chicago, wendell berry, & bisoning up.
- Feb 11, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 27, 2025
Hi, again.
We’re nearly halfway through February, which feels a bit insane to me. The first month and a half of 2025 is gone, and I’m in the middle of week 5 of my semester. This semester has been an interesting one; I’ve already had some really great highs, some really not-so-great lows, and a few major moments of reflection. This past weekend actually hit two of those categories, lightly touching on a third (only verbally, thank goodness).
On Friday, my old roommate Kelcie and I drove up to Chicago to see Gaby, our close friend from when we studied in Paris together more than a year ago. I’m not sure that Kelcie and I have ever had a travel day without some kind of backfire, though. We knew that neither of our cars would probably make it to Chicago and back, so we went ahead and rented a rental car from a place close to my house so that my mom could help us. The only thing to do was to get to Oldham County. An hour and a half. Not a bad drive at all.
I recently found out that I have a coolant leak in my car (perfect!) but we thought I could drive home. Wrong. We made it five minutes from campus before I was on the phone with my sister (who works at an auto shop) about how quickly my engine was heating up. In order to not destroy my motor, we drove back to school, then to Kelcie’s apartment to get her car. After over an hour after we wanted to get on the road, we were finally driving down 64 towards Louisville and catching up on our lives, since we hadn’t really had a good conversation in months.
Eventually, we made it to the rental place and we switched all of our bags into the rental car. We had another five-ish hours of catching up ahead of us, which was amazing. Kelcie is one of the friends who you can go months without seeing and then when you’re back together, you’re sharing info about your life like nothing changed. Jokes and stories and songs and McDonald’s and windmills and the sunset. A good five hours.
We finally made it to our Airbnb in Little Italy and got to see our Gaby! The way Kelcie is the same after going a bit after seeing each other was rivaled only by not seeing Gaby in over a year and the three of us quickly slipping back into our dynamic.
The three of us quickly got ready, then we went to this place called Happy Camper and got the Tony pizza… a pizza with prosciutto, spinach, onion, tomatoes, goat and cream cheeses, and balsamic glaze. When I tell you that I haven’t had a pizza that good in months, I mean MONTHS. It was so good.
After we filled up on pizza and caught each other up on some of the people we studied with in Paris, we decided to go do karaoke. Since it was relatively early (like 10:30) no one was really out and about, so it was just us at this place singing various songs and laughing too hard. After that, we went to see a random cover band who was playing a couple blocks away. I wouldn’t change a thing (except how I was wearing a turtleneck and a sweater over that… should have worn a tshirt or something under!!). There was one specific moment as the band was playing Bad Romance and we were dancing like such complete fools that I thought to myself, I haven’t had this much fun in forever. I don’t want to sound cliche, but we were genuinely dancing like no one was watching. I busted out my go-to party move… sprinkler, into the one dance where you grab your ankle and like crunch (??) with your opposite elbow, into a wave, and finished with the robot. I hate to say it, but when I will always turn to that routine… sometimes adding in a little disco move or something. There’s no point in dancing if you’re not having fun (sorry, another cliche).
After that, we went back to the Airbnb and put on some comfy clothes. The rest of our night consisted of Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, laughing, and talking (and sleeping).
The next day, we went to a coffee place called Sawada Coffee, then walked around for a bit in the West Loop, before going to grab a hotdog from Fatso’s in the Ukranian Village. Once we ate our hotdogs, we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art for a bit. I think that put me in quite the reflective mood, because the few exhibitions we looked at were intensely deep. One of them was by Arthur Jafa, an artist who lives in LA.
Here’s the link to the little blurb on him on MCA’s website:
At this point, it was snowing and the city looked way more beautiful than I could have thought it might.
At the museum, the three of us sat down and talked for a while about the beauty of life and the goodness of God. We talked about Kelcie and when she’ll get married, Gaby and what she’s going to do post-grad, and the three of us in Paris versus now. This was a point in the weekend that I felt so genuinely content and grateful for the friendships I have with them. How could life ever be bad when I have them?
side note: this blog post is FULL of cliches, pls don’t hate me.
After we left the museum, we went back to the Airbnb for a bit to do some homework, nap, and just hang out. Then we went to this place called Ramen-San in the Fulton Market neighborhood. I had the literal best ramen I have ever had there. I got the 10 hour tonkotsu, and I almost cried, it was so good.
Afterwards, we went to Baskin Robbins and got ice cream, then headed back for a chill movie night. I was out pretty much two minutes into the movie.
Sunday was, unsurprisingly, a great day. We went to the Bean, got coffee at a place called Two Zero Three (insanely good latte), then went to the cultural center in the old Chicago library. Maybe the highlight of my weekend!!! It was so absolutely beautiful. After we were there for a few minutes, we went to Cindy’s, a restaurant that looks out over Lake Michigan and the Bean. I would love for someone to tell me about a better day, because I can’t think of one.
Eventually, we split ways and Gaby drove back to school and Kelcie and I began the journey back to Kentucky. Another great car ride– we stopped at Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana and got souvenirs there, played lots of good music, and talked about some of the deeper areas of our lives. I think it’s crazy to me how similar Kelcie and I are, and how much we can relate to the other with some of the more difficult things in our lives. I think everyone needs a person like that in their life.
We made it back to school at like 11 p.m., and I could not come down from my weekend high. I still can’t, even with assignments looming. Even now, I keep kicking myself because I’m just like, this weekend was so good it could not have been real.
I know this wasn’t as similar to my more reflective blogs from the past few months, but I thought I might switch it up a tad. This has been one of the best weekends I’ve had in a really long time, so it definitely deserved a place in Abundant Thoughts. Thanks for reading.
But okay, to change the pace of this post a bit…
By now, you know that I love Pinterest and random poems that I come across. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to share one. The other day, I found this poem by Wendell Berry during a random scroll through Pinterest:
There is No Going Back
No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
There is no going back. I think for most people, that’s bad news. We all have regrets. We all have people or times that we wish we could revisit. It’s crazy how we grow through that, how we are eternally evolving through good and bad moments. I think there’s no going back, but we don’t need to. Just gotta push through, face the storm, and see the goodness around us.
Bison up, baby.
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