Chicago Resuscitated: Summer's Here!

One thing I can say about Chicago seasons is that they are abrupt, and summer’s descent upon the city last weekend was no different. Yes, we had a dash of seventy-degree weather here or there in April and earlier in May, but when summer (or any other season) decides to come to Chicago, it seems to happen overnight. And so the temps leapt up into the eighties on Saturday, and there they will stay that way, or close to it, for quite some time (much to my elation).

I missed the first weekend of summer in the city, because I was back in Ohio (where we were getting a similar taste of the first days of the new season), gathering boxes for the move, visiting family, and eating ice cream (yes, Mr. Freeze!!). On my hour-and-a-half long commute out of downtown and onto the skyway on Friday, though, I gasped out load when I heard a DJ on one of the radio stations report: “Tomorrow we will see temperatures that we haven’t seen for 200 days.” I literally frowned at the radio as I drove out of the city, thinking about how many cold days we get in this city.

I’m still debating whether the winters are worth it, but there’s no denying that Chicago gets its resurrection every summer. Indeed today the beaches and the running path were enlivened by Chicagoans (and tourists) soaking in those much-missed summer rays. I was so eager to get to the beach first thing upon my arrival in the city, that I was cursing up a storm as I drove around for half an hour trying to find a parking spot in my neighborhood (thank GOODNESS I’m moving soon and won’t have to deal with that as often anymore!). As soon as I had all my boxes unloaded, and the car parked, I was off to Oak Street Beach. And I have only one word to describe how it felt to be there, basking in the sun—glorious!

Summer Feet

If you’ve ever been a dancer, you pay extreme attention to your feet. You just can’t help it. You watch them go through all kinds of mistreatment, disfigurement, and fun problems I won’t begin to describe here. But when your feet feel awesome, so do you. So, it's worth taking note that yesterday was a red-letter day for my feet. It was a freedom fest for my toes: yesterday was the day I pulled out the flip-flops for 2010!

As I walked the twelve or so blocks home from work, heels shoved into my bag, I felt that thrill of naked toes exposed to the fresh summery air, and even the dirt of the city. As I wove in and out of tourists on Michigan Ave., I could feel the early-season blisters forming underneath my brand new Old Navy flip-flops. But I welcomed them—the sooner I get them and they heal, the sooner my feet will be prepared for months of summer weather.

Woo-hoo, summer in Chicago! Feet—and hell, everything else—rejoice!

Unobstruction

The air conditioning unit was gone from the window when I arrived home today after work, and I was so happy to see it go. Now, not only do I have the full panoramic view out my window, unobstructed, but also have more sunlight, and will no longer be kept awake at night by the loud clanking of condensation dripping from the above unit onto mine. I lost countless hours of sleep from that piercing echo, resounding like bee bees, rather than water drops, against the metal. And it would always start around 11 pm, when the outside air became cool enough to leave beads of moisture on the hot units, then would subside, it seemed, until approximately 4:30 am, when it would return, full force. On most nights/mornings, even earplugs couldn't block it out.

The weather has been gorgeous, rendering the A/C unit redundant for a few weeks now, anyhow. Of course, I only used the thing twice all summer, so for me it was always superfluous, more of a nuisance than anything else. But, I just knew that if I got rid of it, we’d finally get that sweltering summer heat, and I'd be kicking myself for having it removed. (Perhaps the fact that I kept my window unit all summer is to blame for the surprisingly cool summer that disappointed most of us.) Oh, well. The summer has now faded into perfectly crisp, autumn weather. I never thought I could fall in love with temperatures below 79 degrees (I’ve always been a fan of heat), but the upper 60s are perfect.

