Friday, September 30, 2011

miss.


cardboard scrapes against metal like metal against wimpy liquid paint that is so pretty until i mar it, like a great afternoon gone bad because of a skipping chain or a nagging pain and a reminder that not all is perfect.

i rushed around today, thinking that if i rushed more and crossed things off of lists and put effort in any direction necessary, something would come of some direction, and i would get somewhere. that is, with a little luck, i would get somewhere. i've had some luck these days, and most of that has been bad.

i reflected on this as i rushed around, undoing car seats and overstuffing the yaris and wishing i had a damn pickup truck and a country song to go with it. i thought about what to call all of this since june. it's the season that could have been (but most certainly wasn't). i started cursing things, starting with surface frustrations like the fact that my ridiculously large bike box wouldn't fit easily into our ridiculously small car, that i had paid someone to box it no better than i could have, and certainly no smaller, that i had to send it off at all after less than a month of even riding it. cursing comes so easily, it's like blame; contagious and disgusting and ultimately dissatisfying. i cursed a few more things, getting right down to the nitty gritty: my obsession with bikes in the first place. lately, it's been blow after blow of things that would shatter the resolve of anyone more willing to leave these two-wheeled machines for things more lucrative, less taxing, simple. loving bikes is anything but simple. it started with the broken steerer tube. then there was the rear-ending. then the season was over. then the dream frame came, with a million dollars of duty and a black spot on my 'infraction'-stained passport. then the insurance settlement came in thousands of dollars under the mark. then the weeks filled up with things other than bikes. then the chain started rubbing against the seatstay. then it was october. is a seatstay going to make the world a better place?

i dropped some cash today on bike service and birthday presents for little people and takeout sushi for the girls. the only thing i rushed and felt fine spending about was the parenting stuff. i got way more excited about seeing my girls and giving them dinner on friday night than i did about getting my damn boxed bike to the shipping depot before closing. i think we know where the priorities are. i'm not a good bike rider. i haven't run for real in a month, while i wait for word on my plantar injury. i don't cook meals of variety, or hold multiple degrees in prestigious fields of study, or know more than ten species of deciduous trees or what the hell a mud puppy is. but i know that the best part of my day runs instead of walks, lights up my life more than fluorescent green oakleys or pink bar tape, and is pretty much the only part that matters.