Writing is the great escape. At least, it is for writers. When my students sit down to write, they feel tortured. The more tortured they feel, the less their sentences make sense. How do I give them the sense of freedom and power that I feel when I write? Or once felt.
I keep wanting to write a story. But when I sit down to write the narrative is bare-bones, the outline of a story. My writing is all bulleted lists and concise sentences. I teach business writing, and I'm often unsure that I know how to write any other way anymore. When I write a story now it's too efficient--all poetry that might make a moment real and beautiful--or ugly, whatever the moment needs--has been stripped away for concise sentences. Like my students, I too am tortured by my writing, ashamed by my own lack of skill.
Last Christmas, I was chatting with the smile-of-a-woman who was my creative non-fiction professor during graduate school. She remembered an essay I had written about ferret spotting (searching for ferret eye-shine with a spotlight while hiking around in the dark) on a population survey with the Colorado Division of Wildlife (now Colorado Parks and Wildlife). I'd gone back to work for them after grad. school, so she wanted to know if I had any new stories. I did.
I'd gone electro-fishing on the Colorado River, but I can't capture the experience. I want to express that those two days of work were the most fullfilling of my life. I can say it, but that doesn't give any other person the vaguest sense of the experience. And the more time put between me and those two days of netting fish, the less real it is for me. The harder it is to explain. The thing that sticks with me is the guilt, the shame.
Somebody, broke the back of a fish, and I suspect it was probably me.
It was two days of the hardest work of my life. My boss and I volunteered to help with population surveys on the Colorado River. We were all hoping to find a few endangered fish--humpback chubs, razorback suckers, bonytails, and the especially elusive Colorado Pikeminnow. We met with the crew at 7am. Netted, weighed, measured, and recorded fish until 7pm. Those two days of work were harder than any work I ever did on my family's farm. It was harder than any workout I ever did for a sport or in a gym.
My back and arms have never been so strong. I stood most of the day, holding a long pole with a net on the end, netting zapped fish as they floated to the surface, scooping them out of the water and lifting them, their weight magnified by their distance down the pole, up towards our boat to dump them in a trough with one quick fluid motion--or at least I sought to be fluid. I was an oaf compared to my companions, clumsily dumping my fish in the tub. Sometimes it took me multiple attempts to swing the net just right, to flip the writhing bag of fish over and dump them into the trough. Several full nets made it into the water, still right-side up, the fish trapped in its bounds. Sometimes the boat operator would help out by reaching in an arm and flipping my net from up close. Sometimes, I just had to keep trying, and fast. My slowness was letting fish slip past the boat uncaptured!
The researchers did this for two or more weeks, depending upon their role in the project. Some of them were volunteers who were between seasonal research positions and relied on the hotel and food stipend from the research fund to feed and house them for a couple weeks. I love biology, but every time I volunteer for a research project, I'm so glad I did not commit myself to a life of underpaid seasonal work, waiting for a permanent position to open up until I'm thirty or forty. Some people wait forever.
Two days was more than enough for me. I was physically exhausted, and yet mentally I felt energized, fully human, significant even, from those two days of hard labor. As each of those two days ended, I felt more fullfilled than I ever have from any other day of work. Physical labor is indeed good for the soul, and I was learning too--learning about the fish that lived in the brown-green water of the Upper Colorado River.
Carp are a fish with which I am initmately familiar. As a kid, I would visit Lake McConaughy in Nebraska to go sailing with my Grandma and her boyfriend. My sisters and I would dangle our toes off the dock and let carp suck on them like popsicles. They came in writhing clusters--unafraid, calm fish looking for a snack, but all they found were our round white toes. We called them trash fish. They ate trash, so we didn't eat them. I guess in the UK, they are a sport fish. Who'd a thunk it?
