Montana.

Every summer Chicago features on buses, billboards, and other public places a "vacation" spot.  Lately, it's been Montana.  I think last year it was Mexico.  The photos always look grand.  They especially look grand when you haven't had a vacay in what seems like never.  Sometimes, other places look extremely appealing when your body and spirit are craving some magnificent scenery, uninterrupted rest, and the silence that accompanies absence of humans.

Chicago doesn't offer breathtaking scenery and silence, and there are more humans stuffed into one block than animals (I imagine) circling a mountain in Montana.  There isn't a lot of "peace" in the city.  Chicago quiets down in the wee hours of the night, but for the most part, the city never sleeps, never rests, it's never entirely peaceful. 

However, I don't find myself ill at ease in the city.  I adjusted to city life surprisingly well, I think.  I never grew up in a city but often imagined myself living in one.  The only other cities I've lived in were Indianapolis and Istanbul.  Indianapolis was heavily trafficked and it could sometimes take forty minutes or longer to drive form the west side to the north side.  One has to drive everywhere in cities like Indianapolis and it never feels like you're getting anywhere because you spend so much time in the car.

Istanbul is more populated and busy than Chicago.  It was also more polluted and I found myself with nauseating ear infections and black dirt dripping from my nose as I sometimes slipped and slid down oily streets after an afternoon rain shower.  I don't want to rat on Istanbul too much though, because it was culturally rich and enticing with just about anything one's senses could appreciate.  I will never forget that time.

Anyway, I digress.  Dave and I were crossing the street at a busy intersection one afternoon after leaving Walgreens.  We looked at one another and our eyes lit up in expectation for Montana!  That's right, the subject of Montana came up when a CTA bus plastered with pictures of breathtaking scenery and wild animals swerved around the corner.  What an adventure to live in such a place!  Wild game, log cabin, crystal clear streams and the idea of riding horses into town to take a drink from one of those glistening, trash-free streams for a drink of clean, BP-free water.

I think that thought lasted about 10 seconds.

Neither one of us would want to live in Montana.  But both of us wouldn't have any qualms with spending about 2 weeks there.  Or maybe a week.  After a while in (isolated places) I start to panic.  I feel my four limbs tremor as they yearn to split from my body and escape to the borders.  I start to miss Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, or the idea that I can walk around the corner to buy my groceries.  And as nice as a quiet morning would be right now with a breakfast-time mountain view, it wouldn't be fun to wake up to that kind of isolation every day, for me, that is.  For as much as humanity makes me sick pretty regularly, I need humanity for perspective. 

Places like Montana need to remain human-free.  Why?  Because with humans come destruction.  And when I see a billboard in Chicago with pictures enticing our jerky city eyes with crystal clear streams, green pastures, regal mountaintops and wild game looking back at me, I don't see anticipation in the eyes of the elk.  Instead I see, "Don't you even think of it, human -- you're just fine where you are and so am I!"