Harrison Haiku

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I apparently cannot get enough of the South Loop. You see, unlike many students who attend Columbia College, I am a resident of Chicago, who, more unusually, went to Jones College Prep High School between 2002-2006, a "magnet" high school located only steps away from Columbia College's campus.

I always found myself riding to Harrison to get to Jones at the butt crack of dawn and I remember how the gym-less Jones traveled their students from Harrison to North/Clybourn on the Red Line for our Homecoming Pep Rally every year. The memories, oh they are so bittersweet.

However, one memory that will be eternally ingrained in my thoughts is the previous state of the Harrison Red Line: filthy, smelly and infested with homeless crack addicts and a seemingly pregnant and frazzled woman (not in the right state of mind) who would ask me for change as I got off the train for school. She eventually had her baby, I suppose, or maybe she found another stop to lurk at. Around the time she left, I had graduated and was well on my way to Columbia College.

Around this time, there was change and growth in my life and in my surroundings. I was a fresh-faced college student, excited about his degree and his chance at independence. I found myself using the "entrance" and "exit" of the Harrison Red Line all the time and believe my words, it has changed dramatically.

In January 2008, the spark that lit this dreary eL stop came to life in the form of Haiku poems written by Jones College Prep and Columbia College students. One haiku stood out in particular:

Because of one
Missing sock, I had to
Change my outfit.

This simple observation about socks revealed the neighborhood that awaited above the underground: a place where students, young professionals and fashionistas thrived. With such close proximity to downtown, it was the "hip" place to be, as students from the dorm clutter the streets of the South Loop like flies on honey, aimlessly buzzing around in search of fun, temptation and everyday struggles. It was a place to be seen and heard (judging from popular spots like Reggie's Music Joint and Grant Park during Lollapalooza, as well as that Taste of Chicago down the street).

Fourteen months later, the same poems litter the bright platform that once used to be called "dreary" and "dangerous" by many of my fellow peers. Now, it is more culturally significant in the fact that the letters presented in the poems have started to fade, especially in the middle of the platform. Like Jones and Columbia, I have found that the middle is better the beginning, but always a struggle when you look at the finish line. Currently, I'm in the middle of college and I'm burnt out and almost faded in a way, like the letters itself. It happened to me during my Junior Year of high school too, as magnet schools like Jones clamored to be the best school in the city.

Even during my classes, I found the middle of the semester to be the most difficult part. Teachers hate their students and their lackadasical and unmotivated attitude, and students are simply tired of their teachers belaboring them to death. It's a common cycle that always happens in small, intimate classroom settings.

However, at the end of that platform stands a degree: a symbol of hope and prosperity. A light at the end of the tunnel, where life begins and dreamy endings are chased. Much more than the haiku itself, the Harrison stop now has a Polk stop, a brand-new stop for a much more accessible future. At Columbia College, we are challenged to create change and become successful. Change itself invokes growth and if a simple stop can renovate itself, we can do so ourselves in our everyday lives, even if the journey gets gritty along the way.