The Chicago Project: Validation and Humility

This past weekend I went to King’s Spa with some girlfriends of mine.  King’s Spa is a Korean spa so for the first part of the experience you get completely nude in a room full of other women to enjoy a steam room, showers and hot tubs.

King's Spa 

My girlfriends came up naked and we all looked at each other for a moment before one friend said: look at us; we’re beautiful.  We – as a whole – not based on this superficial notion of beauty but based on our willingness to share this experience with each other.

That set the tone: validation.

My friend has this tattoo on her arm: it says: do not seek outside of yourself in Latin.  I pondered this as an array of different bodies walked past me.  Body-positive experiences are something I’ve been intentional about having lately starting with the naked bike ride and taking my next steps with my yoga practice.

Throughout the evening I pondered the notion of validation within our society and seeking it from external factors.  I’m very guilty of this – as we all are.  I seek validation from the men I keep in my back pocket to make me feel attractive or the books I read to prove my intellectual prowess and the social circles I maintain to show some sort of status. Still, I keep coming to the same conclusion:  when you lose the ego you feel no need to be validated by others.

Humility is honest; it’s vulnerable and damn it, it’s scary.  It’s sitting naked in a hot tub and feeling at peace.  It’s telling the truth even when it hurts you to do so.  It’s smiling at a stranger on the street with no expectation of receiving a smile or recognition in return.  It’s walking into a room with quiet confidence knowing you have nothing to prove. 

It’s also very hard work as we fight against our conditioning in this society.  The ego likes to keep one safe.  The ego keeps my sunglasses on as I follow the beat of my heels hitting pavement attuned to my ipod making no human connections walking down my street.  The genuine me, however, wants to be honest, vulnerable and notice how lonely everyone really is and say, it’s okay, look at us; we’re beautiful.

The Chicago Project: Biking Naked

Ah, Saturdays in the summer.  How I love you.  This summer I’ve been keeping my weekends as clear as possible if only to fully enjoy the freedom of the moment.

This past Saturday I enjoyed what some might say is ultimate liberation – baring it all in public.  After letting the wind blow me from Pilsen to Ukranian Village and then to Edgewater Beach I biked back to the West Loop to participate in the best bike ride of my life…naked.

Okay…okay…so I wasn’t completely nude, but close enough.  I also wasn’t alone; there were hundreds of us and possibly a thousand closing down the streets downtown biking naked.  It was thrilling, scary and absolutely joyful to see people’s reactions to us biking down in the buff.

Things I loved:

• All the body positivity surrounding the event – participants weren’t there to judge your body – you felt accepted no matter what you looked like
• So many different people from various walks of life: old people, young people, big people, small people, black people, brown people, yellow people, tattooed people, white people…just wow. 
• “Less gas; more ass!” chants (even though I feel so crude swearing in chants so I obstained from actually chanting the word “ass” in public)
• Feeling my bare skin against the night wind
• All the body paint, creative masks, costumes and boomboxes attached to bikes

Things I didn’t like:

• When a guy strikes up a conversation with you by saying “nice bike,” you’re not really sure that he’s looking at your bike…
• All the people on the streets taking photos.  I almost yelled at them to just experience the moment with us rather than constantly try to capure it, but I didn’t.  It must have been the lack of liquor in my body.

So I was a little shy about taking my clothes off at first and biked a little less than half the ride with my tank top still on until a beautiful burlesque boy starting talking to me as we biked together.   “You should take it off,” he said.  “Really?  I dunno…”  “Yeah, you’ll feel so free and good, just do it.”

I did do it. I removed my tank top and revelled in the moment.  If my mother could only see me now (nope, she just gets to read about it) :)

I laughed a lot, smiled at people and felt so much joy at being the highlight of so many people’s  crazy weekend stories.  I wasn’t going to go home to call my friends to say, “You’ll never guess what I saw today!”  No I was going to tell them: “You’ll never guess what I did today!”

The Chicago Project: Bridgeport

I love going to places alone. 

It’s an odd hobby that I must have picked up when I was 18 years old and had just moved to the city for the first time.  I remember how I was then – so young and fresh and wanting to experience everything – the people; the places; the day; the night…

I’ve come back to that girl it seems; the one that goes out on her bicycle late at night alone to check out the open mic night and perform for people that won’t ever know her name.  The comfort about strangers is that you don’t ever have to live up to anything.  You just share in a moment without clinging to identity…

This is one of the many reasons I love to travel alone.  I love traveling because of the complete uncertainty of where the journey will take you or who you will meet along the way; the exoticism of new places and the seduction of a moment in different vegetation and landscape.

So Chicago: how do I experience you as a tourist instead of a resident?

Let’s start in Bridgeport, a southside neighborhood not too far from Pilsen.  I walked into Bernice’s Tavern’s open mic night because I wrote a poem I was dying to read to a room full of strangers.  I was disappointed to find that it was only music.  I then scanned the room thinking about how poetry would probably not fly well here as I eyed the décor.  Signs that read: “work is the curse of the drinking class,” and “never trust a man that doesn’t drink,” permeated the walls.  I could hear thick Chicago accents over the Neil Young cover songs.  The Sox game was on in a tiny t.v. in the corner of the room.  Bridgeport is Sox country, make no mistake about it.

I knew immediately that there were two things I would not do here today:

1. Tell anyone I’m vegan 
2. Read my intense feminist poetry

Instead I noticed the little things one tends to when in a new place.

As a writer, it’s the external stimulation that drives you inward to put it all into words. It’s overhearing a conversation that inspires a poem or noticing the way the light dances on foreign walls over music. It’s reading the silence between the words; it’s contemplating life’s riddles as you watch the man and the woman in the corner whispering into each other’s ear…

Or, if you’re Bridgeport, it’s scanning the bar full of burly men in Bears and Blackhawks jerseys and baseball hats wondering if anyone is a secret Cubs fan. 

Deep thoughts.

More Chicago adventures to come throughout the summer!