Thar She Blows

The days move like a train, faster than you can count its load.

Almost every day, I get lost on my way to work. I finally had my routine down from the northern suburb where I first moved, and then I went ahead and moved again. Now I have to learn a new route, from a new part of the city. New towns have become the old Dodge.

My friend Rachel says that this is how most people spend winters in Chicago: In a daze, teetering between slightly and overwhelmingly depressed. I don’t doubt this. It’s hard to get out from under my electric blanket in the morning. I struggle to go to the store, to walk to the train, to walk the short block from the bus stop to my schools. I’m kind of eh.

It’s not just the snow. A Returned Peace Corps Volunteer/math teacher at one of the schools where I volunteer says this is her forth year back and she finally feels on track. “It took a year to calm down, the following year I understood more, the next year I went back to school, and know it feels like I know what I’m doing again.”

Four years is a long time. I’ll be 29 then. Hopefully by then I will have at least figured out what which direction to go. Eh.

Forecast for night of January 6, 2010:

Snow. Snow accumulation of 4 to 6 inches. Highs in the mid 20s. Light and variable winds in the morning becoming north 10 to 15 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation 100 percent.