The Enlivenment
There’s a post on Belgium Knee Warmers about riding your bike, getting sick, and riding your bike. If you’re into bikes you might like it, if you’re not into getting sick you might like it, otherwise you might not. Take the risk anyway!
I’ve been getting over a cold/the flu/a virus/germs!? for about a month straight. It’s regularly refreshed by room mates. I’m sick of being sick, and that joke has itself worn familiar and thin. There’s a persistent light cough that I haven’t been able to shake just yet, but I’m sure (as I have been for a few weeks) that the end is near. I just hope it’s the end of the cold and not the end of me.
As evidence that I’m doing well despite a little bronchial obstruction, here’s an account of why today was a fanfuckingtastic day.
My 8am class was canceled so I took off on my bike around 7am. Rolling through endless almond orchards, the trees exploding with blossoms and innumerable pollinators. I’ve been riding my bike for about an hour every other morning or so for a few weeks, and this past week or so I’ve stepped it up to about 2-3 hours. I feel like I’m getting into really good shape on my bike, it makes me happy, I go fast.
Got home around 9:30, cleaned up the kitchen and did some dishes, read the internet for a bit, and got ready to go to work. I stopped across the street first, at a little coffee/donut shop. I pop in there maybe once a week or so when I get back from a morning ride and get myself a donut or two. I have recently come to understand my insatiable (but easily ignored) sweet tooth. The woman who runs the shop has started sticking extra little donuts into the bag for me, a perk of my being polite I guess. Today though, it was a toasted cream cheese bagel and a tiny hot cocoa, tasty.
Work went well today, I felt tired but not exhausted by the time we closed, and I felt like I had gotten a lot done. I really like my job, and if that makes me feel like I’m cheating at life, then I don’t want to play fair.
After work I went to the co-op across the street from the bike shop and got mad veggies and pasta and some naan and some marmalade and the most delicious apples I have ever tasted. Cameo apples I think, they blow my mind. There’s a girl who works there names JJ, or maybe it’s J&J, I’m not sure. But she’s weird, and we talk about things like health insurance, and why’s it gotta be so ‘spensive all the time huh?
On my way home from the co-op I ran into one of my professors from last semester, professor Dizard. He taught a really sweet anthropology class and is, to-date, my favorite professor. At the end of the semester last year though, he had a heart attack and had to leave teaching before we finished the class, a big let down. I haven’t seen him since, but I did see his bike for sale on Craigslist, which kind of bummed me out.
So anywho, I see him riding across the street on a sweet new touring bike looking all cool decked in a helmet and riding knickers and with big old racks and bags on the bike. I called out, “Dizard!” and we met up at the curb. Turns out he’s been kicking ass ever since his first heart attack. It also turns out he had another one (well, not a full on heart attack but some kind of heart trouble scary thing) and rode his bike to the emergency room! He is the bad ass.
So anyway, he’s got this awesome new passion for life (which I wouldn’t have said he was lacking last year, by no means), he’s become a vegetarian/vegan (his whole family has too!), he’s riding his new bike way more, he’s getting into shape, things are looking up in all directions. As he put it in regards to how he’s liking his new vegetarian diet, “I’d eat sawdust if that’s what it took to wake up every day with my wife, to see my kids grow up, or to at least pay off my mortgage!”
While Dizard and I were catching up a few people I knew rode by on their bikes and yelled out all sorts things, “Go home!” “Potluck Tonight!”. We high-fived and rode off on our separate paths and made plans to meet up in his office or mine (my office has wrenches hanging on the walls).
Now I’m home, the groceries have been packed, and I’m trying to think of something I can cook up real quick to share. I’ve also decided I’m going to lend one of my vegetarian cookbooks to Dizard (it’s the least I can do after he got me to read so many good books last year).
And that’s why I am feeling so happy and full of life and in love with living.