Last weekend, hubby and I took a mini vacation. We’ve both needed to get away; we each have our own burdens that have been amplified since the start of the pandemic, so we planned a getaway that allowed us to keep our social distance with others but still enjoy doing things we love.

We usually go to a wine festival every year, but understandably, it isn’t being held this year. The wineries, though, are open, so that’s what we planned to do. Beforehand, we drove into Fort Smith to walk downtown and see the Unexpected FS murals; for those who are unfamiliar, Fort Smith has a rich (wild?) western past, sitting on the border with Oklahoma. Its downtown area has a lot of historic buildings, but when both of us lived there years ago, the downtown area had declined.

Over recent years, there has been a movement to revitalize the downtown area. One of the wonderful things to have happened, there, was The Unexpected; primarily an outside art project, it features international artists who come to Fort Smith once a year, and they create imaginative artwork on the sides of old buildings, grain silos, gas stations, old houses. The venues and methods vary by the artist, and the artists change each year.

We hadn’t yet seen 2019’s additions to the project, and while we were in Fort Smith several weeks back for a family funeral (my husband’s mother), the time and the weather kept us from seeing the murals. Last Saturday morning, we drove in for a couple of hours and walked the downtown area to see what we could. We started by strolling a farmer’s market, and then walked the downtown area, taking our time. We both had our FitBits on and walked a couple of miles before we headed out to lunch and then off to the wineries.

There was a day when the only way we would have been able to do such a thing would be for my husband to push me in a travel wheelchair. If I had chosen to walk, I wouldn’t have been able to go as far and certainly not for a couple of miles. I would have been in pain, and when you’re in pain, it’s hard to put that out of your mind and simply enjoy a beautiful day and a pleasant stroll. Even though I probably still would have enjoyed the day, I would have had to plan and keep an eye out for places where I could sit and get off my feet, and once back in our truck, deal with stiff and swollen knees. I would have been out of breath, uncomfortable, perhaps sweaty despite the mild temperatures.

All of that has been removed. Such things weren’t even on my radar, and when the pain and the compromised endurance is out of the picture, the experience and the pleasure of simply walking downtown to look around is amplified. That whole thick layer of having to constantly calculate how to accommodate a morbidly obese body is no longer there. Everything I do, now, I can focus on with all of my attention, instead of having to figure out how to accommodate my body.

I’m thankful for making the decisions and investment it took for my life to open up in so many ways, and every day is a new, unexpected experience.