On the river, I saw carp and all kinds of trout. And we did capture quite a few endangered fish. For every hundred trout, we'd find a bonytail or humpback chub. Once you see one, they're easy to spot. You might think a trout with large back hump is a chub or a fish with a thin tail a bonytail, but when you actually see a true humpback or bonytail, you won't make that mistake again. Their distinctive features are pronounced and bizarre--they genuinely look deformed in that way mysterious sea creatures often do. The chub could be cast as Quasimodo--it's back rises up away from its flat head sharply an inch or more. The bonytail looks like its tail growth is stunted, and you worry you might just brake its thin tail right off--how does it propel its large body with such a tiny tail? We gathered razoback suckers as well--you really have to watch out, those razors will cut you.
But we never captured a pikeminnow. The potential sighting of one had the whole team in an uproar--three boats all focused on trying to find one fish--they are bigger than many of the other fish we caught, so it's possible to see one from the boat and be fairly sure it's not one of the other fish. Pikeminnow are historically one of the major food sources for local people living around the Colorado River. They're also threatened because of historic efforts to stock the river with non-native sport fish--in the mid-twentieth century the fish were even poisoned to clear them out to make room for desirable sport fish. Recovery efforts aren't seeming to make a difference. The Colorado Pikeminnow is probably doomed.
Despite spending two days handling amazing endangered fish, they're slipping away from memory. I have to look them up to remind myself how extreme their appearances are. But I remember the poor carp with a broken back--it's yellow-green scales warped into a swollen hump a few inches down its spine. I think I broke its back. With my clumsy net swinging, more than a few fish hit the side of the trough. I still feel so much shame and sorry for the damage I brought to this thick, grassy-colored, sucker-mouthed fish.
Is this a human adaptation? My brain is wired to remember my faults and mistakes so that I don't make them again? Why is it so hard to remember what's good, to revive the sense of self-brilliance created by those two days of hard labor? Perhaps this is why I can't write. My past sorrows are not what I want to escape to. I want to escape to places of magic and wonder, but I can't find them, and so the writing is as stale as my ability to re-experience the emotions of good.
The broken-backed carp has become me. Because I killed him, I have absorbed him into myself as Zeb absorbs the bear in MaddAdam. I am the wide, round, yellow eyed fish with the gaping mouth, sucking for air, struggling to swim. I am afraid where once I was fearless and calm. Writing is scary because I can't look at the world the same way that I used to. My experiences have changed me, and now it is hard to see the wonder--I'm too busy worrying at other things.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Notebook: Morning Coffee with My Former Self
This morning, I need to be providing feedback on application letters for jobs, which my students wrote for the job search unit we just completed. I haven't graded one this morning.
I was feeling exhausted, and when I'm feeling so mentally weary, I write, read, and get organized to just let go of the stress for a minute. Now I'm feeling better, relieved.
I read an article on adjunct instructing, and I'm reminded that I work in one of the absolute best places to be an adjunct instructor--I have an office (albeit shared) with my own desk that is always mine where I can leave things. I have a full course load at one school rather than commuting between two or three. I have health insurance. I am genuinely one of the best cared for adjunct instructors in university academia. If the burden of cover letters is weighing me down, at least I don't have to commute home for an hour and then grade. My home is a 10-minute walk from my office.
I also decided to clean out a hoard of scribbled on pages in the old notebook I use to write down my lesson plans. I know, I know--this is the modern era. People type lesson plans. But for me there's just something about using paper. I use a paper calendar; I hand-write my reading notes; and I lesson plan in a notebook. Perhaps its a necessity--I'm doing most of my grading electronically.
Anyhoo, as I tear out pages of the notebook, I skim them to make sure I want to throw them away. There are some story drafts and brainstorms in this notebook, and I never throw out a story. (You should see my collection of idea sticky notes. It's getting quite large.) The pages of this notebook are such an odd and broad-spanning preservation of my past.
The book is largely concentrated on the tail end of my sophomore year of college, but it extends into my junior year. There are notes between my friends Curtis, Bret, and myself. We talk about strange things: muffins, tattoos, which branch of the military is sexiest, mockery of our classmates. There is a sketch of a penis drawn by Bret, which I reframed into a squirrel because I didn't want anyone to see a penis in my notebook. We didn't focus much during Brit Lit I.
