On the Street Where You Live

Moving in Chicago conjures up a lot of unwanted hassle: maneuvering a rented truck through tight alleys, badgering your landlord for the rightful return of your deposit, bribing your friends with beer and pizza to move all your boxes of books and sleeper couches up three flights of stairs. And once you move to your new place, the fun has only begun – now it’s time to unpack and take care of all the stuff the last tenant ignored and find your way around your new ‘hood.
Moving Mazurka to our summer home in Belmont Harbor was a picnic – literally. Our crew of four actually thanked us for having them along. We loaded a few hoses and remaining equipment onto the bow, said goodbye to the geese still tending unhatched eggs, hauled the dinghy to storage, and set sail.

At dusk we passed through downtown and the lock at Navy Pier, and in the darkening sky of a near-full moon, sailed north to our home for the next six months, in the northern armpit of Belmont Harbor, precariously close to Lake Shore Drive and the bike path, where the gates are locked but people jump the fences anyway, including us because at 11 o’clock at night, there’s no one in the Harbor Master’s office to tell us the code for the gate.

It was almost ten o’clock when we docked and fired up the grill, and nearly eleven when everyone left to hail a cab back to their parked cars. I stayed onboard, alone in our new slip. The first thing I did was call my dad. It felt odd to be in such a strange harbor, where there’s no internet, and no friendly neighbors, where my cat Leo took off running down the dock, under the fence into the park, where feral raccoons the size of small bears are just waiting for a fight. All night I had nightmares about where I had parked my car and people stealing from us.

In the morning, I didn’t feel much better. There was some fence-jumper fishing right by my kitchen window while I made coffee.

It’s a weird thing to move, even if the interior of your home doesn’t change.

I checked in with the Harbor Master’s assistant, and he congratulated me for getting into Belmont. This is the trendy harbor in Chicago. Later in the day I met the unofficial mayor, who also keeps his boat on A Street; he filled me in on how things work around here. And while I appreciate the strong recommendation for the honey wagon service, I still (for some strange reason) want to pump my own shit.

When we first moved to River City last November, I was appalled by the garbage, the industrial plant pumping smog right across the river, the concrete and cement and lack of trees. But it grew on me. And then there are no more attacking geese, and I had learned the neighborhood, and the river took on the smooth, easy living of early summer…and it was time to go.

Mark says it was time for us to leave the nest, too.

(Thanks to crewmember Carl for the photos of Mazurka's summer slip and the skyline at dusk...and to Mary, Chris, and Jeff for helping us move!)