Chicago Winter Now
by MIKEE PARANGALAN
Every Chicagoan has a different rule for when it’s time to Actually Dress for The Weather: I won’t be caught dead in the jacket that will Actually Keep Me Warm until it’s below 37 degrees. But this year, we get a 50-degree Christmas and You haven’t seen the Worst Of It yet! and Oh, just you wait until January (or February) (and even March)!
Making me worry that people don’t believe in magic anymore. Not magic, God. Not God. Saying Hello when you stumble upon someone walking through the Montrose Bird Sanctuary or saying Thank You to the el operator if you happen to pass them upon exiting.
(and I’m not saying Everyone Should Believe in God, but don’t we all feel Something at the back of our necks? Looking over our shoulders for who knows what?)(and really, we do know)
The morning after Thanksgiving the Art Institute used to have a choir singing carols on the steps and the Joffrey Ballet passed out free hot chocolate, but now the lions just wear their wreaths sans ceremony.
(the hardest thing to do nowadays is look someone in the eye) (which is prayer, by the way)
It is cold and grey and omg-it’s-freezing! Even though now, the jackets that will Actually Keep Us Warm are different from our Real Winter Coats. And when even was the last time you saw your Real Winter Coat?
(you might as well get rid of it because something is coming and someone else could use it more and that is prayer too, by the way)
Mikee Parangalan is a Midwest apologist and carpe diem evangelist, writing and creating in Chicago, Illinois. Her work is forthcoming in hex literary magazine and her project proof of what? is available on Bottlecap Press. You can find her online @mkprngln and most anywhere else if you look hard enough.