Taking Time: Everyone Deserves Two Weeks of Vacay to Survive the Winter

I think anyone moving to Chicago should take two weeks of vacation before they are forced to join the real world of the working.

So technically my two weeks of vacation were two weeks of unemployment but with the Obama optimism train coming to town, I’m going to just say I’ve had the best two weeks of Chicago vacation ever.

But the truth is I needed those two weeks.

I needed those two weeks to be able to see the loop as a cultural playground filled with the glowing headlines of theaters, the sleek marble of century-old architecture and the eye-raising heights of modern skyscrapers, instead of only seeing the depressing mill of overworked business suits.

I needed those two weeks to be able to see the el as the common bond of the Chicago community where middle aged stately African American women with long purple coats mingle with 20 something iPod lip singing hipsters, instead of only seeing a cattle car of "I wish it were still Sunday" people.

I needed those two weeks to see my home as just that, a home, a home where I will make enough jambalaya to feed my 40 yet-to-be-made Chicago friends, where I will read Obama’s books or Sandburg’s poetry on snowy lazy Saturdays, where I will TIVO embarrassing shows in hopes my new roommate doesn’t judge me too harshly, instead of just seeing a 10X10 bedroom where I crash at the end of a carpel-tunnel-filled day.

I can’t ignore the reality. This is Chicago in the middle of winter. It is cold and slightly miserable with seemingly little to love. If I didn’t allow myself the time now to take this mental picture of all there is to love in the city than I surely would only know the city as numbing work. And soon I would come to hate it.

America in many ways resembles this reality of Chicago. America is cold and bearish with seemingly little of which to be proud. But love him or hate him Obama has given us our two week vacation from real life. From his gracious and heart-lifting acceptance speech to his inspirational innagural address today (which everyone must read at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-obama.html) we have had more like 2 months of vacation from the dreary political landscape of Bush. Obama has shown us again those snapshots of what we love about America: the equality, the progress and even though I mock it, yes, the hope. He has taken away the numbing feeling of hopelessness and given us back the power to love our country.

Today his inaugural address united people in offices, classrooms, and bars across this city and the country. It momentarily gave us a little break from the repetitive motion of working life and reinvigorated us for tomorrow. Tomorrow is another working day, a day when we will probably have to work even harder than yesterday, but it will be a day when we will know again why we are working so hard.

Tomorrow I will see both the mill of suits and the marbled staircases. I will see the purple-coated lady crammed in among the cattle car. I will crash in my bed, pet my adopted cats and know I am home. Tomorrow America will see the failing economy, see the global security crisis, see the poverty that still plagues its communities but it will also see America as home once again.