the station, I was walking about a block behind her and saw her enter her apartment, thus ending my following. This entire experience has felt creepy on my part, and I can’t say I’m a bit upset at not having encountered something extraordinary. “Extraordinary” might not be the right word for it, but I had assumed I might learn something about R tonight. There was nothing to learn, though. She worked and went to class all day, didn’t stop by a restaurant or a bar for dinner or drinks in the evening, and travelled straight home. The only thing noteworthy was a two-minute phone conversation that occurred while I was in a different train car.
In the end, I knew nothing more about my acquaintance than I already did. After standing and thinking a block away from R’s apartment, I took the el back home and wrote this.
February 14
Today, I thought I would try trailing someone else. I originally had wanted to do it yesterday, but unexpectedly, the Columbus building caught fire, and everyone was evacuated. Slightly peeved at the fact that I had left all of my stuff in my studio, I just walked straight home, annoyed. Thankfully, my house keys and phone were in my pocket.
Today, I attempted to follow L instead. While I’ve interacted with him more than R, I know much less about his personal life. He works in the same studio that I do every day, though, so at the very least, he should be easier to follow. A little after 8 PM. He came by to tell me good night and that he was taking off. As soon as he closed my door behind him, I started packing my things. L is a very peculiar man. He’s quiet, more observational than most people in our department, and an extraordinary craftsman. Like R, I had also been to his apartment before, a nice high-rise located in South Loop. I figured this would be convenient, as I assume most of our daily route to and from the Art Institute is the same.
When I exited the building, I spotted his gray beanie with a bobble from the entryway. I’m realizing how thankful I am that it’s winter, and most people are wearing hats that I can notice right away. It would’ve been much harder to trail people from afar without some article that stood out. He turned right on Jackson and as he crossed the intersection of Michigan I decided to wait behind to keep a good amount of distance between us. Unfortunately, this choice is what ended my following prematurely, as he boarded the bus right at the corner of the intersection, which headed down south while I stood there waiting for the light.
That was stupid. I’ve walked to and from school every day, only taking the El on days that were too cold for me. I rarely think about taking the bus, but I guess L does quite often. Once again, I’ve learned nothing from this experience, and am starting to think that maybe choosing to follow acquaintances from familiar territory was the wrong way to go about this.
February 15
Today was my last day attempting a following, and I thought I’d do it a little differently by leaving from my apartment to aimlessly walk around and maybe find a stranger to follow.
I set out at 9:30 PM and instinctively started heading south as on most days, I typically head north. I came across Dearborn Park and found myself walking in circles. After a few minutes of walking, a woman came into the scene. I thought she looked familiar, like maybe I had seen her walking around the neighborhood once or twice before. Highly unlikely. It must’ve been butcher on the bus, or an excuse in my head to trail somebody in the hopes that I might experience something interesting. She threw away something in the park trash can and proceeded to walk back southward from where she came. I followed this stranger for no more than 2 minutes until I saw her get into a car with two other people not too far from the park. They entered a black sedan and drove south on Plymouth into the fog, and that was that. I wonder if they stopped the car simply to throw their trash at the sight of the nearest trash can.
It had barely been 30 minutes, so I kept walking south of the park. I came across other parks that looked the same and neighborhoods I hadn’t paid attention to before. I felt like, if anything, I had found a nostalgic scene of dead trees and concrete covered in snow, sandwiched by cookie-cutter apartments. It reminded me a bit of my childhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin, especially after living in the Southwest for so long. My thoughts drifted towards my mother and how she would take me out on winter walks to the big city, Chicago, and not too long after, she coincidentally called me. I walked and talked with Ma and described to her what I was looking at and how familiar it felt. We caught up about how school was going for me and how my old man was doing. She reminded me how much she missed me, but also how much she hated the cold and couldn’t be bothered to visit during February. After we hung up, I decided to walk back to my apartment since we had been on the phone for about 40 minutes.
Walking back north, I slowly started to notice the skyscrapers in the distance grow bigger. I was listening to music in place of my mother‘s voice at this point, and I thought it’d be nice to play some Chicago music. The pop-punk outfit, Beach Bunny had just released a new single, and I’ve always been a fan of how angsty and lonely their lyrics were.
The girls I knew at sixteen have a friend group of their own
Thought I'd make new friends in college but majority moved home
My best friend's in New York City, she is beauty, she is grace
And I wonder if we'll ever live again in the same place
My thoughts drifted to an old friend of mine, Lile. We both came from different states but moved to San Diego for college and met at a gallery where we worked at for three years together. She moved to New York in search of something more, which still sounds vague and a bit senseless, but those were her exact words when she decided to leave. She’s always been a fan of big cities and had felt stuck in the sparseness and overtly lax air of San Diego. I definitely shared her sentiments, but it took me a year later to move out myself. We slowly drifted out of contact, but every now and then, she sends me a letter. A month ago I received a postcard from Arizona, which was odd. It had a photo of the Sonoran desert with some saguaro and animal bones in the mix. She wrote in it asking when we were going to meet up next and hoped that Chicago was doing me well.
I wonder if she lives in a high-rise building, not much unlike the ones I noticed on my walk back. I wonder if New York this time of year is as cold, white, or empty as Chicago is. I wonder if she’s found new friends there, like I hope to someday here. I was still thinking about her when I grabbed my keys from my jacket pocket and walked into my apartment.