"A change is as good as a rest," Irish playwright Brendan Behan once said, and I can vouch for its factuality. I'm also glad that EGD readers enjoyed Caren Jeskey's debut effort here last week, "Texas Walkabout." The usual next step would be for her to vanish. But Caren must not have gotten the memo, because she sent in a second essay, which I've dubbed "Texas Recollection." I am pleased to post it today, despite knowing my readers well enough to suspect that a second essay might provoke alarm in ways that a single essay would not (as reflecting another favorite line, "Einmal ist keinmal und zweimal ist immer," or "Once is never and twice is always.") Remain calm. Writing continually for the public is difficult, trust me on that, and few are up to it. Either she will continue or she won't. As I like to say when people begin debating events in the future: "We don't have to argue about it—we can just wait and find out."
For eight years I rented a huge apartment in Chicago on Washtenaw where I lived above my landlords, Angelo and Eleftheria. Angelo is now in hospice care due to COVID-19. He cannot see his family. He is lucid and the nurses are kind enough to arrange FaceTime visits, but it is beyond me to comprehend the sadness he and his wife must feel to be apart in what may prove to be his final days.
When I lived there the greatest pleasure was the garden of edible plants and flowers they cultivated in the front and back yards, and all along the walkway between. Grape vines yielded juicy bunches and fruits and vegetables seemed to spill out into the lawn and fill buckets.
As devout Greek Orthodox practitioners there was no dearth of the sounds of prayers and the aroma of Frankincense filling my apartment year round. Sometimes I would lay on the floor of my kitchen with my ear pressed to the hardwood just to hear Angelo sing. They made sure to bring me spanakopita, tiropita, baklava and other delicacies regularly, taking care of their single tenant who was often alone. Angelo once asked me if I lived on my back porch because every single time he passed me on the way to his grand babies upstairs he'd see me reclining in my chair, enjoying the strong fragrance of jasmine from their trees and watching the sun set in the West. They included me in Greek Easter and the little granddaughters marveled at my nose piercing and offered me eggs to crack against theirs as a part of the tradition. I felt safe and loved knowing this couple was below me for all of those years.
Our neighborhood had many hidden gems such as HarvesTime Foods on Lawrence where you could find a variety of Greek and Bulgarian feta cheeses, an olive bar, Krinos brand taramosalata also known as Greek caviar, freshly baked bread, local coffee beans, a burgeoning produce department and long handled Turkish style coffee pots along with the finely ground Bosnian or Greek style coffees these pots are designed for. I learned from my good friend Snezana how to properly boil these coffees three times for a perfect cup. Snezana and other friends like Lyndee and Elle would come over to my huge flat and we’d cook up tunes on guitars and percussive instruments and sing our stories to each other.
My landlords had allowed me to pick out the paint color for the kitchen and I chose a vibrant lime green. A good friend Chef Courtney Contos whose father was the founder and proprietor of the famous Chez Paul—the restaurant where Ferris Bueller was given a proper suit coat on his day off—gave me a wooden potato and onion box that rested in the corner, and she also helped me outfit my kitchen with gourds of sea salt with little wooden spoons, Le Creuset and other posh supplies that I still use to this day, nearly 15 years later. I had countless happy moments in that kitchen with friends gathered around the table while I served charcuterie and we drank sparkling water, coffee and wine with the back door wide open to the porch and the sunset and the garden on endless summer days.
I only got in trouble with Angelo and Eleftheria one time, when a flippant friend spun a wooden top on the dining room floor well past eleven pm one Saturday night. I was horrified and told him to stop, but the irreverent soul that he was spun the top at least two more times, wood spinning furiously on wood. I heard about it from the landlords the very next day and apologized profusely, which they accepted. I wonder why they did not hear or maybe they just didn’t comment on the times I came home later and once even fell into the tub drunk after a long night at a neighbor’s house or perhaps DANK Haus or somewhere farther away like Cafe Mestizo in Pilsen where I’d bike to and from to play music with Snezana in our duo, The Adaptations.
