An Early June Evening in Chicago

As I walked to the car I left parked on a neighborhood street, it occurred to me that evenings like this are why people choose to live in this city. Warm, lush, the avenues humming with foot traffic and chatter from cafes and bistros while the side streets quietly light up  through living room windows. You pass strangers on the sidewalk on nights like this and can’t avoid smiling and nodding in recognition of the secret you’re both in on, that practically no place on earth has it as good as this. That it takes months of a winter Hellscape to get to this doesn’t matter now. It’s here.