The air is soothing, even up a large hill I didn’t have to take to get home. It feels cool blowing by, and the only thing to dampen the rush is the hint of knee pain I can’t seem to shake mentally. I try to figure out if my knee actually hurts. But this time the pain is in another place. I’m imagining things. And then I gain the top of the hill, close to very bottom of my gearset, and pause while another asshole races by in his frustration to get around me and my slow ascent. I shouldn’t have drunk that beer at the office earlier.
But then the downhill begins, and I remember that this is what I worked for! The wind starts rushing by and it feels wonderful on my skin, and I pedal harder and swerve around the potholes and race the car ahead of me to each stop light. Then there is the flat push into Davis, and gliding up to the intersection I feel the warmth of the air envelop my sudden stillness. I am smiling now, laughing with my harder breaths as I merge into the life the square, energetic even as late as it is.
I turn the wrong way down my one way street, because it’s never worth it to go around the block. I’m tired. But suddenly I remember to check on my car, and it’s a good excuse to keep riding, to put a few more heartbeats between myself and the flatness of being inside again.
And then back on my street, heading the right way this time, I pedal furiously, picking up speed until I hear a roar of wind in my ears and in my imagination I am a muscle car in a drag race on a blackened city street, a plane accelerating down the runway, a jungle cat bounding forward through the brush, flanks rippling with force;
and I am simultaneously a child in Chautauqua again, on that yellow and black Trek bike I loved to ride without handlebars because I thought I was so cool, flying along streets without cars in the velvety summer nights, with strains of the symphony emanating from the amphitheater and the glistening of the lake at the bottom of the hill, with softly murmuring voices of people along paths yet to be discovered, with all the hope and carelessness of the very young. In this remembered world I am sure of myself and of my purpose, with my only desire to live out the boundless joy I am feeling.
I scoop a large serving of ice cream into a cone, really pack it in there to maximize the volume available, and plug in the string lights. Out on the back porch with the stars in the sky and the neighbors chatting gaily past the wall, in the little backyard oasis I have been creating for myself, I remember all the times today when I was impatient, so sarcastic, not tolerant enough towards my coworkers, and the other ways in which I acted childishly. I did not live up to the expectations I set for myself. This week and in recent weeks past I have been ill deserving of the respect of those I respect most. I take this quiet moment to realize all of it; let it crash over me at once.
But.
I remember the simple happiness I have just created for myself during the ride, and I know that tomorrow I can try again, at pretty much all of it.
