June 29th, 2011
an ode to bikes
“I believe there is a distance I have wandered / to touch upon the years of / reaching out and reaching in / holding out holding in / I believe / this is heaven to no one else but me”
—Sarah McLachlan, Elsewhere / LXv2.0
“STRIPES!”
—Jeff, 6/26/11
time 9:53 am, creepy feeling good wearing gray shirt, capris music Lisa Loeb comeback baby! ready for cold to go away next fix arrays
First, RANDOMNESS:
-PRIORITIES: family (this includes JEFF), friends, physical activity, financial security, FUN, balance, downtime too. Just to keep it straight. Priorities.
-A little girl at the wedding: “I think you’re beautiful. Oh wait, you’re the wrong one.” BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
-Coming out of the woodwork. Not closed to opportunity. Just when you think things are settled.
-Riding an awesome high. Thus the crash shall be spectacular. However the Universe owes me. SO I am counting on this high lasting quite some time. Hoping it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy and whatnot.
-11 days in MSP, get at me. Jam packing it in. Adamant scheduling. PRIORITIES!
—
That all said, an ode to bikes:
I may appear newly and unduly obsessed with my bike, however I would like to note that I have been a bike-riding-lover since my first two-wheeler from someone’s basement at the age of 6 or so.
It was a boy’s bike, gray, so fancy 6-year-old moi was less than thrilled, however, it had a pretty sweet red seat with a big “S” on it which I determined stood for “Supergirl” (great movie). (Side note, perhaps this is where my red/gray love began, who knows.) Once those training wheels came off I was hooked, tooling around Meadowwood Drive day after day.
I think the greatest appeal was that I could get pretty far away and have a pretty great deal of freedom when out on the bike, and the same appeal exists today. Other appealing aspects: PHYSICAL ACTIVITY (quiet the mind; as those legs go, my energy is less concentrated in my crazy BRAIN and I can actually think for once; running used to work like this in a way too), seeing a lot of an area aka beautiful Minneapolis in a short(er) span of time, ADVENTURES, getting somewhere without having to deal with a car, and my favorite addiction, exercise-released endorphins. YES.
OTHER BIKES: blue banana-seat bike, light blue middle school bike, now dark blue GT Vantara from 1996 = mine still and forever. Blue blue blue. I need a new helmet, though.
OTHER THOUGHTS: Biking also used to take me to fun places in fun summers, such as diving, waterballet (I KNOW), swimming/tennis (ok, not so fun) lessons, driver’s ED ha ha ha, gymnastics in the nearer West, babysitting at Parkcrest, etc. SO especially now in summertime it has a component of reminding me of that. Eventually I got a license and I was obligated to drive me/Jenny to these places for awhile, but it’s worth noting that 12th grade I got back to the summer-biking-to-gymnastics-and-diving routine due to both paranoid exercise reasons AND the old love of biking in general taking over the new love of driving. YESSSSS.
(This all came to mind on my ride along the creek/river this AM, FWIW.)
IN CONCLUSION: I have always loved biking. Living in a gorgeous city with a devoted biking community just makes me love it more. Bike bike bike. My bike, my bike, my bike. Epic biking adventures. Yessssssssss.