There are also genuine class notes--homework assignments, sketches of neurons, a line-by-line interpretation of some unlabeled sonnet. There are waves of fitness and food logs. What a health nut I was! By comparison my penchant for health is quite tamed now. There are sentence diagrams of every sentence I found interesting or significant during the semester I took Traditional and Modern Grammars. Perhaps my favorites snippets of text are quotes from my friend Jesse when we were studying for grammar: "I am smart, whearas Cheryl is not." She was demonstrating the use of a subordinating conjunction.
There's a bad short story with my friends Jackie and Curtis cast as hobos. I'm guessing they were mocking me, and I wrote that to mock them back--I'm sure they read it as I wrote, or I read it aloud. The word "junkitude" is written in quotes, and I'm not sure why or in what context it made it into the notebook. Perhaps the oddest line is "Psych appointment - I always wanted to be Teddy from Peter Pan." All I can say is, huh?
I have torn out all of the pages to take up to the shredder box. Perhaps the greatest strength of finding my past preserved in a notebook is that I can revise it with finality. When the page is destroyed, the content is gone, which is what I want to do with some of my more emo journalistic entries. I know that, for the most part, I don't want to be that person, except I want the stories. I want the creativity. It's the only part of myself I will preserve from that notebook, perhaps because I am vainly seeking to regain that portion of my former self.
Now that I've written this entry, I've exhausted the mechanisms of relief, and I must grade, but I wish I was writing a story. Or wishing I still knew how to write a story.
I was feeling exhausted, and when I'm feeling so mentally weary, I write, read, and get organized to just let go of the stress for a minute. Now I'm feeling better, relieved.
I read an article on adjunct instructing, and I'm reminded that I work in one of the absolute best places to be an adjunct instructor--I have an office (albeit shared) with my own desk that is always mine where I can leave things. I have a full course load at one school rather than commuting between two or three. I have health insurance. I am genuinely one of the best cared for adjunct instructors in university academia. If the burden of cover letters is weighing me down, at least I don't have to commute home for an hour and then grade. My home is a 10-minute walk from my office.
I also decided to clean out a hoard of scribbled on pages in the old notebook I use to write down my lesson plans. I know, I know--this is the modern era. People type lesson plans. But for me there's just something about using paper. I use a paper calendar; I hand-write my reading notes; and I lesson plan in a notebook. Perhaps its a necessity--I'm doing most of my grading electronically.
Anyhoo, as I tear out pages of the notebook, I skim them to make sure I want to throw them away. There are some story drafts and brainstorms in this notebook, and I never throw out a story. (You should see my collection of idea sticky notes. It's getting quite large.) The pages of this notebook are such an odd and broad-spanning preservation of my past.
The book is largely concentrated on the tail end of my sophomore year of college, but it extends into my junior year. There are notes between my friends Curtis, Bret, and myself. We talk about strange things: muffins, tattoos, which branch of the military is sexiest, mockery of our classmates. There is a sketch of a penis drawn by Bret, which I reframed into a squirrel because I didn't want anyone to see a penis in my notebook. We didn't focus much during Brit Lit I.
There are also genuine class notes--homework assignments, sketches of neurons, a line-by-line interpretation of some unlabeled sonnet. There are waves of fitness and food logs. What a health nut I was! By comparison my penchant for health is quite tamed now. There are sentence diagrams of every sentence I found interesting or significant during the semester I took Traditional and Modern Grammars. Perhaps my favorites snippets of text are quotes from my friend Jesse when we were studying for grammar: "I am smart, whearas Cheryl is not." She was demonstrating the use of a subordinating conjunction.
There's a bad short story with my friends Jackie and Curtis cast as hobos. I'm guessing they were mocking me, and I wrote that to mock them back--I'm sure they read it as I wrote, or I read it aloud. The word "junkitude" is written in quotes, and I'm not sure why or in what context it made it into the notebook. Perhaps the oddest line is "Psych appointment - I always wanted to be Teddy from Peter Pan." All I can say is, huh?