The Washtenaw apartment represented many things to me. It was safe, warm in the winter and breezy with a roomful of windows open in the front and the back door open all night in the summer. It was a place where I knew that despite difficult neighbors like the 6’7” bouncer from The Green Mill clomping in at three in the morning more often than not, who looked at me like I was an alien when I asked if he’d try to be quieter, I was safe and sound in this household. There was a grace about the landlords downstairs that kept me there all those years.
As this virus ravages so many people in our world right now I wish I could rewind to 2014 and still be living in that place. I’d have more dinner parties and isolate less. I’d play more music with Snezana and other friends and now we’d have a solid band. Our first album would be called Greek Easter. I’d be closer with my landlords and spend more time sitting in the yard with them. I’d stop playing the Peter Pan story and running around so much, and I’d settle down with a nice man. Eleftheria would finally be able to give me the potted jasmine tree she’d be saving for years that was to be a gift at my wedding. Angelo would be all scrubbed up in a fine suit and have a dance with me, and we’d know that all is well.
Our neighborhood had many hidden gems such as HarvesTime Foods on Lawrence where you could find a variety of Greek and Bulgarian feta cheeses, an olive bar, Krinos brand taramosalata also known as Greek caviar, freshly baked bread, local coffee beans, a burgeoning produce department and long handled Turkish style coffee pots along with the finely ground Bosnian or Greek style coffees these pots are designed for. I learned from my good friend Snezana how to properly boil these coffees three times for a perfect cup. Snezana and other friends like Lyndee and Elle would come over to my huge flat and we’d cook up tunes on guitars and percussive instruments and sing our stories to each other.
My landlords had allowed me to pick out the paint color for the kitchen and I chose a vibrant lime green. A good friend Chef Courtney Contos whose father was the founder and proprietor of the famous Chez Paul—the restaurant where Ferris Bueller was given a proper suit coat on his day off—gave me a wooden potato and onion box that rested in the corner, and she also helped me outfit my kitchen with gourds of sea salt with little wooden spoons, Le Creuset and other posh supplies that I still use to this day, nearly 15 years later. I had countless happy moments in that kitchen with friends gathered around the table while I served charcuterie and we drank sparkling water, coffee and wine with the back door wide open to the porch and the sunset and the garden on endless summer days.
I only got in trouble with Angelo and Eleftheria one time, when a flippant friend spun a wooden top on the dining room floor well past eleven pm one Saturday night. I was horrified and told him to stop, but the irreverent soul that he was spun the top at least two more times, wood spinning furiously on wood. I heard about it from the landlords the very next day and apologized profusely, which they accepted. I wonder why they did not hear or maybe they just didn’t comment on the times I came home later and once even fell into the tub drunk after a long night at a neighbor’s house or perhaps DANK Haus or somewhere farther away like Cafe Mestizo in Pilsen where I’d bike to and from to play music with Snezana in our duo, The Adaptations.
The Washtenaw apartment represented many things to me. It was safe, warm in the winter and breezy with a roomful of windows open in the front and the back door open all night in the summer. It was a place where I knew that despite difficult neighbors like the 6’7” bouncer from The Green Mill clomping in at three in the morning more often than not, who looked at me like I was an alien when I asked if he’d try to be quieter, I was safe and sound in this household. There was a grace about the landlords downstairs that kept me there all those years.
As this virus ravages so many people in our world right now I wish I could rewind to 2014 and still be living in that place. I’d have more dinner parties and isolate less. I’d play more music with Snezana and other friends and now we’d have a solid band. Our first album would be called Greek Easter. I’d be closer with my landlords and spend more time sitting in the yard with them. I’d stop playing the Peter Pan story and running around so much, and I’d settle down with a nice man. Eleftheria would finally be able to give me the potted jasmine tree she’d be saving for years that was to be a gift at my wedding. Angelo would be all scrubbed up in a fine suit and have a dance with me, and we’d know that all is well.
