The morning was chillier than I thought it would be. “The weather is extreme, so bring a jacket” they had advised me. Sure. You want cold? Chicago is cold. We had had the coldest temperatures since about a decade during the past few weeks before my trip to the Saharan desert. I had left the house with a jean jacket on, plus an inadequate winter coat on top of that at my mother’s insistence. Upon arriving at O’Hare airport, I hastily took the coat off and threw it on the passenger side of my brother’s car. “Tell mom not to worry - I won’t need that.”
Silvia Torres Zamora