They’ll name a city after us… June 19, 2007
These days just kill me.
Energy clusters and crouches in my legs like unspent dynamite and suddenly I am 10 years old again and I think I could run for miles, blinded by whipping hair and sunshine. Smiling so hard it is deafening.
This weather - this irrepressibly optimistic, invincible sun and warmth - has me swooning. And I can’t sit still.
My bike got stolen last fall from a thicket of brush behind the house. It wasn’t a particularly nice bike - which made the crime all the more mean spirited in my book. Why wouldn’t you steal someone else’s fancy bike and leave my humble runt alone? Which was in turn a ungenerous thought and perhaps the cause of preemptive karma.
But last week, after weeks of pursuit, my dad — who is the king of investigative shopping — helped me find a beauty of a bike from two wonderfully crunchy grad students on Craigslist.
Let me tell you how deeply I love this bike.
Let me tell you how I ride it around the lake every morning and feel untethered and indestructible. I charge past the frowning joggers and am in turn overtaken by churning road bikers in flaming spandex like disciplined insects. And I don’t even feel a competitive flinch.
I listen to Regina Spektor, whose irresponsible passion and husky refrains suit this season to a tee.
"They’ll name a city after us
And later say it’s all our fault
Then they’ll give us a talking to
Because they’ve got years of experience
We’re living in a den of thieves
Rummaging for answers in the pages…"
And
"Suppose I never, ever met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never, ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft
Suppose I never, ever saw you
Suppose you never, ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall"
Sigh.
Do this for me - take a bike ride and stand up to pedal. Forget what you look like and just enjoy the purposeful orbit of your legs, the stretch of your arms to the handlebars, the feel of the wind on your face.
Listen to embarrassingly melodramatic and joyful music. Put on the stuff you secretly adore but scoff at on your way to the Current if anyone else is in the car — Journey, showtunes, Frente, whatever. Listen and bike like a kid again - because it feels so damn free. Pretend you’re escaping, not burning calories. Pity everyone else. Grin.
Last weekend, Kraabel indulged my every energy laden impulse. We biked, we paddle boated, we played wholehearted tennis in the thick midday heat. We stood in the copper creek and built mental blueprints of seaworthy rafts. We golfed and he didn’t even blanch when I rolled up my pant legs like a hillbilly and sent half my drives sailing into forested muck and city ponds. We built up impressive sweats and wore out clean clothes and had more genuine fun than I could buy at any price.
Tonight, I sunk my hands deep into pitchy wet soil and planted a trough full of flowers. Just for the hell of it. Just because the unexpected color and scent makes me smile as I walk past.
Tomorrow I will get up early, before the sun is strong enough to confess the weather. And I will push off the curb and bike away down my quiet street again.
Someday, I will finish stories of distant treks and exotic adventures.
But right now, I can only think to drink deeply of these days and go to sleep exhausted.
And so happy to be so.
I hear ya! Not so much on the bike riding part (I’ve never quite gotten over all the times in childhood when the 4 capable drivers of my household would force me as a 13 year old to peddle everywhere.)
But enjoying the day… golfing, planting flowers, going to the park, lounging on a blanket in the grass and reading a book, pulling weeds, finding a swing that is tall enough off the ground for me and letting loose, waiting for my first tomato to show… it’s glorious.
Hopefully your old bike is getting to enjoy life as much as your new one. :o)
I hear and feel your lovely words. These are the times of *your* life.
I always enjoy reading your thoughts. You inspire me!
As you are so good at, you again describe so beautifully the simple idea of living life, enjoying all its little things and simple things; that there are little and honest joys to be had everywhere in the world, from distant mountaintops to your own backyard.
Thanks for sharing once again how happines is carried and built around you, not a destination to reach.
Woohoo! I’m famous. I made Erica’s blog. My work here is complete.
Oh, Erica, I couldn’t agree more!!!! I have this beautiful cruiser bike that I just absolutely adore, and we just bought Jon a cruiser last night– this will be the summer of bike rides around town, to the park.. and to the ends of the world!!!!
I love my less-than-perfect bike, too, for the freedom it gives me. Great post and thanks for the inspiration!
OK, I’ve had a vision and I know a great name for the city they’ll name after us: Alexandria. What do you think? Catchy, eh? Eh?…
…what do you mean it’s been done? Drat. That was my best one! It’ll probably end up being something boring like New Something Or Other…