Second City the Thrice
My Third Story, Let me know in the comments which one you like best
Unfurling Fiddleheads
I was a beautiful, married, happy, part time computer teacher living in a lower-middle class suburb of Chicago. We had two vans and a car, a big dog, little boat, and the enviable double lot. Less than a year later, I was alone, sleeping in my clothes including shoes and coat on a bare mattress in a cold apartment halfway up a mountain. And it was the most empowering thing I ever did!
My esteemed friends and fellow storytellers, and fearless leader, Francis Joy: tonight, I’d like to tell you a story about waking up in Juneau Alaska.
I was mourning a big loss. Thank goodness, from my years in social work I knew this is PTSD. Post traumatic stress disorder happens when your brain doesn’t have the processing power to…process. So my brain did what healthy brains do. It blocks that shit!
Then as you get healthier, your brain starts to work thought the feelings. A little at a time. This is no fun. Because feeling nothing is better than feelings when the feeling suck. But again as a professional, I knew this was coming and was ready for it.
HAAA no I wasn’t
The first time that feeling hit was on the layover in Seattle.
Wandering around killing time, I look up and there is a restaurant called Alaska. Big red neon letters across the large opening with tables overflowing onto the concourse with a little faux wooden fence around it and fake plants to make it look like it is al fresco dining.
This is the time my healthy brain decided to start processing feelings.
Why am I moving to Alaska. I gave up the few things I still had going for me! No one expected much from a widow, which was cool. As a computer teacher; it was good money for not many hours. I had friends I hung out with every night, we loved each other, and we loved beer.
Yanno, I could just not do it! What a funny story that would be! I could just go to this restaurant and take a few crappie selfies with my first generation flip phone camera from “Alaska” and then go back home and get back to my full drinking schedule. I would have done this if I could have afforded it. But I didn’t have enough money in my bank account to book a last-minute flight from Seattle to Chicago and then get a cab home.
On April 9, 2007, at 11 pm I landed in Juneau. I am judgmentally smiling to myself at the airport. It’s so tiny, there are 4 gates. Total. One place to pick up all luggage. I figure I can just get in a cab, give them the address. and they take me to my apartment that I rented sight unseen from a classified ad from the Juneau Empire Newspaper.
Me and Elijah the cab driver, drive in circles as he explains cabs don’t drop you off in front of your place because there is no road that goes to your place. The whole downtown just kind of hangs off a mountain.. the cheaper your place, the more stairs you walk up. and my place was very cheap,
Elijah took his best guess and dropped me alone on the sidewalk with two monster size suitcases and a backpack with a hand me down rebuilt laptop. My very out of shape self, looks up at a metal staircase so big that in the icy foggy darkness looked like it just loomed up to a bunch of nothing.
I trudged up the three flights of stairs, there was not an apartment like I was expecting, just a big house with several entrances. Exhausted, I tried the first door, and it was open. I had no idea if I was in the right place, and I was too tired care. Asking where to find my apartment would have been a good question to ask, I think to myself, but the door is open like he said and there were a set of keys on the sink, and a note that says welcome Lora. Ok well that is one problem solved.
The heat was on, but place was freezing, and I couldn’t find the thingy to turn it up.
So I just get in bed. In the 30 seconds from the time I hit the wadded-up sweater I used for a pillow to the time I fell asleep I have realization number two and, to reference a weird movie… everything, everywhere, all at once, I thought about all the things I did to to land at this point in my life.
Sold my home, quit my job, packing and shipping boxes, buying rain gear, saying goodbye too everyone….
Out cold. zzzzzzz
The next morning, I wake up to what I would find out is very rare. A sunny day in Juneau. The black icy fogginess replaced by the most stunning magnificence I have ever seen. Looking out my door I look down on this beautiful city. I see sunshine hitting the mountains and beyond that the ocean flickering light bouncing off like little diamonds and the old timey fishing boats and seaplanes that land on water with their big surfboard feet.
The sidewalk to my place is filled with stubborn little fiddlehead ferns that start from a green ball poking their heads through the snow to get a head start in the short warm season and dramatically unfurl open.
I wave and say out loud to my new apartment: If I can manage this…and if God or whoever is in charge can manage all that…
Then I, a beautiful, widowed, not miserable, part-time computer teacher living in Juneau.
And you esteemed friends and fellow storytellers, and fearless leader Francis Joy Collier can just like unfurling fiddlehead ferns expanding in the light, will open our hearts with beauty and tenacious nature offering grace wherever our stories take us.