"We can have in life but one great experience at best,
and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience
as often as possible."
Oscar Wilde
She walked out of Northern Trust - on the Monroe side - just as I rounded the corner from LaSalle. Walking behind, I watched her bobbed hair as it shimmied back and forth across her long neck to the rhythm of her walk. A sleeveless black linen dress hugged her hips and between them a tiny bottom shimmied in synch with her hair.
She wore flat black sandals and her toe nails were lacquered brandy-cherry red. A glint of sun struck her large toe and a flash of white light cracked off the rounded nail and, with it, I was aware of everything.
The EL's banging and rattling going north on the tracks scored the scene of a Chicago Spring afternoon where, in the moment, it all stopped and life came together. The bob and bottom froze as the toe nail flashed in the fore ground of a subway train cutting my picture in half with an aluminum streak.
It lasted 10 seconds. Intense, crisp and bright turned to muddled and dull. Like going from 70mm Cinerama to a nine inch B&W TV. The bob disappeared. The EL faded. I walked into the Madison street entrance of the Northwestern, bought an Old Style in a brown paper bag and headed to the 5:07.
Posts