I have torn out all of the pages to take up to the shredder box. Perhaps the greatest strength of finding my past preserved in a notebook is that I can revise it with finality. When the page is destroyed, the content is gone, which is what I want to do with some of my more emo journalistic entries. I know that, for the most part, I don't want to be that person, except I want the stories. I want the creativity. It's the only part of myself I will preserve from that notebook, perhaps because I am vainly seeking to regain that portion of my former self.
Now that I've written this entry, I've exhausted the mechanisms of relief, and I must grade, but I wish I was writing a story. Or wishing I still knew how to write a story.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
My Mystery Moth
I am not a super sleuth.
Peering out the window, I saw an amazing bright orange moth sitting on my porch, soaking up the sun. I bolted out the door to take a photo with my phone.
But he folded himself into a crispy brown fall leaf, swaying lightly in the breeze.
I froze and waited.
Slowly he unfolded.
I inched forward.
Again he folded up.
I inched forward, thinking I would get closer while he was folded and then wait for him to open again with me close enough to capture his splendor.
But he fluttered off to sit on the neighboring porch.
I followed slowly, admiring the large orbs on the top of his antennae. A few feet away, I snapped a photo, hoping it would turn out despite the distance.
Too dark.
I inched foward some more.
He fluttered off, deciding distance was the best way to lose me.
So far, I cannot identify him in a search, and my memory of his details are fading as a peruse through endless images of moths with red-orange and black wings that fold into a crispy brown leaf.
Peering out the window, I saw an amazing bright orange moth sitting on my porch, soaking up the sun. I bolted out the door to take a photo with my phone.
But he folded himself into a crispy brown fall leaf, swaying lightly in the breeze.
I froze and waited.
Slowly he unfolded.
I inched forward.
Again he folded up.
I inched forward, thinking I would get closer while he was folded and then wait for him to open again with me close enough to capture his splendor.
But he fluttered off to sit on the neighboring porch.
I followed slowly, admiring the large orbs on the top of his antennae. A few feet away, I snapped a photo, hoping it would turn out despite the distance.
Too dark.
I inched foward some more.
He fluttered off, deciding distance was the best way to lose me.
So far, I cannot identify him in a search, and my memory of his details are fading as a peruse through endless images of moths with red-orange and black wings that fold into a crispy brown leaf.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Grilled Cheese Heaven!!!
Today, I got home pretty late, so I wanted something quick. I made something quick.
O. M. G.
I made grilled cheese ...with potato rosemary bread.
I grilled it in a ton of butter and spread mascarpone cheese on the bread. Then I put a couple slices of colby jack cheese on it. YUM!!!
Did I mention that I made roasted red carrots to eat on the side?
Five carrots sliced up, tossed with olive and sesame oils, cayenne pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, smoked paprika, and tobasco. I laid them out on a cookie sheet, salted them, and put them in my pre-heated 400 degree oven. More yum!
Life is good.
O. M. G.
I made grilled cheese ...with potato rosemary bread.
I grilled it in a ton of butter and spread mascarpone cheese on the bread. Then I put a couple slices of colby jack cheese on it. YUM!!!
Did I mention that I made roasted red carrots to eat on the side?
Five carrots sliced up, tossed with olive and sesame oils, cayenne pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, smoked paprika, and tobasco. I laid them out on a cookie sheet, salted them, and put them in my pre-heated 400 degree oven. More yum!
Life is good.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Wonky Stomach Sick Day Productivity
I'm home today with a wonky stomach, which is uncomfortable, but feeling not so well has it's perks.
For example, it is almost noon, and I am still in bed in my pajamas. I finished one of the books I was reading (Asimov's The Gods Themselves, if you were wondering--it was really good). I have had ample cuddling time with my cat. I gave my blog a generic makeover because I'm sure nobody appreciated the chaos it was except me. I read some emails, which included a feed from one of my favorite blogs.
