Toys

It's less obvious in this photograph of the lake, but from my angle at the time, the little boats on the river looked like toys. You know those little remote control boats that people would have racing around swimming pools? (Or in the law school's case during end-of-term BBQs, the fountain?) That's what it looked like.

I was 34 floors above the ground, but even higher above the boats. It's odd to me now, living on the 3rd floor, thinking about just how high up I used to be. High enough so that my view from my apartment of the road was routinely obscured by clouds. High enough so that I could see all the way to the neighborhood where the law school was, a 15 minute drive. High enough so that on a clear day I could see all the way to another state (Indiana). High enough so that normal sized boats looked like little remote control toys.

I didn't always live high in the sky. Growing up, I lived on the top floor of our house, but that wasn't that far above the ground. In college, I lived on the 4th floor until senior year when I lived on the 2nd floor (finally). The only good thing about living on the 4th floor was that it kept me in shape because I would inevitably forget something and would have to run all the way back up. And in freshman year, there was a lot of running up and down the stairs, especially when visiting friends in other entryways when you needed to run all the way to the top to cross over to some other entryway. Ah, memories. Good times and in much better shape.

When I went off to law school, I was on the 2nd floor (although it was more like 2.5) with a view of a dead end street and a building that was always empty by quitting time. (I don't really remember what was there.) But for 2 years in Chicago, I lived up in the clouds. A beautiful view of the lake and the fireworks shows that I will never forget.