by mepheta Leave a comment >
breeze in hand
captured for a moment there,
swirled about, escaped, rippled through hair
Lean into the curve
the frame an extension of being.
the pedal cadence a complex intimacy.
I know your curves and angles, road, the timing of the light
your treacherous strips of potholes and debris
the constant ebb and flow that is the traffic of your asphalt heart
I alter course accordingly.
One is never as free
as when riding a bike.
by mepheta Leave a comment >
small silvery glint
a minnow in a river of asphalt
a single dime
swam in place on the street
hot like lava
in the afternoon sun
come
jump in my pocket
and be rescued
1 Bikes are easier to repair than cars.
2 Improved cardio
3 Bikes on an average, cost less than cars.
4 You can fit more bikes in a two car garage, than you can fit cars in a two car garage.
5 You never have to roll the windows down on the trip home on Mexican food night.
6 No car insurance costs.
7 No gasoline costs.
8 Inner tubes and tires are less expensive to replace than most automobile tires.
9 You will learn the road intimately. Every curb, stick, pebble, shard of glass.
10 You can alter course much more quickly on a bike than in a car.
11 Alleyways rule
12 Traffic jams do not suck when you are a bicylist
13 Rear panniers, flowers, and French bread on a spring day on tree lined avenues. Do it once before you die. It’s happiness. You will see and experience things you never could from an automobile.
14 All of your stress melts away during the commute
15 Leg muscles that don’t quit
16 You get to know all the cool people at the bike shop.
17 Which in turn, gets you knowing all the cool people at the coffee shop.
18 You don’t pollute the environment getting to and from work.
19 You make wiser purchasing decisions. Less is more.
20 Never having to circle the parking lot looking for a place to park.
Did you enjoy yesterday’s inclement weather? I know I did. There’s nothing quite like careening down the street in a bright orange raincoat so that infantile men in big trucks can do roostertails through flooded spots and drench you in water. One hasn’t lived until they have had the contents of an entire gutterfull of water slung on them, trickling down through the properly buttoned coat into their clothes, and underclothes. If they are lucky, they get the extra bonus of fire ants in that gutter water. Nothing, not coffee, hot tea, a splash of cold water , the entire contents of an energy drink, NOTHING wakes you up for a night shift faster than fire ants having a party in your underclothes.
Thankfully, the trip home was less eventful, a good friend loaded my bike up and drove me home. It’s the small and lovely things like that that get us all through. So be kind to people today. You don’t know who has fire ants in their bra.
There’s a spot in my daily commute where a vast sycamore scrapes skyward. In any given season, its leaves or bare branches form a contrasting image against the sky. Whether green and lush, flaming reddish, bare, blue sky, grey and stormy, or clouded, I always slow down, look up, and coast. It is like moving through a kaleidoscopic tunnel on one’s own power. It is one of my favorite parts of my commute.
One has to take these little scraps and pieces of beauty, these small and lovely things, when we find them. Little bits of worn and smoothed road glass, beautiful to look at, but still irretrievably broken. Pennies, washers, stones, screws, the smiles and waves of friends, marbles in gutters, flowers blooming, cats curling about your ankles when you stop for a refreshing beverage break, the wags of dogs tails, and cooling rain on insanely hot days. All of them, and more.
One has to take these things and file them mentally, in some pocket of the mind where they can be retrieved and appreciated later.
Because the world is an unfair place. Because, despite your most educated, wisest, careful, and disciplined planning, things can go terribly, horribly wrong. So wrong that the blue and coppery taste of constantly being crushed will permeate your life. Not always because we choose it to, or because we made a poor decision, but because oftentimes, that decision that was the catalyst for life’s snafu was made out of our hands, and we are tasked with cleaning up in the wake of it. Some blows are so intense they require a series of maneuvers to get level with again. The problem isn’t the problem, it is how we deal with the problem. One has to keep on keeping on. Even so, there is not a single atom, an up quark or down quark that guarantees our efforts will pan out, even if we make the best possible choice.