Yummy Books posted a new entry about a wine-braised leg of lamb with wild mushrooms inspired by The Secret History. I haven't read the book (I'm not sure it's my kind of thing, but the food sounds genius, if a bit expensive and difficult to put together here in Wichita, KS. I'll have to do a lot of fudging to make such a meal happen, but I'm going to make this Friday night. Lord knows I don't want to make the moon food from The Gods Themselves. Man-made substances that taste of peanut-flavored veal just don't appeal to me. Yuck.
Tall other wouldn't approve either, and he's coming for a visit this weekend. Since he loves lamb and he also loves mushrooms, what luck I have that the wine-braised lamb blog came out today! I had been planning on making red roasted carrots and lamb for Friday anyway, but I hadn't begun to plan how to make the lamb. Mushrooms are a stroke of genius that hadn't occurred to me while planning this particular food adventure. It's a good thing Yummy Books came to my rescue.
I think I'm going to have to drive out east to get fancy mushrooms, but the butcher shop I want to get the lamb from is out west. Blergh evil driving. Oh well. I'll do it for the tall one. He's been super stressed on his job hunt, so I think he deserves some fancy feasting.
If I spy any blood oranges at the uppity east side grocery store, I might try my hand at making a blood orange jello with panna cotta--something he had for dessert the last time we dressed up and went out to indulge our gluttony. Or we can just eat girl scout cookies.
He also requested bacon and waffles on Saturday morning. That's definitely a food-want I can resolve without any extra stress or expense on my part. I do love that he also has simple tastes.
Well, I think this wonky-stomached individual is going to fill a bath and soak while listening to an audiobook. I may even do a little lesson writing for work since I brought some home.
For example, it is almost noon, and I am still in bed in my pajamas. I finished one of the books I was reading (Asimov's The Gods Themselves, if you were wondering--it was really good). I have had ample cuddling time with my cat. I gave my blog a generic makeover because I'm sure nobody appreciated the chaos it was except me. I read some emails, which included a feed from one of my favorite blogs.
Yummy Books posted a new entry about a wine-braised leg of lamb with wild mushrooms inspired by The Secret History. I haven't read the book (I'm not sure it's my kind of thing, but the food sounds genius, if a bit expensive and difficult to put together here in Wichita, KS. I'll have to do a lot of fudging to make such a meal happen, but I'm going to make this Friday night. Lord knows I don't want to make the moon food from The Gods Themselves. Man-made substances that taste of peanut-flavored veal just don't appeal to me. Yuck.
Tall other wouldn't approve either, and he's coming for a visit this weekend. Since he loves lamb and he also loves mushrooms, what luck I have that the wine-braised lamb blog came out today! I had been planning on making red roasted carrots and lamb for Friday anyway, but I hadn't begun to plan how to make the lamb. Mushrooms are a stroke of genius that hadn't occurred to me while planning this particular food adventure. It's a good thing Yummy Books came to my rescue.
I think I'm going to have to drive out east to get fancy mushrooms, but the butcher shop I want to get the lamb from is out west. Blergh evil driving. Oh well. I'll do it for the tall one. He's been super stressed on his job hunt, so I think he deserves some fancy feasting.
If I spy any blood oranges at the uppity east side grocery store, I might try my hand at making a blood orange jello with panna cotta--something he had for dessert the last time we dressed up and went out to indulge our gluttony. Or we can just eat girl scout cookies.
He also requested bacon and waffles on Saturday morning. That's definitely a food-want I can resolve without any extra stress or expense on my part. I do love that he also has simple tastes.
Well, I think this wonky-stomached individual is going to fill a bath and soak while listening to an audiobook. I may even do a little lesson writing for work since I brought some home.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Spiced Molasses Muffins
Cooking Light put out a recipe called Tuscan Lemon Muffins. They are some of the lightest, fluffiest, flakiest muffins I have ever eaten. Pure genius. I give credit to two things: the use of ricotta cheese in the recipe and large quantities of baking powder (double what you see in a lot of other muffin recipes).
I could eat a creamy, lemon muffin every day. And yet it seems like such a nuisance to go buy a lemon to make them.
