One Night Stand

Immersive Motion

A new kind of one-night stand

Did you ever take yourself on a date? Not because no one will date you, but because it’s easier company. Like getting drunk off a Long Island Iced Tea–hold the Long Island.

I took myself to Boystown on Saturday, now Northalsted, which will always be Boystown to me–the place I caught the Red Line el train stop to in college once my theatre friends were in bed. The place I liked to go to watch people dance as I sipped those Long Islands. The place I’d go to feel part of something bigger than myself, because I didn’t have any gay friends. I remember the big video screens at Sidetrack, where I watched Show Tunes and bumped elbows with strangers, transforming into myself.

Since getting sick and going through all the flare-ups, remissions, relapses, and unpredictability, leaving my house in the suburbs as a full-grown adult is met with a barrage of questions and commands. How will you get there? How much money do you have on Uber? Don’t take the el–people get killed on the el. Don’t get robbed. Do you have your pain medication if you get sick? Where’s your Medic Alert bracelet? It’s enough to make me run out of the house if I still had that ability to run. But I remember it comes from love. When you’ve helped your grown son from his wheelchair to the toilet, held the toothbrush in his mouth, and cleaned up the messes of illness, these questions become part of your fabric. I always tug at the “I’m a teacher and keep kids alive and well on a daily basis” thread. That usually helps me spin out of the house without much fanfare.

I’m feeling good this weekend, so I’m heading to the places I used to sneak into at night back in college to try to dance or just feel a connection. I take the Uber, and as fate would have it, my left leg buckles as I step foot into my old life. I know I look drunk, but it’s easier to laugh it off rather than tell every person I stumble past that I’m sick. I don’t drink anymore. It’s hard enough to stand up without falling. I have a running commentary in my head on wobbly days that goes something like, “1, 2, 3 right foot forward, pause, 1, 2, 3, left foot forward, pause. Clench glutes. Don’t forget to breathe. Keep your eyes open.” My friend from Long Island would only complicate things. I nibble on my gummies when the pain creeps in, stop, breathe, clench my glutes, and stand.

I stand. God, something I am so grateful to say again.

In physical therapy, I used to tell Erin, my PT, that standing was the easy part. Moving was hard. Traveling just that one inch toward everything out of my grasp was the heartbreaker. Tonight, I stand to the side of bar traffic, watching a different crowd than I remember as a 22-year-old kid set loose in the city. It feels like freedom, awareness, and respect. I sip my Diet Coke and people watch until I hear, “You by yourself?”

Oh Lord. My mom was right.

A guy with confident eyes and a kind voice stands from his barstool and beckons me over as I nod. He’s about a foot shorter than I, so I think I’m okay, should he turn out to be one of the people my mom warns will kill me in the city if I’m by myself.

“Me too,” he says.

I don’t quite know when stranger danger became a thing for adults. Maybe when I was out of commission for years, or age has made me wary, but instinct told me to sit. It’s too loud to hear his name; a stranger in town on business for the Chicago Windy City Smokeout, looking for someone to talk to.

I don’t know about you, but there have been so many times when I’ve just wanted someone to sit beside me in a theatre, or stroll the city with–no agenda–just a person to be with when married friends were busy with their kids or the contacts in your phone are filled with numbers now out of service that loneliness sets in. I’ve grown adept at making bar friends when I step back into my former life, who transition from Instagram friends to phone friends to dinner mates. It takes time to learn to be an adult, learning how to make friends, just like being in junior high, only this time you have a better idea of who you are.

He asks why I don’t drink. This is the moment I usually dread because there are only so many options to go with, and a respectful person will give me whichever out I choose. I sense this guy is okay and I say the thing I try not to say when I’m on the precipice of deciding whether or not to make a new friend or take the leap into a date.

“I don’t drink because I’m sick. It’s a neurological thing.” He shrugs and says, “Ok. Want to hit up Charlie’s with me?” I’d love to be able to say I was a dancer who used to tear up the floor in my younger years, the guy who let motion tell his story in life. I wasn’t. I was a swayer and head bopper, and that was enough. At least that’s what I tell myself nowadays.

We go to Charlie’s. I can only describe the next hour as a cacophony of colors, sounds, bodies, movement, and memory coming alive. My memories and the years of memories absorbed through music and joy–freedom from those who let motion tell their stories while I swayed to their beats. Something shifts. It’s subtle and I don’t have the exact verbiage–just the motion through my fingers to the keyboard as I tell you about my date on Saturday night.

Drag performances to Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and Kelly Clarkson thump through me until I find myself pumping my bar-stamped arm in the air to “Since You’ve Been Gone” as my bar bud sways beside me. He pulls me into the middle of the floor into a sea of humans communicating with their arms and legs, swaying hips, and all sorts of moves that make me feel like such an old lady, and I don’t even care. I move. I’m clumsy and only cautious enough to make sure I don’t fall, but my mantra goes from “1, 2, 3, move the right, to 1, 2, 3, thank God.” And my hips begin to sway as my arms start to sway, and I throw my head back in ecstatic laughter until I can feel the heat and the freedom, until I just don’t care how drunk I look. It’s immersive. I’m part of it all. Tonight is mine. Ours. It belongs to all of us, and I’m part of it.

This is freedom.

We head into the cooling summer air at 2 am, and my mouth is bone dry as I gulp water from the 7-11, and we stand on the corner exchanging Instagram handles and reserving Uber’s to our respective destinations. And suddenly, the street falls quiet. We hug and walk away.

Was it all a dream?

My Uber arrives, and I buckle my seat belt. I head West, and my mystery guy heads to his downtown hotel.

Nick, I don’t know if you’re reading this, but thank you for reminding me sometimes it’s worth pulling up a bar stool and taking a chance on connection; for reminding me this life is immersive.