Hello. I am full of this. That is all.

Outside tonight the snow whips about and the people walking down the street clutch their coats to their chests with one hand, like surgeons about to sew shut open wounds.

Ross and I decided to spend the afternoon in Lincoln Park today; we’ve been wanting to go to the Bourgeois Pig for a while now. I persuaded him to come with me to the Lincoln Park Zoo while we were at it, because it’s free, and I thought it would be odd and interesting to see a zoo in the dead of winter. I also, truth be told, wondered if it would offer any photo opportunities — I had a vague feeling that it might be a little desolate perhaps, a little dark.

It was.

I’m sure the good people who work there do excellent work, I’m sure the zoo saves a lot of lives, and I’m sure it inspires a fair number of Chicago-area children and adults to devote more of their time/money/mental space towards the cause of conservation. It’s also, at least in the January cold and snow, unutterably sad. I’m incredibly ambivalent towards even the best of zoos; this wasn’t one of them. I have more to say on this subject, but I’m having such a lovely evening* otherwise that I think I’ll save it for another day. Also, note that we only spent half an hour or so in the Lincoln Park Zoo, mostly because we were feeling too unsettled by the sight of the flamingos in the snow and the leopard pacing behind bars to go much further; it’s entirely possible that other parts of it were more heartening. We visited the Garfield Park Conservatory immediately afterwards and it was lovely to walk amongst ferns and cycads and palms and epiphytes and see tropical fruit hanging in the steamy air; of course, I couldn’t help musing a little about how much energy it must take to warm the place in winter. I can be such a wet blanket. :-)

*Yesterday we bought an All-Clad stainless steel skillet to replace our Calphalon nonstick pan (whose nonstickiness was starting to crumble after less than three years—shame on you, Calphalon!), and we have since caramelized onions, fried eggs, and, tonight, made chicken biryani in it while Billie Holiday played in the background. It is wonderful. Also, as I mentioned up there, there is the ice-cream waiting, and a glass of pinot grigio, and so the evening goes.

From: esclavo_a_sus_pies
Subject: At your feet

Slave Alex

Given that this () is the only picture of my feet I have ever posted on Flickr, I have to conclude that Slave Alex is casting a rather wide net for his Princess. Nevertheless, it’s a difficult offer to refuse!

I’ll talk to you later, when my brain unfreezes.

We at least looked special at Ethan and Cori’s wedding. And we both had a great time. Congratulations, you two!

In other news, Avi and I are meeting in Barcelona instead of Dublin, but it’s for sure and certain at last (one of us has her ticket. Ahem). In other-other news, succulent #1 has decided to recover and put out tiny new leaves all over its brown stems. Good for you, plant.

Until a few years ago, I didn’t worry much about whether I could accomplish what I wanted. I felt smart, capable, and special, as most people do who have been raised by loving parents and who have always found sympathetic teachers to convince them that their futures will have the trajectory of a rocket ship. The question I was always trying to answer was what I wanted to do, not if I could do it. I wouldn’t have said it to you exactly this way then, but I thought that knowing what I wanted was the hardest part, and that the path from then on out would be dreamily simple. I’d pick a career, be wildly successful, and die happy with my dog at my side.

After I quit my teaching job, it took a lot to recover from the guilt and sense of failure I felt. It was as if the house I’d been living in all my life had fallen down about my ears. Nothing seemed certain anymore, least of all my own abilities. I did recover, though. I worked hard to learn from the mistakes I’d made, and after a while I even stopped punishing myself for how those mistakes had hurt others. One thing I didn’t envision was that part of what becoming whole again required was relinquishing the sense of ambition I’d possessed, unnoticed and unexamined, for all of my twenty-five years.

I think I stopped believing at some point in 2005 that I would ever do anything truly important with my life. Indeed, I started believing—though again I wouldn’t have said it to you exactly this way then—that giving up the hope of being special was the best way to protect myself. I focused on small happinesses. I drew a line in the sand between me and my friends, who were busy becoming doctors and lawyers, politicians and filmmakers, scientists and storytellers. I rebuilt a little habitat out of the everyday, and I resolved to be satisfied with what I had. Once I sat down with the notion that I was not, in fact, special, it wasn’t hard to decide that being ordinary was just fine with me, because wanting to be anything more was not only prideful but also hurt like the dickens.

I don’t think this process was bad for me, necessarily, but I do think that it might be time to begin again. This new house I’m living in has strong walls, and safe ones, but I’m getting tired of how small it is. I’m weary of feeling my heart constrict whenever people ask me what I do. I’m coming close to being willing to allow myself a little room to want. And what I want is not going to come without risk, determination, and at least a drop—but perhaps, after all, just a drop— of ambition, pride, and something special.