Suburban Amber
A Walk in Suburbs
As most of you know, I’m not from Chicago. I’m not even from Illinois. Every weekend, without fail, you’ll see me lugging my suitcase around waiting anxiously until I can cruise home to the suburbs…in Indiana- Hammond, Indiana to be precise. Seems horrible right? Not really. This Memorial Day weekend, I was sitting at home in my stifling, sweaty house because “it is NOT air conditioning season for God sakes! It’s still May! I’m not turning on the air in May!” (That’d be my sweet mother talking). Due to the oppressive feeling in the house, I decided to go for a walk to look at trees now that I actually know some. I started in the backyard, successfully identifying two silver maples, a pine tree that would be fantastic come Christmas, a burning bush, and what I think is a green ash tree. There is one tree in my yard that I can’t identify, but whatever it is, it’s dying. I moved out from my yard. I decided to weave my way as far into the residential areas as I could without getting turned around on our twisty, confusing streets. Sometimes I could almost forget I was in Indiana and not Chicago. There are a lot of the same species around here- maples, ashes, some scattered lindens, and what I thought was a cockspur thorn, but I wasn’t willing to climb Mr. 174th Place’s fence to find out. There are a lot more coniferous trees in my area than Chicago. I think it makes sense since in a city like Chicago, you don’t want to plant a tree that’s going to get huge and crowd out a sidewalk the way the fat bottom of giant pine could. Most of the conifers I saw were in people’s yards.
My main lament is that there are scarcely any elms where I live. I love elms. They’re one of my favorite trees. I love their little seedlings, the teeth of their leaves, the grain of their bark, their trunks that go on and on before splaying out, and the twisting branches that look like veins. I know many elms were lost in the suburbs when Dutch Elm Disease, but I’m not sure if they were ever in my neighborhood. There are very few trees that look extremely young. Most of the trees have been planted in our area for as long as I can remember. There’s a big happy catalpa dripping with pods down the street from my house. There are also some birch trees (mostly in yards) and the occasional sycamore. I wish I could have gone and visited the apple tree at my old house in Hammond- it had the perfect seat for reading books nestled where the branches split from the trunk. The best thing about the walk was getting to see the city I’ve lived in for almost my entire life in a different way. I saw things I’d never noticed before. I never realized how rich our suburban forest was. And by the end of it, I didn’t care that it was hot or that I was sweating or that my house was only going to make the problem worse. It was really great. It felt better to be outside where it was hot and the trees were than to be inside. I think there really is a therapeutic quality to being outside, even if the most natural place you can get to is the city you live in. It’s neat to look at and be concerned with something outside of yourself and the people-oriented world you live in. It was a good walk
As most of you know, I’m not from Chicago. I’m not even from Illinois. Every weekend, without fail, you’ll see me lugging my suitcase around waiting anxiously until I can cruise home to the suburbs…in Indiana- Hammond, Indiana to be precise. Seems horrible right? Not really. This Memorial Day weekend, I was sitting at home in my stifling, sweaty house because “it is NOT air conditioning season for God sakes! It’s still May! I’m not turning on the air in May!” (That’d be my sweet mother talking). Due to the oppressive feeling in the house, I decided to go for a walk to look at trees now that I actually know some. I started in the backyard, successfully identifying two silver maples, a pine tree that would be fantastic come Christmas, a burning bush, and what I think is a green ash tree. There is one tree in my yard that I can’t identify, but whatever it is, it’s dying. I moved out from my yard. I decided to weave my way as far into the residential areas as I could without getting turned around on our twisty, confusing streets. Sometimes I could almost forget I was in Indiana and not Chicago. There are a lot of the same species around here- maples, ashes, some scattered lindens, and what I thought was a cockspur thorn, but I wasn’t willing to climb Mr. 174th Place’s fence to find out. There are a lot more coniferous trees in my area than Chicago. I think it makes sense since in a city like Chicago, you don’t want to plant a tree that’s going to get huge and crowd out a sidewalk the way the fat bottom of giant pine could. Most of the conifers I saw were in people’s yards.
My main lament is that there are scarcely any elms where I live. I love elms. They’re one of my favorite trees. I love their little seedlings, the teeth of their leaves, the grain of their bark, their trunks that go on and on before splaying out, and the twisting branches that look like veins. I know many elms were lost in the suburbs when Dutch Elm Disease, but I’m not sure if they were ever in my neighborhood. There are very few trees that look extremely young. Most of the trees have been planted in our area for as long as I can remember. There’s a big happy catalpa dripping with pods down the street from my house. There are also some birch trees (mostly in yards) and the occasional sycamore. I wish I could have gone and visited the apple tree at my old house in Hammond- it had the perfect seat for reading books nestled where the branches split from the trunk. The best thing about the walk was getting to see the city I’ve lived in for almost my entire life in a different way. I saw things I’d never noticed before. I never realized how rich our suburban forest was. And by the end of it, I didn’t care that it was hot or that I was sweating or that my house was only going to make the problem worse. It was really great. It felt better to be outside where it was hot and the trees were than to be inside. I think there really is a therapeutic quality to being outside, even if the most natural place you can get to is the city you live in. It’s neat to look at and be concerned with something outside of yourself and the people-oriented world you live in. It was a good walk
posted by Explore Chicago at 5:46 AM
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