Who Says You Can't Go Home?

I went home. People do that fairly often, but not me. I haven't been back to Wilmette for 4 years. And that was only for two days and I didn't see any of my friends. So it's really been 6 years.

When Accenture decided to fly me out to St. Charles, IL, for training, I decided to make the trip. I rented a stretch limo with 6 Italians, 2 Belgians, 1 Finn, and 1 Nigerian (that'll be my next post) and headed downtown.

We had 3 limos in total, with 27 people. 27 people attempting to run around Chicago in an organized fashion on the day before the Chicago marathon is not a very feasible endeavor. The streets looked like New York in the movies. After a coordinated trip to the Apple store, we splintered into smaller groups.

I led my splinter to Navy Pier, where we bought Chicago style hot dogs and took the sunset boat cruise. The cruise ($15), was incredible! I love the Chicago skyline, and the clear sky made for a gorgeous sunset.

This is where I need to do some explaining. Wilmette is a suburb of Chicago. Technically, if you look on a map, Wilmette is directly north of Evanston and Evanston is directly north of Chicago. So I'm two towns away. But Chicago has lots of neighborhoods that aren't cities, so I'm not actually that close to downtown. It was a very rare occasion that I went downtown. Field trips, mueseums, theater, the Taste. I don't know downtown very well. Giuseppe (from Milan) was teaching me the name of some of the buildings.

Chicago is not my home. Wilmette is my home.

I'm going to fast forward to Sunday now because I'm bored of talking about Saturday. Yaniv took me back to the suburbs, and the memories started flooding back.

The Edens Expressway is I-94. If you take exit 34-B you'll exit at Lake Ave, heading East. That's where I live. I didn't remember all the trees. I mean I remembered them, but I didn't even recognize some of the intersections I drove by every day for 18 years.

Everything was prettier than I remembered. Green, lush trees everywhere. A very quiet, out-of-the-way neighborhood. Lots of parks. Beautiful churches. Green.

We did a drive-by of my old house. They cut down two of the trees. One had broken in a really bad ice storm, so that wasn't a surprise. The other was more of a large bush. I think they should have left the bush. The house looked naked. We didn't stay long.

We at Lou Malnati's pizza, walked all around New Trier Township High School, and went to Gillson Beach. I feared that all these places would seem foreign to me, but they didn't. I picked up right where I left off.

On our way down Lake Shore Drive, we stopped at the Baha'i Temple. I've lived in Wilmette all my life but never been inside. We went inside and it was beautiful! The entire dome is open. It's a place for meditation and prayer. I would have loved to stay there for hours, but I think I was the only one in the car who did.

I'm glad I went home. As I wandered around, I realized that it was a pretty good place. I always said I wouldn't move back, but now I'm not sure. Home is a beautiful thing to feel.