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Kickball with Raury in Chicago

it’s going down in like 2 hours ya’ll, hope I get to see some of you there. ^__^

#chicago #kickball #raury #raurtrip #holstein park #4pm

Holstein Park

While only occupying three acres of land, Holstein Park--located along the border of the Logan Square and Bucktown neighborhoods--has been a major personal contention when it comes to swimming in the city. Turn it back to 2008--for a brief period of my life, I lived in Logan Square- 2005-2009. I had a single bedroom apartment that was big enough for the records, and with heat included and a month to month lease, I was spending six hundred dollars a month. My next door neighbor was this awesome woman--actually, before that...hoye, okay so I had this really sweet and endearing neighbor that lived above me. I wish I could remember her name (I’m awful with names) but she was soft and gentle and had a great smile. Then, her mom got sick and she had move back west to tend to her. Then, the neighbors next door got loud--a couple, they would only fight when drunk and that was frequent; upstairs neighbors replacements were punishing too. Bike dicks. Never said ‘hello.’ I tried to introduce myself--a right neighborly thing to do, something the previous tenant would have done--to one of them and was met with a stone face. Occasionally I’d hear what sounded like someone’s entire body falling to the floor above me.

This was while I was still working out the three year long process of my mothers very sudden death, the dissolution of a deep relationship, and (of some significance) a return to Saturn. Most of my days were spent working and then coming home and drinking, being afraid of commitment, thinking with parts other than my brain or heart, and hiding out in home with Netflix and The Best Show On WFMU. One day, the noise next door subsided. I saw one of my next door neighbors quietly walking out with a box “Hey” they sniffed. “Hey.” I never said more than three words to them before that, “Are you okay?” one night when I heard them crying and pounding the door, I didn’t know where to go with “hey.” I just let it go. I hope they’re okay. I hope the bike dicks are okay. I hope the nice neighbor from jump is living her life well. One day, the new next-door neighbor arrived. Her name was Kelli; she had short brown hair, the most coy smile (Such full cheeks!) big bright eyes, and could easily take anyone down with two moves. She was the business! We’d chat in the hallway every now and then. One day, she said “we should ride our bikes to the pool! Let’s go to Holstein.” The first time we went to Holstein, lightning intervened and we were sent packing after 10 minutes. We went to New Wave to eat lunch. While eating lunch, two friends walked through the cafe and said “Hi.” Kelli, very quietly, took two bites and scanned the room “Are you famous?” “No, no I’m not famous.” Months later, I was hanging out at home, and received a text from Kelli. Turns out her date for a bike prom was drunk and he was too big for her to carry, so I walked down the street from our apartment complex and helped her carry this guy into her place. At some point he came too and saw me carrying him. “h--h--Who are you?” “Hi I’m St--” “That’s my neighbor Stephen. HE’S FAMOUS!!” “I’m not very famous.”

My last encounter with Holstein was in 2009 with my friend Claire. Claire was--for a long time--the only person I‘d go to the pool with as she had a schedule as flexible as mine. The proximity of Holstein to my job was convenient enough for me to take my lunch breaks at the pool. One hot July day, I showed up (Claire was already there) and saw nothing but chaos. With it’s location between Logan and Bucktown, the pool was a hotbed for young adults and working class families. A hot day can attract everyone to the pool, so upon my arrival, the space to lay out your towel and prep for a dip was over saturated. Then came the cannonballs. Helping Claire get into the pool (occasionally she needs an extra arm to get into the pool) we were checked, and rushed by kids eager to cannonball and dive into the deep end. “You think they all took the the deep end test?” I asked. “I doubt it.” Claire replied. Honestly it felt like everything was beyond the lifeguards control. Five minutes later, we’re in the pool still getting bombed by our young lil revolutionaries and their cannonballs. I swim over against the wall to get a moment to breathe, and realize I’m posted up next to a woman who is verbally abusing her child for too many cannonballs. “Dude, this is just all bad vibes.” Almost on cue, three whistles go off. “OUT! OUT! OUT! EVERYONE EVACUATE THE POOL RIGHT NOW.” A few minutes later, we find out that the pool was evacuated because someone vomited in the shallow end. This all happened within 15 minutes of hitting the deck. “Claire, why do we come here?” “Eh, this isn’t so bad...they had to shut the whole place down last week after a kid took a shit in the pool.” Never again. From that point on, I vowed to never go to that pool.

I met my friend Katie at a wedding last year; she was standing in the wedding of two wonderful people. She’s very funny...she’s easily one of the funniest people I know. She has an outstanding blog that I highly recommend y’all checking out. One of our mutual friends, after Katie showed them our text exchanges commented, “You two have a very contentious relationship.” I don’t entirely disagree; I love her brain, I love that we’re able to have a friendship that’s very safe and comforting, she’s very sharp, very stylish, but she is very much the Charles Grodin to my David Letterman. It might be my fault, I might be jealous of her life; not only does she seem to have a much better grasp on her life and her feelings than I did at her age, but she lives between a pool and Red Hot Ranch--easily the best Hot Dog joint in Chicago (YES I SAID IT.) As summer turned around, Katie asked if I would go to Holstein. “Never, and no amount of babe-age would get me back there.” (This was met with “what a fucker” by our mutual friend Kate Young.) But as I started working on this blog I figured “Okay I will prove that this pool sucks with it’s biggest proponent in tow.”

I think what I like least about this pool, is the lack of layout on the deck. One side has massive side for you to lay out on, but that is where the entrance to the pool is from the lockers, so you create traffic, or your vibe will get tangled up with the legs and feet of the other ham n eggers that frequent this pool. On the other side is deck seven feet in width. Not much space, so you’re pretty much reserved with laying towels out single file. Wiggle room is essential when trying to find your ultimate swim chill. We showed up with about an hour of open swim time left; It was a muggy day, but surprisingly not busy, so we managed to find some space to lay out. “Okay, so far so good.” I decided to ease my body in, to honor the social contract of not providing splash back to the those drying out. Easing my body into the water of Holstein, all my negativity subsided. The water was so warm and welcoming, the chlorine level was just right, and everyone was just pleasant to be around in terms of sharing space within the pool. At fifty yards in length, with a bather capacity of 300, this is a massive pool (six lanes for those that like to do lap swim) but what I forgot about was it’s relationship with trees. You take a park like California, and the trees are surrounding the entire pool, but with Holstein, the trees are just far enough that the pool fully absorbs all the sun that is presented to it. This creates an incredibly warm, womblike pool. Those looking for the coldest water to dip in, may want to go somewhere else and leave this space for those looking for a different kind of chill.

I hate being wrong...and in that moment, after being challenged by Katie to swim to the bottom (Nine feet and change) and bobbing up and down in the warmth and the sun, I said “my god this is so right on time.” Katie, calmly looked back at me mid stroke and said “do you realize that I’m always right?”