in the city...

"What strange phenomena we find in a great city,

all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open."

- Charles Baudelaire

The daughter of a dear sista-friend is getting married this summer. I was honored to join D on her quest to find the perfect place for her daughter's bridal shower - in the city...

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"Lady D"

Everything about the bridal shower is secret, so I can't post photos of the places we visited, or the bridal gorgeousness we got to witness and partake in. After the grand event, I promise to. But I'll give you a hint: Paris is the theme, bien sur!   

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At the last minute, I shoved my camera into my diva bag (my single New Year's Resolution is to bring a camera with me, wherever, whenever). I shoved my camera into my diva bag, and that's when the adventure began...

The traffic into the city was horrible, a bumper-to-bumper slow crawl. As we sat on the Dan Ryan Expressway, waiting to merge into traffic, I glanced to my right and saw a half dozen camp-tents beneath an underpass. A barren place, surrounded by brambles, dirt and snow. It was a homeless camp. The camp was organized, neat, clean and devastating. It assailed and overwhelmed me.

A camp for the homeless, beneath the Dan Ryan Expressway...

"One could not stand and watch very long without being philosophical,

without beginning to deal in symbols and similes..." 

- Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906)

"I call architecture frozen music." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Dusk is just an illusion...day and night are linked in a way that few things are.

There cannot be one without the other, yet they cannot exist at the same time."

- Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook (1996)

I spent three hours in the city and in those scant moments: shape, color, depth, light, dark, sound, emotion - bursting! Inspiration literally and figuratively abounded. Yeah, Lady D and I are planning to return and spend an entire day strolling with our cameras, keeping our eyes open. And I can't wait. 

Vivre! Rire! Aimer!

Temple