Even though I adore fall and am anticipating the brilliance of the trees as autumn stains their leaves orange and red, I can't help myself: my thoughts are already inching ahead toward Christma—okay, okay, I won’t even bring it up. I promise, I will keep myself in check and try not to impose the wintry season on you by discussing the gift-shopping and family celebrations and baked goods and lights and—okay, okay, I promise. That’s enough. For now, I am going to revel in apple cider, fresh corn, pumpkin scones (thank you, Starbucks), cool night breezes, jacket weather, fiery-colored trees, and, when traveling beyond the city, the smell of fall bonfires (one of the best scents on earth, along with Scotch tape, new books, and Old Spice).

You know, sometimes living in a location like San Diego, or Phoenix, or even Atlanta can sound appealing. But, honestly, I can’t imagine settling down someplace without four distinct seasons, and missing out on the transformation from one to the next, each and every year. It feels so exciting every time, knowing that you're in the middle of a transition. Renewal, rebirth and the phases of life feel so palpable here. So, I’ll take Chicago's sub-zero winter wind chills, thank you, if it means that I get to experience the anticipation of a brand new season four times per year.

Lessons Learned while Driving, or Not Driving, as the Case May Be

Labor Day weekend did not begin as planned, which threw a wrench into subsequent weekend events, and left me both exhausted and drained when I returned to Chicago on Monday. It’s a wonder I even planned to leave the city at all this weekend, considering that jazz fest was happening. Family, however, is even more important to me than live jazz; plus, I felt an urgency to get out of town for a few days. After work on Friday, I rushed home, packed up my car with all my laundry and a few other things, put my key in the ignition and my car into drive and tried—-to—-go. But my car decided not to move. Stubborn and bull-headed, I managed to drive it to the other side of the road, but all the while I felt as though it were dragging something terribly heavy. Had my car been booted and I didn’t even realize it? You can't actually drag a boot, right?

With my car’s rear hanging precariously in the way of taxi drivers (I couldn’t get it any closer to the curb), I stepped out and took a look. Around the car, under the car. Nothing there. Then I noticed a chalky-looking streak marking the path from where my back left tire had been on the other side of the road, to where it now sat. Oh man, I’d drug at least one of my back tires clear across the road. I cringed at the thought of a bald spot. What in the world was going on here?

After a few seconds of staring at the tire with "WTF?" stamped on my forehead, I assumed, correctly, that somehow the emergency brake had gone on, even though I never use it. I climbed back into my car and messed around with it, putting it on, and taking it off until—-wa-la!—-it let go. "Home free!" I thought. But then it occurred to me that if the emergency brake had gone on all of its own accord before, it might do it again. So I played with the brake a little more to make sure it was really, truly unstuck. It wasn’t. It got stuck again and this time, no amount of pulling the lever was going to release it. So, I dialed AAA for a tow, and called my mom to tell her I didn’t know when I’d be able to get home.

I immediately scrambled to unload everything I'd just loaded into my car before the tow truck arrived, since I had no idea how long my car might sit in a shop. When Alfonso arrived (that was the name of my tow truck driver), he was convinced that my brakes were simply frozen because I don’t drive my car enough, so he attempted to roll the car back and forth to unstick them. All this served to do, however, (as I was later dismayed to find out), was bend my brake drum and cylinder (which I may already have done trying to drive my car across the road). Soon he was towing my front-wheel-drive car from the back (since the back tires wouldn’t move), with the seat belt firmly holding the steering wheel in place.

On the way to the mechanic, Alfonso gave me a tutorial in Chicago’s grid system. He made me draw a plus-sign on the back of his AAA pad and mark off State and Madison, then he had me mark some other major streets (like North Ave.) and told me the corresponding block numbers of each. Now, I’ve had people tell me about the grid system before, but no one has ever actually showed me and all I ever really wanted was an explanation of the diagonal streets, and I got that, too.

All the while, Alfonso (can you tell I enjoy his name?) told me that he’d have me out of town by 8 pm. That was getting pretty late, since that wouldn’t put me into T-town until 1 am EST, but I just wanted to get my car fixed. In hindsight, it probably would have been better if I’d just gone home Saturday, but I just needed to get out of Chicago. Sometimes, you just do.

