The Chandler

The Chandler Hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. In the same year, I worked along side my father running phone wire through this same building as it was being completely redone as low income apartments. I remember it was cold that winter and there was no heat in the building yet, so my hind end froze each day until I purchased some long underwear which didn't help very much.

It was right after working on this project that I flew to the state of Illinois to take a job working with people who were Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Today, the building is getting some repairs and I looked up to see that it has grown some ferns and moss on it's ledges. How interesting they are way up there! On one hand, they're delightful and on the other, I suppose, they're damaging. Life is like that, isn't it. It's full of things that, on the one hand are beautiful and intriguing, and on the other hand cause damage if we let them stick around too long.

I was thinking about how we are perpetually trying to finish things. In everything we do, we are looking for completion. Seldom do we really stop to think about the continuum we are living, and the fact that everything we do (even the things that we think of as finished) connects with the things we have done and the things we are going to do. All of them combined make up the one life we will live. When we step out of this world, we should leave behind a bunch of unfinished business because we were still moving forward on lots of things in life when we conclude. We should leave trails of where we've been and where we were going. Mysteries and clues that will inspire the next generation to dream and wonder.