Unfurled

I got my first bicycle when I was eight years old. We were living in a two bedroom, second-floor apartment on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx kitty corner to Montefiore Hospital. My plan was to ride in Oval Park. We bought the bike from Toys-R-Us on my birthday– it was bright blue with stripes and painted butterflies. I can’t believe I actually would’ve picked that one, but judging from my photos back then, I suppose that was the best to be expected. I never got around to learning how to ride that bike– we did cart it to our new home in the suburbs, but finally had the sense to give it away five years later, rusty and squeaky, to my younger cousin who had just arrived from Korea. Somehow I bypassed the bike-riding-learning stage without actually achieving what I now believe should be a major childhood milestone.

When I bought my second bike, I was old enough to pay for it myself. It was a used folding Dahon bike DB discovered on Beacon Street in Boston that was for sale. As I was unable to actually ride the bike, he kindly offered to drive me and the bike back home. The bike needed a little check up and some work done before I could ride it safely– BL drove me and the bike to a local bike shop where I spent the next three hours lovingly changing the brakes, replacing the brakelines, cleaning the gears and changing the tires. When I was done, BL fetched me and the bike in his car and drove it back home. And that was pretty much it. I did try to ride it once, but if you know anything about the size of the wheels of these bikes, you also know that they’re pretty darn small. Every time I steered off center (which felt like every moment), the bike would veer off to the side, inevitably into a person. When I saw a little kid learning to ride his bicycle managing the park paths much better than I was ever going to on this thing, I quit.

Now, four years later I found myself standing in front of a row of bikes the Walmart in Hernando, Florida. My sister, brother-in-law, nephew and I are visiting my parents for an extended holiday weekend. There’s nothing to do here except eat. We could run but it’s too hot, we could swim in the pool, but that would mean running there, we could drive there, but that seems slightly ridiculous since it’s only a mile away. Somehow getting some bicycles seemed to offer not only a reasonable third option, but the potential of opening up the second. I chose a $99 21-speed 24 (inch?) boys Mongoose. The seat is thin– about 3 inches across, which I presume is enough to accommodate the butts of little boys, but definitely insufficient to carry mine comfortably. I bought a gel cushion seat that’s about 7 inches wide which my brother-in-law installed. I cut off all the tags and took my bike for a spin. I promptly got yelled at because I was trying to start by putting both feet up on the pedals which granted was making me tip over, but is that really a reason to yell? I had to relinquish my bike for a demo. After a few false starts, I found my self going further down the street. I rode for about 30 minutes in fits and starts. My bum was hurting and I was sweating from the anxiety. But. I made it down to the park and only got stuck four times.

And not writing about the laments of people too old, too young, too wrapped up in their own heads.

So today I shall list the 5 facts about sheep, Blackberries and Spaniards:
1. Female sheep are ewes, intact males are rams, castrated males are wethers, yearlings are hoggets, and younger sheep are lambs.

2. Using a Blackberry as an alarm clock leaves you with three options: A. Snooze, B. Dismiss, C. Do nothing, which is really the same as an Infinite Snooze since the alarm stops and waits silently for you to select A or B.

3. A yearling is any animal that is anywhere from 12 to 24 months old. That makes sense. This is different from shearling which is either: A. A yearling that has been shorn once, or B. The wool from said shorn yearling.

4. Milk-fed lamb is the meat of newborn sheep up to 6 weeks old. Lamb is the meat of sheep a month to a year old. Hogget is the meat of 1-2 year old sheep. and mutton can be the meat of either goat or old sheep. Milk-fed lamb is generally unavailable in the US, but is available in Spain.

5. I’ve heard they eat newborn pigs too.

It’s been that long since I’ve written here. I’d been feeling mute with indecision and frankly, couldn’t bring myself to write anything down because to do so would have only brought my lack of acuity into stark relief.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still as undecided as ever. But what I did decide this past week, is to decide to be undecided. I decided that it would be ok to step off the hamster wheel for a moment, enjoy the fruits of my labors a little bit and yes, assess the situation with a well-oxygenated soul.

I did what I don’t think I’ve done in years: I took the weekend off. I mean really. Instead of thinking about work and maybe or maybe not doing any or heading down to New York, I relaxed. I went to Crane’s beach, got burned, went to the museum, read a book (‘Stumbling on Happiness’ by Daniel Gilbert) and got a full 8 1/2 hours of sleep each night.

Tonight, I had dinner with a friend. He tells me of his mother’s recent decline in health, his daughter’s best friend with steals from her, his ex-wife’s self-imposed unemployment that will force him to deplete his financial resources further, and his friend’s separation from his wife of only 8 months.

I’ll add to this the story of my friend who moved to the beautiful Westchester suburbs, quit a lucrative job as a gastrenterologist and had a second healthy child all within the same month, and who now is tearful and asking herself ‘is this what it’s all about?’

I realize that human suffering, as it were, comes in all shapes and sizes. This is a truism– but for some reason, one that I never quite understood until recently. It was in the nadir of my mood, where I seemed not to care to lose all connection with the world except for a few well-fortified ones. Here I was. I felt an emotional pain, that while it didn’t bring tears to my eyes, I felt big, hot, plump ones cascading everywhere inside of me. Then I spoke with that friend of mine– the one with the children, the beautiful house, the great husband, the nanny– and I listened to her crying to me.

I realized something.

The elderly woman and her children facing her mortality, the 13 year old who can’t trust her best friend at time in your life when best friends are all you really care about, the ex-husband who’s trying his best not to be an ex-father, the husband of still-a-bride, the once succesful physician divided between children whom she can’t live without and can’t live with alone.

This is what we call life. Some of life’s experiences make us feel great; others, not so much. These are the undulations of life that will never go away.