Summer Snow

As I sipped a glass of wine, my apartment already dark, I thought about the remaining work that I had to do to finish off my day. I looked out my window at nothing in particular, my eyes finally finding refuse on my patio furniture outside. Captivated by cerebral endeavors, I was pulled back to the moment by a sensation. I felt it first on the tip of my nose before it washed over my face, and caressed the tips of my ears as it left me. It was a breeze, maybe warm, making its way through my kitchen. I walked against the breeze to the origin, my patio door. I slid the door open in an act of unconscious acquiescence to the powers that be, the wind taking me with it as I did. As I looked down on my patio below, I felt, remembered, and lived all the experiences that happened in that space. 

Summer nights in the city were erratic and romantic. Unlike living in the country, rooted in predictability and status quo, a night in the city was wild, unpredictable, ruthless. The highs and lows weren’t nearly as subtle and much less impactful than in the small town from which I came from. I chuckled as I looked down on my furniture below, remembering all that had occurred. The mundane here would be legendary there. 

In the end, it’s always the possibility that gives each city summer night the appeal. It was the rebellion of the corporate routine and the throwing of your tie to the corner of the room if only for a few days. It was freedom. It was life. That slice of life could be found anywhere in the city, namely and most demonstratively, the local hole in the wall bar.  To be more specific,  the local tavern next to the deep dish pizza place, only a few minutes from the lake. The one with the stellar happy hour deals. You could go there every night for a week and have a different night each time. One night may find you thirty pages deep in a murder novel, drinking a cabernet and your only conversations being imaginary. The very next night might find you meeting a few ex-pats at happy hour and spending the night drinking with them with the keen understanding that you were never going to see each other again. Or a celebrity could come in and buy the whole bar around five minutes after you decide to call it an early night. You might just spend the night talking to the bartender and learning about his nights in Korea and days across the jungles in Africa and the in between searching the world for fulfillment. And that’s just the hole in the wall bar around the corner. 

I took a step out and looked down onto my patio, shared with my neighbors a few stories below, watching old scensse play out in front of me. Nights inovloving my Serbian neighbors, strong and silent, unexpectedly joining me and a few friends for drinks.We drank and laughed and talked till they brought out a bottle of whatever they made back home. It was unpleasant to say the least, but it was strong. Even from my balcohnly I could still hear them alughing at us Americans trying to put down a mere swallow of their alcohol. Shortly thereafter, we received a curious invitation to, what we would come to learn, was a majority Serbian bar. Everyone there was well over six feet tall and in the middle of Chicago, no one seemed to speak English. The entire experience was jarring but enjoyable. We ended up spending all night listening to Serbian pop music and counting the number of cigarettes smoked by the bouncer inside.

Looking at the furniture on the patio below, I remember all the food consumed. The food, while usually poor in quality, was always satisfying because of the company who served it. I had a group of 20 or so friends that rotated in and out and we consistently had ten coming to each event. It was always a new story from a familiar face and a plan for something new. I looked at the coffee table below with the smudge near the middle and the day we went to the beach came back. It was January in particularly cold winter, but this January day was a fluke. I woke up to dozens of text messages from our group talking about the fact that it was nearly sixty outside. It had been snowing the week before and it was projected to snow later that week but, if only for a few hours, we had good weather. As usual, everyone came over and in the dead of winter, we were all warm and alive. There was just a little more volume in each of our statements and our drink pours were just a little more generous. It was a gift of a day, on a Sunday nonetheless, and we couldn't waste it. After debating for over an hour the possibilities, we landed on simply going to the beach. We all got on our bikes and took the road over. Some of us played music on speakers, others simply sang along and chattered. To this day there has never been a better bike ride. We went down random side streets, belting early 2000’s anthems at the top of our lungs as we got lost in our own city. Eventually, we made it to the beach as the sun began to set. The beach jutted out away from the city giving it a view of the full skyline and as we sat down and watched the sun go down against the cold urban backdrop, throwing beautiful hues of fuschia and gold off the windows of the otherwise lifeless high rises. After a day of shouting song lyrics, and excitedly talking, we all fell silent. Eventually, one by one, they got up and biked home. I stayed the longest. It had been such a hard winter and as the day ended, I realized how much I needed it. A cool breeze ever so slightly began to wash over my face, goose bumps appearing mon my arms. The day was now gone and soon the warmth would be as well. I got back on my bike and went home feeling satisfied for the first time in months.

That cool breeze tickling the back of my neck brought me back to the present. Standing in my kitchen overlooking the patio that held so many summer memories, a cold draft tickling the back of my neck. To my chagrin, it wasn’t summer, but memory warm memories. I watched as the snow began to silently fall, coving up what had been, and forcing me to face what was. Most of those friends had moved from the city since that warm day, others had lost their social life to career and family. Loneliness fell in thick pillows, slowly covering me, only leaving me to dream of warmer days.