83. The Blogger Who Doesn't Blog

It's remarkable, when I think about it, how much of life is not optional. My conception of the good life still consists mainly of a leisurely writing career and exorbitant amounts of free time. A well-structured life is, for me, a fairly slow-paced one. Long, early mornings of writing, afternoons catching up on correspondence and wandering through museums, cooking and eating in the evening, and reading may way into sleep. All at my own pace, never under threat of any kind.

But that's not the way this life works. There are always things that must be done, things that ought to be done, and things that would be nice to do. Until now I have imagined that I would someday collapse these lists into one list of Good Things that I would always and happily do. As it is, my Must Be Done list comes first, my Ought To Be Done list is almost untouched, and my Would Be Nice To Do list is collecting dust on a shelf in the corner of my mind.

Case in point, last fall I bought a membership to the Art Institute of Chicago. I thought that having made a financial investment would motivate me to spend time in a place that, for my creative health, I ought to have been spending time. Last week I got a form in the mail to renew my membership. Nearly a year has passed and I have not been back since I joined 10 months ago. So much for that.

I'm not sure, but I suspect things might be very different if I aspired to be only an academic, or only a writer, or only a teacher. I imagine that being any variety of things requires a fair bit of one's time. While I'm increasingly committed to the laundry list of lives I've decided to live in my short time here, I'm not yet ready to accept that they'll be powered by coffee and quick naps, instead of daydreams and Impressionist paintings. Perhaps I'll be someone who spends her lunch breaks wandering the halls of the Art Institute of Chicago.