This is a linguist-in-chief Anne-Michelle Tessier post. We are glad to welcome her back from her adventures.

When last we spoke in early February, it had been about two weeks since the sideways step on ice that comprehensively broke my ankle. I was operating as a one-legged creature; I was healing from the recent brain-shattering pain of metal plates and screws having been drilled into my left ankle, tibia and fibula; I was suspicious of the ambitious timeline for recovery from my orthopedic surgeon. Even though I had somehow not missed teaching a single Zoom lecture -- looking back now, it was really, really hard. Getting from bed to the kitchen in the morning, just to make coffee and feed dogs, was enough physical exertion to break a sweat multiple times. There were many weeks, months ahead, and I was already so tired.

Then a few days after that newsletter piece, I received an acceptance from an academic conference starting April 21 in Siena. I had submitted an abstract in December, when spirits were high and functioning ankles numbered two, with plans to meet up with a very good friend and enjoy a springtime week in Italy. Now he asked: can you really be walking on steep medieval cobblestones in nine weeks? Will you need a cast, a boot, a piggyback? Will you have a cane, an opioid addiction, a meltdown?

In essence I told him: You just watch.  

The comeback montage sequence here is mostly just me doing physio exercises on a yoga mat in my living room. On February 11^th my cast was replaced by one of those hard plastic and Velcro-strapped medical boots, and I gradually squirmed my foot into compression socks, peeling and unstrapping everything several times a day to flex and stretch, to push and pull at resistance bands, to apply hot and cold baths, to do every exercise as well and as much as possible. I practiced proto-walking, balancing with the backs of chairs and every day easing ever so slightly more weight onto the heel, the sole, the ball of my swollen semi-numb foot. On March 11^th, I walked into the surgeon’s office without crutches, and I walked out with the instruction to take off the boot and started wearing shoes. It had been six, seven weeks since the break – and I was walking.

Siena, that dear friend kept informing me, is a very old, very hilly city. Its university was founded in 1240, when broken ankles were not tolerated (or possibly, gulp, not survived.) Its ancient centre is an absolute warren of palazzos, banks, piazzas and cafes, with wines to make you imbalanced, curbs to trip over, tourists stopping dead in front of you, and everywhere magnificent views caused by insanely steep side streets plunging down into the Tuscan valley countryside and back up again.

… So I did more physio! At the pool I started power walking (mildly embarrassing), then deep water running (infinitely more embarrassing), then swimming laps for real (at first only kicking with one leg, which luckily turns out to not send you in circles). As a newly-unassisted walker, I had no balance for the unpredictability of our dogs (whom my partner had been doing ALL the walking of since January), so I enlisted friends to stroll with me and manage both of them, then just one of them … and on March 4 I was finally back to two leashes. And every day, I further stretched and strengthened. I was relentless.

On April 20^th, I boarded a plan to Europe, with duty-free maple syrup for my cousins and a left aisle seat to facilitate stretching. And Reader: Siena was just perfect.

Apart from a stilted gait on stairs, a decidedly un-Italian lack of shoe fashion, and am odd tendency to elevate my left foot in public, I was completely successful as an ambulatory tourist in Italy. I love meandering while looking at weird and old architecture, and I also love espresso, gelato and wine, so I really could not imagine a place better suited to my interests. Every night I met my linguists at Il Campo, the charmingly convex Sienese piazza of horse-racing lore, and we found Campari and truffles and cinghale and Brunello and laughed till we forgot that I’d ever been broken. (That is, until I undertook to stand up, but I always got back to my tiny hotel just fine.)

The week before the trip, I had returned to the surgeon for follow-up x-rays, where I was given two startling pieces of information. First, one of the screws through my ankle had broken – snapped very cleanly in half and lightly separated inside my ankle – but that was fine? Second, I was now cleared to start running again. I briskly questioned my surgeon on each of these points. The screws, he explained, had held my bones tightly together while they healed; now their scaffolding work was done, the bone had nearly (?!) all reknit, and so the broken screw was unimportant. On the second point, he happily said “oh, it’s not running that will hurt you now”. Obviously I asked what, if not running, would be the thing that hurt me?

He took a beat and suggested I not fall again.

I gave him a look.

“… Ok, so maybe don’t run on trails just yet.”

… Well, fair.

So in Italy I stuck to walking pace, and no cobblestone falls occurred. But the day after I got home – I went for a run! The first two runs were fairly terrible, but on the third one I started to remember what legs and lungs do, and on the fourth run I took Bagel!

It is still early days for the running comeback, the tingling nerves and swelling will last several more months, and it’s going to be an overheated-left-foot-in-compression-sock summer. But compared to  three months ago, I’m living a goddamn miracle. And I am very grateful for having had that trip in mind, for nine weeks of daily rehab, glacial progress, slow and steady, day in day out. If you ever need an ambitious goal, to give yourself something to really work for: may I suggest planning your ideal trip to a place that your current state would make next to impossible? (I again suggest never, ever breaking your ankle.) And if you ever get the chance: I strongly suggest a trip to Siena. After all that struggle, it had SO much to live up to – and it was truly worth it.