Outing at Soldier Field – Part 1 (from Not Quite the Same)

I realized at a very early age growing up in the piney woods in rural east Texas I was somehow different from my family and friends there. I didn’t understand the difference completely as a child.  And to tell the truth I spent a lifetime evolving from that early recognition to the social justice activist I became in my middle age years in South Carolina. “Coming Out” happened over and over again in many settings in my more than sixty years as a lesbian. At some point in your life, though, you begin to feel there will be no more surprises or discoveries. As they say in football, that’s why they play the game

     “Look out the window. It’s pouring snow,” I said as our plane touched down on the Chicago runway. Why do I say those things to a person who minutes earlier  clutched my arm and said with hushed hysteria, “We’re going down! We’re going down!”? And that was when the landing gear made the noise it always does in preparation for landing.

“It doesn’t pour snow,” Teresa said. That’s my girl. Even the peril of impending death won’t interrupt her brain’s ability to spot an obvious grammatical gaffe. I love that mind of hers, but next trip it will definitely be sedated before takeoff.

We were on one of those remarkable unexpected escapades that had never been a part of my life before Teresa. She is the definitive impromptu whirlwind that spices up my studious planning Taurus nature.  Life is an adventure, and I found it is not necessarily wasted on the young. This was going to be a big weekend for us.

The Carolina Panthers, our pro football team in Charlotte, North Carolina, were in the 2005 NFC playoffs against the Chicago Bears. Teresa and I were both huge football fans and made the two hour drive from our house in Columbia, South Carolina, to see every home game during the five years we had been together. We watched some dismal losing seasons, but this year was a banner year. The win against the New York Giants last Sunday made this happen. So the following Friday we were on a plane from the warm and sunny state of South Carolina to the frigid windy city for the big game on Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field. Unthinkable in my prior life.

The weekend was as remarkable as she is.  From the moment we got to our hotel in the city’s theater district downtown, we didn’t stop. In the midst of the wintry mix that night we walked to see two movies that weren’t playing in our town. Not one, two. Capote and Brokeback Mountain. Two movies with gay themes that would take several decades to be shown at home.  We saw them at a marvelous old theater called The Esquire that reminded me nostalgically of the downtown theaters of my childhood visiting Houston in the 1950s. Of course, the interior of the Esquire was broken up into the little theaters they all have today, but I could still recall the magnificent old Texas theater lobby in my mind. The smell of the buttery popcorn was the same.

In between the movies, we had a wonderful Chicago pizza in a warm noisy restaurant near the theater. The people were friendly and in a jubilant mood. Tables and booths were packed. Standing room only. It suited our festive mood. By the time we finished the second movie and walked back to our hotel, we were exhausted.

On Saturday morning we took a train out to the suburb of Oak Park, walked the streets of Hemingway and Frank Lloyd Wright. Teresa is a lover of books and authors, so this was sensory overload for her. We had a guided tour of the Hemingway family home for just the two of us. It was a slow Saturday for literary greats. We were the only visitors in the Hemingway Museum during the hour we were there.

Next was the bitterly cold walking tour of the neighborhood where Frank Lloyd Wright began his career designing homes for his friends. My legs ached, and I could see my breath in the icy air. But Teresa’s face was alive with enthusiasm at the wonder of all we were seeing. Her intensity was invigorating, and so we moved on. She can never know enough. We never have enough time to see all she wants to see. There aren’t sufficient books in the souvenir shops for her to buy to read later to see what she missed while she was here. Never enough time to read them when she buys them. Her passion for knowing and seeing and doing is boundless; her energy is contagious.

I was thrilled when we finally came to rest late that afternoon in a fabulous Mexican restaurant with plenty of heat besides the warmth of the picante salsa. I could feel my tired old bones begin to thaw. Teresa glowed as she related her favorite sights of the day. We took the train from Oak Park to downtown Chicago and made our way to our hotel. The plays in the theater district looked inviting, but we were afraid we’d pass out sitting in the dark for that long. Our hotel bed welcomed us with open arms.

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When the heat index is over 100 degrees in South Carolina this week, I thought I needed a breath of cold air…brrrr….stay cool and please stay tuned.