At the end of May, I relocated from the Chronicle’s base in pastoral Middleburg, Va., to Chicago.
The move entailed myself, my gentleman friend and our rather portly but beloved Corgi leaving a horseperson’s utopia (which also happens to be in the highest median income county in the entire nation) and settling in a predominately Hispanic, low-income neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
When our caravan rolled westward ho out of Middleburg, I craned my neck back for one last glance at the quaint city limit sign—the one which bears a snoozing fox and reads, “Relax, you’re in the village!”
I knew I wouldn’t see anything rivaling that standard of whimsy again for a good long while. Because when you drive into Pilsen, our new ’hood, they don’t really encourage you to let your guard down; every other window you pass displays a “We Call Police” sign underneath the inevitable iron bars. But that’s cool, because I was ready for a new scene, and we actually love it here.
See, even though I grew up on a farm in The Middle Of Nowhere, Ill., I have always superciliously fancied myself a bit of a chameleon—a girl who could find a comfort zone anywhere—big city, small town, backwoods. As Ashlee Simpson so eloquently opined, “You can dress me up in diamonds; you can dress me up in dirt.” (I’m pretty sure the latter statement is a fallacy in respect to Ms. Simpson, but I for one have mucked enough stalls in my 27 years to be worthy of it).
Anyway, in our first weeks here in Chicago, I admit I didn’t really miss my former home; I was too busy exploring all the cultural and culinary delights my new metropolis had to offer to yearn for the horsey haven of Middleburg, population 976.
“Sure, there are no horses here, but that’s OK,” I told myself. “You’re a human first, not just a horseperson.”
But I’m starting to question that. I’m truly starting to wonder whether I’ll ever effectively assimilate into “the real world,” or whether I’ll just live out the next 2/3 of my life like a horse-loving version of E.T., dressing up in “real people” clothes and doing “real people” things until one day I just can’t take it anymore and I ride my little flying bicycle into a pasture in the sky.
OK, that’s a touch overdramatic. But so was Steven Spielberg. In any case, I’m pretty sure I won’t be “just a normal person” any time soon.
Horsespotting
See, the horses of Chicago are following me. I see them almost every day, no matter where I go, like I’m on some sort of subconscious scavenger hunt. They show up in murals, sculptures, signs, everything.
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“Horse!!!” I shriek mid-sentence, thrilled each and every time by the sight of that familiar equine form.
It doesn’t matter how crudely depicted or how far outside the Chronicle’s familiar realm of high performance sport they may be—I’ll shout at graffiti horse skeletons or cow ponies on western wear shop marquees.
“Horse! Horse! Ahhh, hooooorrrrrssssse!!!” I scream, two octaves higher than my normal tone, like an 8-year-old girl who’s been begging her parents for one for years.
That is, I used to shout. Until the day I spotted three during the 15-minute drive to my haircut appointment, finally forcing my boyfriend to sigh and say, “OK, you have got to stop doing that now.”
“I’m sawwwwrryyyyy, I’m just excited to see them,” I pouted from the passenger seat, refusing to drop the 8-year-old demeanor.
“I understand that, but you scream it in a tone that leads me to believe I’m about to hit one. I’d really prefer to not get rear-ended because you made me slam on the brakes for an equine that doesn’t even exist, let alone stand in our path.”
Fair enough, I suppose. Since then I’ve grudgingly attempted to bring my enthusiasm down a notch or two… but the bf took a similarly excited tone when he spied a USEA sticker on a passing SUV last weekend, so I’m pretty sure he’s getting hooked on horsespotting too…
Outing Myself
One day a few weeks ago I was feeling energetic after work, so I hopped on the L and headed downtown for some window shopping (though by taking my debit card along I was assuring that it would inevitably become real shopping) on State St.
While we’re on the subject, it should be noted that me feeling energetic at 4 p.m. is a pretty impressive anomaly, if I do say so myself. Now that I’m working from home, I’ve found that I can really only muster up the will to shower every other day or so. Doing my hair and putting on make-up and clean clothing constructed of something other than sweatpant material is even more rare.
But on this day I must have had some extra espressos or something, because I had the energy to literally jump up and down upon walking in to Forever 21 and seeing a whole display full of (albeit shoddily made) fieldboots. I almost wet my pants when I spotted a scarf covered in horses (and not just plain horses, but horses jumping over different post and rail fences! OMG!) at Urban Outfitters. And by the time I saw that red sweater with the adorable fuzzy baby foal on it, I pretty much wanted to cry.
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My heart was leaping with joy at the sight of all this horsiness, but with no one else there to appreciate my finds the way my fellow Chronicle staffers used to when we’d go “real world” shopping together, I was filled with sadness.
You know that feeling when you’re struggling to convey to “normal people” that you’re a horse person? Not just one who buys horsey things because they’re trendy—one who has actually forged bonds with horses and who has built her life around them. Well that day it took a good bit of self-control for me to keep from ripping that sweater off the rack, marching up to the cashier’s counter and saying, “I’m getting this because I am a real horse person! You just can’t tell right now because I’m in my ‘normal person’ disguise! Fooled you, didn’t I? Mwhaaa hahaha!’ ”
OK, verging on overdramatic again. Sometimes I get a little angsty. It’s just disorienting and a little surreal to be in a place where your identity as a horse person isn’t immediately apparent.
But I’m learning that the process of “outing myself” as a horse person can actually be more fun than I expected. The weird thing is that no matter how far away you get from horses geographically, they always seem to catch up with you sooner or later.
For instance, the other night the bf and I went to a community BBQ, and in a sea of strangers, I found myself sitting next to a middle-aged woman named Katherine.
“Oh good, at least I’ll remember her name, since it’s mine too,” I thought, cursing for the millionth time my ability to forget a person’s name 5 seconds after they’ve been introduced (a really excellent trait in a journalist…). But over the course of the evening it became apparent that we had a lot more in common than our names.
Out of Chicago’s 2.7 million residents, I’d somehow plopped down next to the one who’d evented through intermediate, been a working student for the likes of Bruce Davidson, Ralph Hill and Oded Shimoni, and read the Chronicle for most of her adult life. We spent the remainder of the hour trading “do you know so-and-so?” and “how’s he-or-she doing?” lines, while my mind was secretly being blown by the smallness of the world.
Two months ago, I left Middleburg with a tiny twinge of fear that I wouldn’t be able to keep “being a horse person” in the city. But I’m figuring out that Chicago has other plans, and I admit I’m relieved.
Apparently you can take the girl out of horse country, but you can’t take the horse country out of the girl.
