|
And by “the streets” I mean two and a half blocks. But hey. That’s streets.
I knew it’d probably be a strain today for Josh to get home in time to take a trip to the parking lot with me, and that served as encouragement for me to step it up some. Today for the first time I got on the bike without having him around as moral support. (It is much nicer to have him around cheering me on, let me tell you.) The parking lots were sure to be full, so I took a deep breath and decided to go all out and play in the street.
We live on a hill, and starting there seemed like asking for trouble. So I walked the bike up to a local flattish side street and halfway up to what I figured was about the crest of its tiny hill. A car immediately passed me, which seemed like a bad, bad omen. But I hopped on the bike all the same and… nothing. I can’t convey the feeling of how weird it was when it did not go. I checked the gear: yeah, first gear, okay. I tried again. No go. Apparently I’d learned to start, sure, but only when starting downhill. Or maybe I’d just lost my touch. It brought home to me that, oh boy, I really did not know what the hell I was doing. I was on the tiniest little upward slope, and it seemed ridiculous that that was the problem, but okay, I walked the bike forward twenty feet and started again. This time it went, and I went with it, feeling significantly less confident than I’d hoped to be feeling. It didn’t help that the bike was making strange and horrible noises. (I think I have to fiddle with the front fender.)
Josh enlightened me later. “Yeah, the gearing on that bike is really meant for use with the motor on. It really doesn’t have a low enough gear. You could get it started going uphill if you were ok with standing and mashing on the pedals. But sitting down? Difficult.”
I came to the sharp right turn I’d intended to take and my confidence entirely fizzled out. I could just about hear it, over the fender noise, going flat. At the last moment I took a gentler curve instead and wound up going down a side street that I’d never been on before in more than five years of living here. It was a bit steep, and I rode the brakes down, my eyes bugging out. Then a right turn to another block and I was done. My knees felt too shaky to bike the last half-block uphill to our house.
I’d thought I’d bike around and around my little circuit, but it was time to sit down. There’s no point freaking out my subconscious.
In some ways this time is the hardest part, and in some ways I suspect it’s the easiest. I hit a lot of milestones every day. Later I’ll want to learn to do them well, which is less easy to quantify. Plus there are some things coming up that really seem intimidating to me. Signaling, for one. I can just bring myself to unclench my fingers from the handlebars enough to brake; actually removing a hand from the bar and holding it well away? Whoa.
This seems to be the day, though, to be one of the universe’s designated brave people, in a very mild way. After my .2-mile road trip, I figured I’d earned a latte, a big one. When I came into my local coffee shop, the owner and barista were freaking out over an enormous wasp that was buzzing inside at a window. Who can blame them? It was the size of my thumb and probably weighed five pounds. They had a cup to put over it, and some paper to put under the cup, but they couldn’t bring themselves to get close enough to do the job. So I volunteered. (Though I did ask for some stiffer paper, because I did not like the thought of having nothing but a sheet of office paper between my hand and an enormous angry wasp.) Then on the way home I helped a nervous kid cross Lake City Way.
I’d probably have done these things anyway — well, possibly not the thing with the five-pound wasp. But learning to ride a bike as an adult is doing a number on my head. For just a few hours after facing the bike, I’m a little bit braver, a little more open, and a little bit more compassionate with people who are afraid. Only a little, but it’ll do.
[Comments: 0] |
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
deviant_'s Friends Page
amused
