There are many things I will love about living in Chicago again. But as I am preparing to leave Bolingbrook, I’m focusing on saying goodbye to the things I’ve loved about this place. What will I miss? Plenty of things.
- Wide open spaces – cornfields, soccer fields, parking lots, no buildings over 3 stories, vistas across acres of vacant (if usually for sale) land.
- Being confident that I will always find a parking place.
- Rivers and creeks running through parks and along streets.
- Being confident I can buy almost anything I could ever want within a fifteen minute drive. And find a parking place once there. (Did I mention parking?)
- Having a yard where we can let the dog run and bark, eat dinner, have a fire in the fire pit, plant flowers and cherry tomatoes, compost all our vegetable scraps, and watch my wind catcher thing spin in the breeze.
- We can have people over for dinner without thinking twice about Where will they park?
- Our lovely master bathroom, which we just renovated last spring.
- The sense of camaraderie in our subdivision after a big snowstorm.
- Old farm houses and barns in random places around town. Real farms, like Green Earth Institute, where we were part of a Community Supported Agriculture (buy a subscription to a farm and receive veggies each week).
- Our lovely new public library.
- Our favorite sushi restaurant, KO Sushi — where everyone knows us.
- IKEA is minutes away – convenient for grabbing a free cup of coffee, props for a church service, or extra wine glasses.
- People of all colors from all nations who own their own homes are our neighbors and shop at the same grocery stores we do. (I have never figured out how to take a photo of strangers in public without being awkwardly odd.)
- Dear friends who live here or nearby.
- The Church of St. Benedict and its people.
What a beautiful farewell to a much-loved community! Amazing photos!
Nice post, Heidi. And I second your mom on the photos. One of the things I’ve really appreciated about this blog is that you’ve done a nice job of finding good in the suburbs and flat land, even though I know you had some qualms about moving there. (And of course making fun of both suburbs and flat landscapes is a national reflex.) I know you’ll also be grateful for all the good parts of living in the city. I can remind you that some of the things you list in this entry can also be true here (the sense of community after a storm and, in some cases, CSAs and composting). And remember, you won’t always HAVE to find a parking space, because you won’t always have to drive. Imagine that! Your new church community will adore you just as much as St. Benedict did, too.
Will you post photos of the city, too? I hope so.
I do realize all that. This was a tribute to the particular way it’s felt to live here. I plan to take photos in the city, too! New blog coming soon…