Some quick sketches of Chicago on the plane home. These are not the highlights of Chicago, not the usual photos one sees in tourist brochures. They’re the invasive mussel shells I saw while thinking of the future of the place where my granddaughter lives. They’re a small steeple in a wooded street not far from hot urban streets with noisy elevated trains and no shade. They‘re memories of a weekend with people I love in a wonderful city.

A journal page features watercolor paintings of zebra mussel shells and a church with handwritten notes describing a visit to Montrose Beach and the Church of the Valley in Chicago on October 11, 2026.