see as i saw

One year ago on this date, I walked away from predictable and comfortable for an unplanned period of time.  I've spent much of the past few weeks having those vivid reels of memory play through my mind.  Mostly I flash back to Costa Rica.  I relive scenery and conversations: glimpses of sunrise walks on the beach and rainforest canopies, soundbites of choppy Spanish conversation and Pacific waves.  It's an involuntary but unstoppable brain activity imbued with a sense of fondness and longing.

I've spent a lot of hours pondering 'happiness' - discussing, reading, thinking.  What I've come to conclude is that I can't think of happiness as an aggregate.  So what exactly does that mean?  There's no such thing as the perfect alignment of all circumstances and situations.  This isn't Pleasantville.  Life doesn't fit in a box.  If we expect to attain perfection across all of life's myriad segments (career, home, love, family, etc.) at once, then we've only set ourselves up for a fall.

Looking at it from another angle, we also can't expect to believe that a single decision we make right now will remain the unaltered solution in the long term.  By nature, our needs and ideals shift and change.  So you can't ask yourself, "What will make me happy forever?"  Odds are, there isn't an answer.  I'm no longer even willing to ask myself, "What will make me happy a year from now?".  Because, honestly, one year ago I wouldn't have had a clue about my life course in January 2013.  I actually didn't even want to have a clue.  And I'm remembering how that lack of pressure felt so freeing.

This doesn't mean I'm going to stop striving toward certain goals.  But much like my 2013 goal planning, allowing myself to shift focus if one goal feels out of sync, I want to keep my life decisions malleable.  I want happiness to mean that I'm content with what I'm doing in the present.  And if I'm not, that I'm exploring ways to redirect myself.  This could be as high level as a job or living situation, or as rudimentary as being bored on a Saturday afternoon.

One other thought, snagged from a blog that I follow, that keeps running through my head:

"I realised it was never about what I wanted to do, but about how I wanted to feel."

In the midst of a rain/snow, trekking down the sidewalk, head down, this texture caught my eye.  I got a few strange looks as I pulled out my phone and photographed the corner of a doorway multiple times.  Small price to pay for an "ooh!" moment in an otherwise cold and dreary atmosphere.

In an ideal world, I would have a much more interesting photo for today.  I had grand expectations of stopping over at Northwestern's campus as I passed through Evanston.  In reality, there was no time or energy for such endeavors; so you get a snapshot taken from my driver's seat at a red light.  It is in Evanston though.

I was on the road by 7:00am (it then took only an hour to go twenty miles - insert sarcasm font), then I spent nine hours unpacking a home for a family of five, followed by another hour-long commute.  I decided to skip the highway route on the journey home for two reasons: 1) an accident on the Eden would have made my commute time indefinite and 2) the thought of zig zagging around back roads for the scenic route sounded appealing.

Today's deep thoughts on life were more like reaffirmations...and not that deep.  First, I don't think I could make it living in the city and working in the burbs.  That whole notion of an easier reverse commute is a myth (as opposed to suburbs to city).  My speedometer rarely topped 20 mph this morning.  And second, people just flat out own way more belongings than they could possibly need.  Clearly I am not exempt, although 550 square feet of living space helps stifle the urge to invest in material goods.  Every time I do an unpack or organizing job, I want to come home and purge "stuff".  At least I have a small head start on the game with my nearly obsessive need to organize and contain; that makes accumulation less likely.  It's also helpful that I have long since renounced willingness to partake in ownership of knick knacks and tchotchkes.

It's funny how sometimes the things that I was so emphatically disdainful of as a child become the ones that I wax nostalgic about as an adult.  My parents bought their first house when I was four years old.  From day one they took a great measure of pride, and joy, in maintaining their investment - inside and out.  In late spring, it went without saying that my family became a makeshift landscape crew.  Mission: Curb Appeal.

Weeds were plucked, perennial shrubs were trimmed, annuals were planted, trailer upon trailer full of mulch was shoveled and spread.  Landscaping was no small thing at our house, where my parents edged out at least four major flower beds each year.  I loathed this particular weekend.  And it wasn't only for those couple days of manual labor.  An unwanted expectation existed whereby my summer vacation consisted of watering, trimming and plucking to care for those plants.  (The length of a daily chore lists was no joke in my family.)

Although I wouldn't have admitted it then, there were two parts of landscape duty that secretly thrilled me.  Without fail, I joined the nursery trip each year.  I relished the hour spent perusing all of the plant and flower varieties, mentally earmarking my favorites.  My mom had her standbys: pansies, begonias, phlox, daylilies.  But I also knew that she would let me have a say in the matter.  Most times I was allowed to pick a plant of my choice, other times I weighed in on the variety or color of something she already chosen.