Enter cupboard ingredient I need to find a use for--molasses. Don't get me wrong, I love molasses. I actually drizzle it on a fried egg over-medium, sprinkle a little cayenne pepper on top. It's like pure heaven of sweet, spicy, creamy goodness with the earthy bitter aftertaste of the molasses cut by the creamy egg. It's one of my favorite things.
Unfortunately, not all molasses is made alike. My breakfast egg is best served with Brer Rabbit Mild, but my grocery store was out, so I bought Grandma's Original--the only molasses they had that day. It's a good molasses, but not for eating so exposed on an egg. The bitter aftertaste is more than I can take, so it's been sitting in the back of the cupboard, waiting for some other use. I keep thinking I should bake it into bread.
Yesterday, I ate my last little cup of lemony, muffiny heaven, and I decided the next batch of muffins should be made with molasses, but as I perused muffin recipes, I noticed that a lot of the muffins made with molasses looked dense--not puffy and fluffy like I would prefer.
So I thougth to myself, what would happen if I applied some of the principles of the Tuscan Lemon Muffin to the concept of a Ginger Molasses Muffin?
It turns out, I am totally out of ginger, so I had to deviate on the spices quite a bit. I also spent quite a bit of time reading about baking powder and baking soda to decide how much I wanted to include in my recipe. I asked myself questions like "Do I need to add vinegar to have some of the effect that the lemon juice has in the lemon muffins?"
After some slight pondering, I rushed in and just did whatever I wanted. The end result was amazing. It's taking so much self control not to eat another right now.
Here's the recipe:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper cups and spray with a non-stick spray.
In a large bowl, mix together:
Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes back clean. Remove hot muffins from the pan and allow to cool on a wire rack. Eat at least one while it's still warm.
If they're anything like the lemon muffins, they'll be best over time if frozen, then popped in the microwave for 30 seconds when you want to eat in the morning (my microwave takes a whole minute, but it's...special).
Today's muffin adventure also inspired what I'm hoping to call a "Chai Tea Muffin," but I'll wait to report on that until after I actually venture to make it--think an increase in the spice level, changing out the milk for cooled black tea (brewed dark), and replacing the molasses with a lesser quanity of honey. Mmmmmm.
I could eat a creamy, lemon muffin every day. And yet it seems like such a nuisance to go buy a lemon to make them.
Enter cupboard ingredient I need to find a use for--molasses. Don't get me wrong, I love molasses. I actually drizzle it on a fried egg over-medium, sprinkle a little cayenne pepper on top. It's like pure heaven of sweet, spicy, creamy goodness with the earthy bitter aftertaste of the molasses cut by the creamy egg. It's one of my favorite things.
Unfortunately, not all molasses is made alike. My breakfast egg is best served with Brer Rabbit Mild, but my grocery store was out, so I bought Grandma's Original--the only molasses they had that day. It's a good molasses, but not for eating so exposed on an egg. The bitter aftertaste is more than I can take, so it's been sitting in the back of the cupboard, waiting for some other use. I keep thinking I should bake it into bread.
Yesterday, I ate my last little cup of lemony, muffiny heaven, and I decided the next batch of muffins should be made with molasses, but as I perused muffin recipes, I noticed that a lot of the muffins made with molasses looked dense--not puffy and fluffy like I would prefer.
So I thougth to myself, what would happen if I applied some of the principles of the Tuscan Lemon Muffin to the concept of a Ginger Molasses Muffin?
It turns out, I am totally out of ginger, so I had to deviate on the spices quite a bit. I also spent quite a bit of time reading about baking powder and baking soda to decide how much I wanted to include in my recipe. I asked myself questions like "Do I need to add vinegar to have some of the effect that the lemon juice has in the lemon muffins?"
After some slight pondering, I rushed in and just did whatever I wanted. The end result was amazing. It's taking so much self control not to eat another right now.
Here's the recipe:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper cups and spray with a non-stick spray.
In a large bowl, mix together:
- 2 cups flour (I used 1 cup all purpose and 1 cup whole wheat).
