LIFE CYCLES - 7 June 2011
7th June, 2011
Princess Pashley left yesterday. I got a call the day before in answer to the flyer and instead of having the potential buyer come right over, I found myself putting her off for a day. I told myself it was because I needed to take one last ride through town, but really, I think I was trying to put it off altogether. Perhaps if she had 24 hours to think about it she’d decide didn’t need a bike after all.
I did attempt a ride through town but was thwarted after a mile by construction that had not only torn up the road but both sidewalks. Truth be told, I was relieved. My heart just wasn’t in it. So I turned around and pedaled home, nearly getting run over on the way by a heedless driver who’s near fatal act gave me one more item to put on my list of “reasons to leave.” I came back in the gate and propped Pashley on the grass under the Russian olive tree where she grazed all afternoon until her new owner arrived at 4.
It was another gorgeous day, the sea glittering under a dense blue sky, the neighborhood still peaceful. In the garden, the roses were straining at their green sheaths like teenage girls on their way to the prom. Another few days and 11 varieties of these beauties will be in full petal gowns. I spent the day on the prowl, looking for distraction, but felt disinterested in everything.
When the buyer arrived I felt disappointed that she wasn’t me. I liked her but quizzed her anyway. She’s a gardener and also rides and boards horses both of which I took as a good sign that she’d care for the Princess. I wanted her to fall in love right away, but she seemed wary. Yet as we talked I realized that she was being responsible. She wanted a committed relationship and wasn’t about to make a rash decision even though she had wanted one of these bikes for years. I invited her to take it for a ride and she did. I mean, she took it for a ride. She didn’t just pedal it up the block and back. She was gone for 10 minutes. She was in love by the time she came back and suddenly I couldn’t wait for the transaction to be over.
Her car was too small for the bike, so I offered to put it in our station wagon and follow her home. As soon as I started driving I started crying and when I handed the bike over, I gave the saddle a pat and cried all the way home. By the time I fell into Joel’s arms I was bereft and at the same time, puzzled. What was the big deal? It was a bike for chrissake, not a child I’d given up for adoption.
Isak Dinesan has a great quote which I keep on the wall in my writing shed
“ For everything there is a salt cure: sweat, tears, the sea.”
As the tears literally ran their course I suddenly flashed on how many “important” men in my life had given me bicycles. Starting with my father when I was 8. He took my mother’s old bike and not only completely refurbished it but adapted it especially for me: he took the staid handle-bars, flipped them over and tilted them downwards so that they became a modified racing set. In that simple, brilliant gesture I feel he let me know he knew who I was. It would be another 17 years before I found out he wasn’t who I thought he was and by the time I found out he was my adoptive father he was already dead 2 years.
I rode that bike for a good 5 years. Rode it to school, on trips with friends and once solo for 10 miles to my mother’s favorite tomato stand. It was on that bike that I was first stopped by the police.
I had stolen money from my mother’s purse to buy a new line of creamsicles called Mivvies. They came in several flavors and, showing a precocity for the years of addiction to come – addiction to rather more dangerous substances that a strawberry covered ice-cream on a stick – I had to have them all. And so it was that I greedily biked down The Avenue tearing off wrappers and flinging them in the gutter in my hurry to suck on the next flavor. When the police car pulled me over I was sure it was for being a thief. But it was for littering that they got me and while one of them held my bike the other accompanied me as I retraced my criminal path, stooping to pick up the wrappers, my face as red as the raspberry coating of the popsicle that had already become my favorite and for which I would continue to steal for years to come. But I never littered again.
My brother, who taught me how to ride on that Christmas Day that Dad gave me my first bike, bought me my second for my 13th birthday. It was a gleaming blue with straight handlebars and more gears. It was a show-off bike and sexy with it. And once again I felt seen.
And so it was that Joel bought me the Pashley in 1999, a sleek, stately number that I’ve pedaled along Commercial Street all these years since. She’s been to the market, she’s been to the movies, she’s toted newspapers and clothes, veggies and flowers and a whole lot of ice-cream. I’ve pedaled her in stilettos and in sandals. I’ve pedaled her solo on summer days and side-by-side with Joelie on his bike, the two of us reaching to hold hands as we sailed down the moonlit, deserted autumn street. And now she’s gone. And more than likely she’s the last bike I’ll ever own. It wasn’t my baby I gave up yesterday. It was my youth. That’ll make you cry.