Part two of my secret satisfaction came in laying out the landscape design.  My left brain was attracted to exacting the spacing between plants and creating an even diffusion.  My right brain fussed with color combinations, shapes and curves in the planting space, and essentially creating floral artwork.  After all of the dreamy planning work was completed, I would have gladly let everyone else crouch down and do the planting.  Instead I sucked it up (with only minor complaining, I'm sure) and worked at a rate of about 30% productivity.

All of this came back to me today when I caught a glimpse of the landscape crew at the park next to the zoo.  Even when it's overrun by sugar-high, post-zoo kids, the benches in that garden are one of my favorite places to relax in the summer.  It's mainly due to the extraordinary landscaping.  I had half a notion to sit in the park and watch them plant flowers this morning.  Instead, I decided to stop myself after a couple casual photos of their flower flats.

In my head, I know that ebooks and shopping for standard bound books online are efficient and convenient.  In my heart, I tend to have a difficult time letting go of the bricks and mortar bookstore.  When I know exactly which title I'm trying to buy, Amazon.com is my friend.  When I'm sitting on a CTA bus in traffic, I love that there's a book sitting on my phone's memory card.  But when I want to lose myself in that far-reaching and multi-faceted world of literature, I want to be surrounded by shelves and stacks.

There's no doubt that I judge a book by its cover, as well as it's title and thickness.  After all, there has to be some sort of heuristic employed to keep me from picking every book off the shelf one at a time.  Side note: that doesn't sound like a bad way to spend a day.  For me, the bookstore isn't just a purchasing domain, it's an experience.  The smell of the printed word.  Getting lost in my own world as I peruse a few pages; sometimes that has a tendency to lead to a few chapters.  Hearing the hushed tones of other book mongers around me.

My family used to drive a half hour to the nearest Borders store (may it rest in peace) when I was a kid.  We would all walk in and out of the front door together, but that was the only interaction I would have with them for hours.  There was no sense of urgency in these trips.  We left when the last person was ready to make a purchasing decision.  Until then, you contented yourself with your surroundings.  Clearly that was not an issue for me.  I've had my nose stuck in books for my entire life, and until the past couple of years they weren't digital.  So, yes, I have bookstore nostalgia.  And you'll never find me giving up on stocking my bookshelves.

I've been photo op stalking this birdhouse for a couple of weeks now.  Something about it caught my attention as I made my way home from a grocery run one day.  Or maybe it was just that the weather became warm enough for me to pull my nose out of the collar of my coat and look up.  No matter how often I walked by it (pretty much daily), the timing just didn't seem right yet.  I pondered the angle and the lighting, thinking I needed to catch the 1:00pm sunlight.  Today, I accidentally found out that I wanted the 9:30am sun.  And without knowing it, I was waiting on the emergence of the blazing scarlet background provided by the Japanese maple.

I love all of the textural contrasts - the black gloss, the rough brick, soft foliage, angular roof lines, the split of azure sky down the center of the frame.  My efforts were worth it; I got what I wanted.  If birds invested in real estate, my exterior photo would totally sell this house. :)

Or lazy.  Or Lincoln Park Zoo.  That's where I took this photo, and my level of motivation, while I waited for a bus.  It was another busy day of real, money-earning tasks.  Guess what?  I have yet another one tomorrow.  AND I confirmed another gig, doing some copyediting, that will claim my Monday.  I'm calling Sunday a free day though; I wouldn't want to work too hard (insert dry, slightly sarcastic tone).

There are times where taking photos appears completely natural and other times when you can make yourself feel extremely self-conscious.  On the beaches of Costa Rica, there were dozens of people wandering around with cameras in hand.  Taking an afternoon stroll alone through the residential streets of Chicago, you tend to get scrutinized more often.  I have definitely walked past something that piqued my curiosity more than once, because someone was walking near me.  In my head, I'm telling myself that if I stop and take a picture of the flower by that front stoop...the person behind me is going to think I'm some kind of criminal or creeper.

In reality, nine out of ten people are probably just as curious as me.  They want to know what I see that's so interesting.  Last week I stopped, squatted, and contorted myself to get an angle I liked on an expanse of white tulips in front of a row house.  There was a woman walking toward me, but I decided to disregard her.  As she walked by, she simply said, "They certainly are beautiful, aren't they."  She could not have cared less.  Maybe she would've even liked a copy of the photo that I took.

This is a psychological war I've always fought, not just in photographing the streets of Chicago.  I tend to be a play by the rules kind of girl.  Beyond that, I don't like to call attention to myself.  In doing so, I often miss out on opportunity.  So, in a roundabout way, this blog is helping me realize how illogical of a wall I've constructed.  Hopefully, I continue to make progress in knocking it down.  Although, I don't think I'll be able to stop myself from analyzing whether it looks like a I'm casing someone's home before I take a photo.