Arriving in a new city is always a singular experience. It grants us the privilege of seeing what long-time residents have long stopped noticing. What for them has become ordinary—the faded graffiti on a wall, a sculpture hidden in a quiet park—emerges before our eyes as a revelation. These encounters, subtle yet striking, are part of that so-called cultural shock, but within their strangeness lies an undeniable beauty.
Last week, I chose to start a new routine: riding my bicycle along the Lakefront Trail. From my point of departure, the path extends some 23 miles. More than a line for runners, cyclists, and families, it is a cultural artery, alive with street musicians, community gatherings, sports tournaments, and even protests. A thread in constant motion, stitching the city to the water.
Along this route, I’ve discovered places that feel both thrilling and symbolic: the commemorative engraving of Monty and Rose and, most recently, the serene Buddha heads resting in Lincoln Park.
In Lincoln Park, the lake listens—not with sound, but with stillness. The stone faces gaze inward, half-buried in the earth, as if meditating on a question too fragile for words: What does peace look like when no one is watching?
This city, carved by movement and memory, seldom pauses. Yet here, among trees and wind, a quiet figure rises—half-submerged, half-awake. Ten Thousand Ripples is not merely public art. It is a gesture. A whisper. A reminder that resilience is not loud, and peace is never performative.
The Buddha head, emerging from the soil, does not clamor for attention. It invites us inward. It asks that we look beneath the surface—into the places we avoid, the wounds we bury, the truths we silence.
Every ripple begins with presence. Every presence becomes a wave. And sometimes, the most radical act is to be still.
For someone new to this city, these sculptures hold a different weight. They are not remnants of a familiar landscape but silent milestones of possibility—companions along the path of becoming part of a place not yet mine. They remind me that belonging is not a race, but a quiet apprenticeship. That to settle in is not to hurry toward acceptance, but to remain present in the unknown.
And perhaps that is where silence begins: in learning to root ourselves gently in unfamiliar soil, until peace, almost imperceptibly, takes shape.
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