June 2008 Archives

It's been an up-and-down week. There's a lot to figure out, things that I feel are going to end up saying a lot about who I am, and what my life is going to be. And that weight is already sitting atop a weakened structure of will and belief.

The biking helps. Visiting with my friend Julia and her daughter Daniella helped.

This morning felt empty again, though. I woke up a little late, got ready, got on the bike.

A few nights ago, driving home with my friend Amber from a party, I saw a little dog running manically beside Lamar, across the front of a used car dealership. We stopped, and I tried to get the dog to come to me. It hardly stopped to size me up, barked, and continued running. Trying to circle around it, trying to be patient, nothing worked. It just got farther and farther away from me. Something felt vaguely familiar about it all.

This morning, I turned left across the traffic at Lamar, pedaled hard to cross to the far right lane, and to get up to the speed of the traffic. A block down, I was able to let up a little. The wind in my face, though hot and sticky, was good.

There, on the curb of the car dealership, was a little ragged white and brown form. I don't know if someone had dragged him to the side, or if he had crawled there. I don't know how long he had been dead. He still had his collar and tags. I thought about turning back, checking the tags and calling the owners, but it would be obvious to the people at the car lot, which would be opening soon, and I had faith they'd take care of it.

Maybe it was the wrong choice on my part. It's not the one I'd usually make. But today, I couldn't stand the thought of finally catching up to the little dog, when it was far too late.

and i'm here, at work. they turn the HVAC off on Sundays. I rode my bike, after sleeping late, finally, so tired. i saw my friend amber last night, and i reconnected with that year, working at the coffee shop and becoming fed up with my life as an attorney. i went to see amber's friend, hope irish, play at antone's, and i reconnected with

i'm working, and listening to This American Life, about a man that couldn't read - at all. he tried to drive trucks for a while, but couldn't even read street signs, road signs, city limit signs, exit signs, one-way signs. he was always late, and his paychecks were docked, and his wife left him, and he lost that job. at 45, he began a literacy program. he has assignments now, has to do a report on a book, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish...

If I was to show that to people, they would say, 'wow," I don't know, they would really try to embarass you. But at home, by myself, I'm happy, with just reading this. This is better than reading anything at all. Just a simple book.

He says that now when he gets lost, he can read his way back.

tears are a thing again, lately, and the man, so late in his life, his enjoyment of Dr. Seuss, his being limited to it... yeah, that does it.

I rode down to Fagan's going away party. nice people. i met him running, with that bunch, and one of the coaches is there. I hadn't seen her since the day it all came down. she didn't look at me that day. today, she's kind as ever, says "water under the bridge." I tell her I wish it was for everybody. I mean them, but I also mean me. It's not for me. in 39 years, after going to middle school and high school in Westlake, of all God-forsaken places, those were the first people that ever made me just want to leave this town, my town.

i can't get to things. i can't get past things. they can laugh, or shake their heads in amazement at these inabilities, but you can do that when you haven't lost shit. it's easy to judge when you don't lose.

i don't know. i'm tired. tired of them, tired of me. i keep feeling like i rely on cheap lies for hope. my friends are real (more real than some of the ones in the past, clearly). and she's real. her love for me is real. and she's leaving town. what can i be to her when she's gone? what can i be to her when she comes back?

sorry, there's no ending to this. not yet.

I was late to work today, but not for the usual reason, not because I clutched desperately for the shelter of unconsciousness. I came home, had to get things together for work, packed them into my new Ortlieb waterproof bag that fits on the new rack on my newly revived old Specialized Rockhopper mountain bike.

Recently, I've been back on the bike to a significant degree for the first time since I was a teenager, when it was the one sport I ever really showed some real promise at. My girlfriend, Christina, bought a new bike for her summertime triathloning adventures, and I started riding with her.

Gas prices and traffic no doubt played some quiet, subconscious role in the decision to ride my bike to work for the first time in years. The greater influence was my new love affair with Mellow Johnny's, Lance Armstrong's new bike shop downtown, just a few blocks from my office. The nice, clean showers and lockers answer the overriding issue of my ability to sweat profusely at the drop, and bending over and picking up, of a hat.

And then there's the need for peace. I spent some peaceful afternoons and evenings working on the old steel bike, cleaning it, tuning it, stripping off the unnecessary bits and adding new marginally necessary bits.

Now, several mornings a week, I wrangle the laden bike down the stairs, pedal out of the steep hollow of my apartment complex's parking lot, and onto South Lamar. It's two miles of downhill, smooth and fast, and though I'm surrounded by morning traffic, I'm moving in the peace of a reality just slightly out of phase with the people in their cars. I can push a little, and I keep up with the cars. I've started wearing a helmet after suffering the caring ridicule of my girlfriend and several other friends, and after a couple of trucks almost clipped me one morning. But I still feel the wind in my face, the energy moving through the two patches of contact between rubber and asphalt, and it's a very, very good thing. Peace. I look into the cars around me, and see the delayed reflection of my own face driving to work - tired, annoyed, a little angry, already a little defeated.

Taking the bike to work for me is an escape, a rebellion, a postponement of the part of my day that only means a paycheck. And, as exercise, it's the only thing that is more joy than obligation right now. I run at this point because I can't really stop. My feet have hurt for over a year and a half now, advancing to the point where walking a few blocks is just a bit more painful than I'd like. But I fear losing what I've gained as a runner, and as a coach, and I fear losing what I've lost, in terms of weight and sloth.

But the bike is something different. It's all mine. It's a strength, and a love. I pull into Mellow Johnny's, lock it up, come in through its coffeeshop cheekily named "Juan Pelota", "pelota" being Spanish for "ball"). On some mornings, when I ride farther or stop to drown myself for half an hour at Barton Springs, as I did today, I get an iced chai latte, chat a little with the barrista, walk through the shop just stirring, morning chatter and music, and peace, like time and space themselves have been pulled out of the vise we keep them in.

I still have to go to work. I still have to run. There's still lots to do, and I and the people around me will abuse and crush time and space again. But I've won some little part of the day, and of a better, peaceful, smiling me.