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cardamom
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp clove
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1/2 cup milk
- 3/4 cup ricotta
- 1/2 cup molasses
Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes back clean. Remove hot muffins from the pan and allow to cool on a wire rack. Eat at least one while it's still warm.
If they're anything like the lemon muffins, they'll be best over time if frozen, then popped in the microwave for 30 seconds when you want to eat in the morning (my microwave takes a whole minute, but it's...special).
Today's muffin adventure also inspired what I'm hoping to call a "Chai Tea Muffin," but I'll wait to report on that until after I actually venture to make it--think an increase in the spice level, changing out the milk for cooled black tea (brewed dark), and replacing the molasses with a lesser quanity of honey. Mmmmmm.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Off Beat with the City
Bundled up, I am a rainbow: yellow coat, pink hat, gloves in two shades of blue. I have a green backpack. I'm ready to brave the cold and ride my bike to work.
I hop on my bike, begin to pedal. No soft clicking. The chain is off. I'm immobile.
I hop off, pull at the chain, and snap it back onto the gear. On again, click-click-click-click, the soft sounds of the gears pick up pace until they whirrrrrrrr, and I race to get to work, to make up for the brief delay of the off-chain.
Click-click-click-click, the tempo increases, but the sense of urgency is pulled back, slowed, by the soft huuuuh, of each panting breath. Click-click-click-click-huuuuuuuuuuuuh.
The rhythm is Zen, and I'm lost in it. I can't even hear the irregular wuuuuusssh of the cars passing by because there's only the clicking and panting. All other sounds are blocked out. The blood rushing through my ears denies them entry.
But the light up ahead turns yellow. I stop pedalling and the click is silenced, but my breath is still going...huuuuuuuuuuuuh, pause, huuuuuuuuuuuuh.
I squeeze the brakes kshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The noises of the city regain hold--all sounds of the movement of cars. No birds. No wind stirring grass or trees. I alone seem to be living in the concrete and rubber and metal.
A small man, wearing all blacks and greys, shrunken into himself with the cold, crosses the street, and as he steps up onto the sidewalk in front of me he looks up and says, "Don't ride too fast now." He smiles. I smile. Though silent, the smiles sing, they blare joy as loud as any trumpet. Two races, two classes, two genders, two ages--two worlds in fact, but this man is my neighbor, and I love him for silencing the city with his smile.
He continues down the sidewalk, and the cars resume their insect buzzing. The light changes. Cliiiick-cliick-click-click-click-click-huuuuuuuuuuuuh. Gone is the city once again. There is only me, the pumping of my calves, and the rushing of my blood.
But a few blocks later a light goes amber, kshhhhh. An abrupt cutoff of my inner beat. I focus on the orange hand, telling me not cross, holding my pause. This light is my conductor, and I am frozen until it releases me to continue the song.
Beebeeeeeeep! I look right to see the driver of an SUV waving at me and pulling up along the curb nearest my bike and me. I think he needs directions, so I unstraddle my bike and walk over.
"I've seen you before. And I wanted to stop because I didn't think I'd see you again. My name is Akeem. Can I give you my number?"
I'm awkward so I take the torn corner of a book cover with his number hastily written on the inside and find myself offering my own name and number. I am not interested in a date, but I have an irrational fear of confrontation, so I default to being congenial even when I just want to mind my own business and maintain seeming invisibility.
He drives on. I look up. The orange hand tells me to stay where I am. I missed my cue and must wait through another light.
When I resume pedalling there is no click, no panting, no rushing blood. The city has broken my song with intruding thoughts of "I should have said no." The words sever the beats of my rhythm all day.
When I ride home, the halting thoughts are still there, alongside an urgency to outpace the fading sunlight. There is no music for this ride, so loud are my worries. As I pedal the last block, in my rainbow of winter gear, the unsettling knock of "I should have said no; I need to get home" is interrupted by a long deliberate haaaaaahaahaaaahaaaaaaaa.
