Mathew: Hey hey ladies. So, looks like Abby is storming the road in California. Eating a salad.

Amanda: I’ve got crackers and an avocado.

Abby: I love that for you. Hi gorgeous. Miss you.

Amanda: Really would’ve been better in person.

Abby: Way better.

Amanda: It’s been Hell Week.

Mathew: We’ll strike that from the record.

Amanda: No, leave it in. Let it all hang out.

Mathew: Abby, honestly you killed it during Chicago Art Expo. The fair were great, but what Gertie was doing around it was everything. The dinners, the conversations, the weird overlaps of artists and collectors and random people who just wanted to be there.

Amanda: Good.

Mathew: You made me such a Chicago believer.

Abby: Which is great. That’s the idea. When you go to art stuff everybody’s from all over.

Mathew: I wanted to go backwards a little because returning to Chicago for you felt really deliberate. Was there a moment where something clicked?

Abby: Incredibly deliberate. I think when I was in LA I realized I was repping Chicago and the Midwest so hard in every conversation I was having. And I was constantly meeting people who had left Chicago too. And eventually I was like, what’s the deal? Why am I talking about this place constantly if I don’t even live there? Then COVID happened and I got super depressed. Like first time in my life. Anxiety too. And I think before that I had always been able to kind of outrun things physically. If I got stir crazy I’d go somewhere else, have another meeting, another dinner, another trip.

Amanda: Whew. That resonates.

Abby: Literally though. I felt like I was spinning my wheels but not actually getting anywhere. The problem was I didn’t even know where “there” was. Physically, emotionally, professionally. I just knew I cared enough about Chicago to push through for it.

Mathew: I think a lot of us who moved away and came back have that thing where we spent years defending the Midwest to people on the coasts.

Amanda: Totally.

Mathew: Like Minnesota people in LA finding each other and becoming weird fangirls about this place.

Amanda: The boomerang effect is real. My partner was the hype man for Minnesota and suddenly we were back here too. I never expected that. But it felt right. I loved LA for a long time. I loved how huge it was. I used Jonathan Gold’s restaurant book as my guide for like a year. But eventually it became so goddamn big that I started asking: how do you actually change anything? How do you actually make impact? And then moving back here felt like—wait, things can happen here. Things work.

Mathew: I thought people maybe assumed I’d fallen from grace moving back.

Amanda: No. We wanted to create something. That’s different.

Mathew: Did coming back change your purpose?

Abby: I think it gave language to what I already felt. My purpose has always been connecting and being a bridge. I've always loved connecting dots. People who have and people who don't. People who seem opposite but aren't. How can people move together instead of separately?

Mathew: What do people still get wrong about Chicago?

(pause)

Abby: Honestly? I don't care anymore.

(everyone laughs)

Abby: I've sailed past that. We’re in the work now. Build your shit where you are. I stopped caring what people thought I should do. I stopped asking that question.

Amanda: Honestly, not giving a fuck matters. Confidence matters.

Mathew: Is community building basically project management?

Abby: No, though it’s more generous than that. You're building pathways. That's civic work. Those relationships matter.

Amanda: Also...I have to admit this. It took me four trips to Chicago before I understood Chicago.

Mathew: Really?

Amanda: Really. Being hosted is essential. I didn't know where I was. Somebody has to show you how to enter a new place.

Abby: That's exactly it. People can't locate themselves in the city easily. I kept hearing that over and over.

(long pause)

Abby: Wait. I just passed a mama goat and a baby goat.

Mathew: We lost Abby to the pasture.

Abby: No no, I'm back. Honestly though, what Chicago gives me is time. I feel like I finally have time to process things here. I can spend three days in New York, come back, think about it, write about it and make it multiply instead of just going to the next meeting.

Amanda: That’s part of our bond honestly. We’re doers. If something doesn’t exist we create it. Or we just start doing it and people come along later.

Mathew: There’s also this thing where people who left and came back seem to bring something back with them. Like there’s a slight friction between people who stayed and people who left and returned with perspective.

Abby: Totally. Chicago can have this very “for us by us” energy. Which is beautiful sometimes. But it also has to be paired with openness and curiosity and global thinking. I had the luxury of leaving for twelve years and living in New York and LA and Istanbul and Jordan and all these places. I brought perspective back with me. But it also made me secure in knowing this is where I wanted to be.

Mathew: So, I got ask...being at the Gertie party at The Wieners Circle while the staff were screaming profanities at us and I kept thinking: What is up with this city and hot dogs? It’s obviously not just about the hot dog.

Abby: Excuse me. Chicago and the hot dog are synonymous.

Amanda: Chicago doesn’t get to own that?

Abby: Chicago doesn’t own the hot dog. But we are the hot dog for the country. And I’m happy for everyone else. Quote me on that too.

Mathew: Amanda, the Walker almost exists on international territory sometimes. How do you think about balancing global dialogue with local grounding?

Amanda: The Walker historically has always operated globally. But my work is really about grounding. It’s about asking how we build relationships in communities here first and then export outward from there. I remember when I first got here being very clear that I was not interested in apologizing for living in “flyover country.” That’s not the framework I’m operating from. I came here deliberately.

Mathew: That’s the thing. People think when you’re building culture you’re sitting around some table strategically engineering everything.

Abby: Which honestly I thought too when I moved back. I literally tried to do that. I started this thing called The Cabinet that was supposed to gather all these people together from different sectors and figure things out. But then I went through another really dark period mentally and realized I couldn’t do everything. I couldn’t be everything to everyone. I had to focus on what actually mattered and stop asking what everybody else thought I should do.

Mathew: Honestly though, one thing I notice with all of us now is there’s more space here. Less constant motion.

Amanda: Family being an actual value changed things for me too. I remember realizing I could leave work at five and just go home. I was like, this is possible?

Abby: Chicago gives me time. I can spend three days in New York, come back, sit with it, write about it, think about it, make it multiply instead of just going immediately to the next thing.

Amanda: We just want ideas and people and places to come together.

Mathew: Maybe that’s enough. Not proving a place is relavant or not. It's just building like it already is.