Summer Remission

I sit drinking my club soda and lemon, with my legs crossed as I sit on a barstool across from my friend. The bar is dark with cherry-wood high top pub tables. A green pool table with a red awning just within my sight line. I stop and look down. I’m sitting on a stool, wearing flip-flops. In retrospect, I imagine it’s what hiking in high heels must feel like. I smile. 

This. This simple act of freedom rushes out in an exhale of awe.

The bleeding from my dental surgery has stopped. I’ve had an eye surgery in the meantime to complete the reconstruction phase of Thyroid Eye Disease, but tonight, I feel ready to step out of the house and into an Uber, my chariot, to the city I love. Chicago. I’ve made a new friend since we last talked, my reader friends. Sometimes you swipe right on a dating app and end up finding a buddy to just hang with. Someone else with a heart full of wanderlust to safely walk a tightrope with.

I spent years in physical therapy, setting goals, learning how to adapt, and praying for remission. Would I go see a Broadway show? Would I take up hiking? Would I find the stamina to teach once more if I was granted remission? Or would I find something simpler–the ability to leave my apartment and not worry about the logistics of which wheelchair to use, walker, cane, or could I do so at all? Being ill comes with a dollar amount that lies just beneath the physical price. Would the dizziness set in and leave me dazed in the city? 

Not tonight. I grabbed my wallet, chapstick, keys, phone, pain gummy and Fixodent (like you do) for physiological needs, and ordered an Uber. 

At 8 pm, I find myself walking with Steve to a bar in Andersonville, sparkling water in hand with a breeze that I only hope you have a chance to feel when you read this, wherever you are. The kind of breeze that doesn’t assault you, but buoys you. A cheerleader, invisible beneath the crescent moon. I have driven these streets many times as a student at Loyola back when I was a student in 2003. I know the names of the streets and sights of the Sheridan Road high rises, but I never walked this path. I never looked to the West side of the street; always looking East at the towering buildings. I always said: tomorrow. I’ll try this place tomorrow.

Then, life happened. I never felt comfortable about trying out a new place without a wingman in tow to talk to in case I fell off my emotionally teetering barstool now that I’m too sober to balance conversation and charm with new people. Tonight, I walk on the West side of the street; the breeze gently circling; hugging me as I bring the water to my mouth and tip my head to the darkening sky.

And I trip.

You know the trip where you do the little run after you gain your footing and call out: “Shit, I almost fell there.” The seltzer just misses the guy in front of me. Perhaps vodka wouldn’t be so bad…

But the water doesn’t hit him, I don’t fall, and I keep on walking for three blocks. I open the door and approach the bartender. “May I have a club soda with lemon?” The music that would normally cause me to go off kilter only prompts me to open my Shazam app and add the song to my summer playlist. Something I can hang onto should the season change unexpectedly.

These are the ordinary things. These are ordinary streets. These are extraordinary moments not caught on camera. They are sensory experiences that bring the audible exhale of grief and love.

A season of illness is quieting for a summer remission. These are good moments.

My new friend tells me about a movie he just saw, and I nod, trying to follow the plot as I see people once again. I don’t look ill, nor do I feel ill this evening. These are not ordinary moments for me. I see framed artwork and paintings I have only seen as memories still to be experienced etched on my mind. Abstracts of children nursing, a modern take on the Virgin Mary. A ghostly white candle flickers, holy, beside me on the table. 

Originally published in Nowisms on Medium under the title: Hold Onto Your Seltzer, ‘Cause Here I Come Stumbling Down the Street! Editor-in-Chief, Jenny Lane

The entrance to “Big Chicks” in Andersonville. The first stop in a night of walking, snacking, and club soda drinking. A breezy, summer evening in July.