A head stuck out the window of a red truck is laughing at me. What do they find so funny? Do they think because I'm riding a bike in the cold that I cannot afford a car? Is that funny? It shouldn't be. Regardless, I am riding a bike in the cold because it is good. My blood is flowing. I am healthy. No noxious fumes do I throw in the air.
No matter. I am feet from my door. The ride is over. The day is done. The city has won, and its song is in my head--a steady drumming of anger offset by irregular taps of anxiety.
My beat is off from this city. My rhythm cannot move here, cannot play out a song.
I hop on my bike, begin to pedal. No soft clicking. The chain is off. I'm immobile.
I hop off, pull at the chain, and snap it back onto the gear. On again, click-click-click-click, the soft sounds of the gears pick up pace until they whirrrrrrrr, and I race to get to work, to make up for the brief delay of the off-chain.
Click-click-click-click, the tempo increases, but the sense of urgency is pulled back, slowed, by the soft huuuuh, of each panting breath. Click-click-click-click-huuuuuuuuuuuuh.
The rhythm is Zen, and I'm lost in it. I can't even hear the irregular wuuuuusssh of the cars passing by because there's only the clicking and panting. All other sounds are blocked out. The blood rushing through my ears denies them entry.
But the light up ahead turns yellow. I stop pedalling and the click is silenced, but my breath is still going...huuuuuuuuuuuuh, pause, huuuuuuuuuuuuh.
I squeeze the brakes kshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The noises of the city regain hold--all sounds of the movement of cars. No birds. No wind stirring grass or trees. I alone seem to be living in the concrete and rubber and metal.
A small man, wearing all blacks and greys, shrunken into himself with the cold, crosses the street, and as he steps up onto the sidewalk in front of me he looks up and says, "Don't ride too fast now." He smiles. I smile. Though silent, the smiles sing, they blare joy as loud as any trumpet. Two races, two classes, two genders, two ages--two worlds in fact, but this man is my neighbor, and I love him for silencing the city with his smile.
He continues down the sidewalk, and the cars resume their insect buzzing. The light changes. Cliiiick-cliick-click-click-click-click-huuuuuuuuuuuuh. Gone is the city once again. There is only me, the pumping of my calves, and the rushing of my blood.
But a few blocks later a light goes amber, kshhhhh. An abrupt cutoff of my inner beat. I focus on the orange hand, telling me not cross, holding my pause. This light is my conductor, and I am frozen until it releases me to continue the song.
Beebeeeeeeep! I look right to see the driver of an SUV waving at me and pulling up along the curb nearest my bike and me. I think he needs directions, so I unstraddle my bike and walk over.
"I've seen you before. And I wanted to stop because I didn't think I'd see you again. My name is Akeem. Can I give you my number?"
I'm awkward so I take the torn corner of a book cover with his number hastily written on the inside and find myself offering my own name and number. I am not interested in a date, but I have an irrational fear of confrontation, so I default to being congenial even when I just want to mind my own business and maintain seeming invisibility.
He drives on. I look up. The orange hand tells me to stay where I am. I missed my cue and must wait through another light.
When I resume pedalling there is no click, no panting, no rushing blood. The city has broken my song with intruding thoughts of "I should have said no." The words sever the beats of my rhythm all day.
When I ride home, the halting thoughts are still there, alongside an urgency to outpace the fading sunlight. There is no music for this ride, so loud are my worries. As I pedal the last block, in my rainbow of winter gear, the unsettling knock of "I should have said no; I need to get home" is interrupted by a long deliberate haaaaaahaahaaaahaaaaaaaa.
A head stuck out the window of a red truck is laughing at me. What do they find so funny? Do they think because I'm riding a bike in the cold that I cannot afford a car? Is that funny? It shouldn't be. Regardless, I am riding a bike in the cold because it is good. My blood is flowing. I am healthy. No noxious fumes do I throw in the air.
No matter. I am feet from my door. The ride is over. The day is done. The city has won, and its song is in my head--a steady drumming of anger offset by irregular taps of anxiety.
My beat is off from this city. My rhythm cannot move here, cannot play out a song.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)