A few hours later, and several hundred dollars lighter, my car was fixed. I'd had a mini-heart attack at the price, but was happy that I could drive my car safely, and that I hadn’t been going 80 on the highway when my emergency brake decided to kick in, unexpectedly. And while Saturday may not have gone according to plan, and I may have been in the most wretched mood of my entire life that day (a result of sleep deprivation, accruing stress and, possibly, Friday's full moon), the last weekend of summer, as with the season as a whole, was not a total bust. After all, I got to see a lot of people I love. I did, however, wind up driving west on the toll road on Monday still feeling the shadow of Saturday and wishing I'd had a few more days of vacation to shake it off.

Thank God long drives tend to be therapeutic for me. I have to admit that by the time I rolled into the city, the familiar skyline sent electricity through me, giving me goosebumps (as beautiful things often do), and lifting my spirits. I remembered that one year before, on Labor Day, I'd timidly driven into town, terrified of the traffic and the distinct possibility of getting lost. My car loaded with belongings, I'd carefully made my way to the home of the roommates I'd met through Craigslist and prepared to start an internship I'd landed two weeks before. This Labor Day, I could see the contrast of my two selves as clearly as day and night. I am still as thrilled by the city as I was the first time I drove in from the Skyway, but I am far less intimidated. I felt such a rush as I merged into city traffic on Monday, turning up my music, aggressively weaving in and out of traffic, and cruising along the familiar highway until I was soon parked on the street below my apartment. There is no denying that I am not the same girl I was when I first came to the city, and that thought makes me smile again as I write this.

"Turn! Turn! Turn!"

Please don’t tell me that summer is almost over. You can say it, but I won’t listen. I’ll stick my fingers in my ears and loudly hum some Manfred Mann (kudos, if you get that reference). Okay, maybe I’ll be a tad more mature about about it than all that, but all this talk of summer’s ending and school's starting is starting to seep in, so I would appreciate it if everyone would just indulge me and pretend that summer is still going to continue for a few more months. I mean, technically, since going back to school is no longer part of my seasonal schedule, summer doesn’t really end for me yet. Most likely, the sunshine and warm temperatures will last until the end of September (maybe longer). But Chicago’s summertime events are all ending. The free concerts, outdoor movies, exercise classes at the park, etc. You name it, they’re all winding down. So, even if I can ignore the fact that a lot of my friends are kicking off the new school year (as teachers or as continuing grad students) and my young cousins are hopping back on yellow buses with book bags chock full of new school supplies, I can’t ignore the fact that Chicago says summer is ending, too.

It’s not that I don’t like fall. In fact, autumn is my favorite season. It’s a season of new beginnings (so many years of school have transferred my sense of new beginnings from spring to fall). The trees are beautiful, the temperatures are just right, fall fashions are my favorite of the year… But I guess I just feel like I got cheated this summer. While most of my reluctance to accept fall stems from the fact that events in my personal life made for a rather depressing summer, I think that a lot of people can empathize with a sense of being cheated out of much of summertime because the weather was so disappointing for the first half of the season (not to mention we had a ridiculously late spring, following a looong and frigid winter). I feel a desperate urge to cling to every ounce of sunshine we’ll get before the gloomy winter weather sets in. I mean, at least we have Christmastime, but each day of autumn will inch us closer to the doldrums of January, February, and March. (It made me cringe just to write those two sentences--sorry to bring up winter.) I feel myself facing that old familiar struggle with time. Where part of me wants to hold it back, while another part of me wants to race it forward, but inevitably I have no control whatsoever since I will never exist anyplace but the present, and the present will always belong to the progression of time.

So, I’m just going to hang out and try to squeeze every ounce of summer I can out of the final weeks of the season. I’m going to remember that autumn is inevitable, that it really is my favorite season, and that time heals all, so its advancement will only do me well. And finally, I’m going to do what I always do—investigate, gather information, and plan. After all, Chicago doesn’t stop providing a wealth of events and activities just because Labor Day hits. Every season holds something in which to find joy.