Part of the reason my spouse and I chose to live in Edgewater is that the neighborhood truly is at the edge of the water. When Mayor Lightfoot closed the Chicago lakefront, we found a workaround. There’s a scrap of shore along Loyola University’s campus in nearby Rogers Park that remained open. We started walking it nearly every day as part of a sanity-saving three-mile loop.

This strip is not connected to the Lakefront Trail, nor does it have a beach. This isolation and lack of sandy temptations mean it’s much less of a draw than other stretches, so one can easily socially distance. Go on a day when it’s a little rainy or otherwise inclement and you can have the entire body of water to yourself.

The sight of Lake Michigan never gets old. The ever-changing waters are vast and eternal, reminding us that we humans are neither. Heraclitus said you can’t step into the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and not the same man. Now I know this can be said of a lake, too.