Something of a memory and a diary entry at the top of spring, looking back at those who survived the long cold winter on the lake, and those who didn’t. One of the great neighborhood flâneurs, Jeff P., died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage this week, and he was such a great lover of the big lake—it’s where I always ran into him when we’d both be walking dogs. He called the shore of Lake Michigan, in winter, “the east wall of Rogers Park”, and one freezing day in 2015, he decided to put on his dry suit, pull out his summer paddle board,and explore the outside view of the huge berms of snow and ice and lake water thrown up and built up over months. It was probably risky to go out there alone, but risk, I have meditated upon it enough to know that anything can be risky, if you do it right.
What he found, and essentially had all to himself were marvelous spendthrift cathedrals, and he managed to take these photos, which I have swiped from him. So long, Jeff—all of the times we’d harmonize til dawn. I never laughed so long, so long.
My condolences, these are lovely
RIP, Jeff