So it is that all the oleander blooms, the breezes ruffling hair, the smooth and sweet chai drinks, the giggles of babies, and the happiness of people we have done a kindness for, all of these good and invaluable things, we pull them out of mental files, and turn them over and over, catching all the beams of refracted happiness, before we put them away and go on again with lives in which we are deemed worth less than others through the favor of misfortune. Those who have been lucky enough to have their best efforts pay off may sneer or look upon others in lesser stations of elevation as ignorant or undisciplined. Tis a sadness, because sooner or later, misfortune comes acalling, and whether someone is home or not is irrelevant.
Oooh, there’s a penny on the desk.
The hibiscus is no elegant lily, no dainty violet, no fussy orchid. It is a bold, heat loving, showy plant that aside from being beautiful, has useful properties. The Hindu goddess Kali, who we all know means business, chose the red hibiscus as her flower. A distant relative of the marsh mallow (althea officinalis) hibiscus petals are edible, often dried and made into a tisane. It’s loaded with minerals, bioflavinoids and vitamin c, as well as having cosmetic, diuretic, and antistatin properties. The dried stalks can be used as tinder. The bark is fibrous. The flowers attract pollinators such as bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds. There are countless varieties, utilized by many cultures for cosmetic, dietary, and medicinal purposes. In other words, the hibiscus has succeeded in its evolutionary niche.
I see the dog every day, sometimes even in inclement weather, during the commute to work. He is a golden retriever, who races up to the fence to bark loudly at my approach, and passing. He seems to enjoy the very act of barking, whether or not he is cursing, or greeting me in dogspeak is uncertain. What is certain, is that he enjoys urinating on the wrought iron fence that keeps him separated from the hoi polloi that migrate daily by his territory.
His territory is a rough halfway point on my journey. It is possible that when I cruise by glibly, hair blowing in the wind, feet pumping the pedals, he thinks of car rides, open mouths, and tongue lolling good times. Or that possibly, I might taste delicious, or be delightful to chase. I don’t want to find out. Some things go past the sane point of pondering. Like roadkill. I always must look to see what poor creature has met it’s end, and wonder what its life was like. Was it happy? Did it simply miscalculate the distance from tree to tree, or from sidewalk to sidewalk? Did it not see the oncoming traffic, or was the instinct to return to safe territory stronger than the common sense need to survive?
Blooming: oleander, aloe, lilies, ligustrum, oxalis, spiderwort, skullcap, dandelions, buttercups, moss roses, lambs ear, and magnolias
money found: ten cents in the manner of five pennies and one nickel.
Seen but not taken: another automotive bolt. Seriously, I encounter far too many automotive bolts. It’s not a comforting thought.
The daily commute is by bicycle. So it was in muggy ninety degree heat when I stopped after nearly three miles to breathe in the luxurious scent of a blooming white oleander. Dead stop, deep breath, highlight of my day. I must confess to watching it closely for weeks, noticing the swelling tips of flower buds, and calculating the approach of its heady flowers. I snitched a few earlier in the week, to wear in my hair, to scent my bike bag, and because I am a woman who is overfond of botanics, and who finds the subject absolutely fascinating.
I mark my route not necessarily by houses, but by plants. From the brugemensia flowering two blocks ahead on the same street, and further on the journey. The crouching privet surrounding a local bank, a ponderosa lemon laden heavily in the winter, scarlet Bradford pear leaves in fall, a stately sweetgum, a delicate magnolia with pale pink and fuschia blooms in front of a mansions, and showy white African lilies with purple throats growing wild by railroad tracks. I measure the passage of time and season by the plants I encounter daily. The white oleander marks the near end of my journey. When I am cresting that final leg, that little bit left before the last city block, it is my cheerleader. Hanging over like a disobedient child or an exuberant dog from a vehicle window, the oleander reaches out into the street to entice passers by.
Nerium Oleander, as it known by it’s botanical name, possesses cardiac glycosides known as oleandrin and oleandriginein, which can cause virulent vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, tachycardia, seizures, and coma leading to death. Which is why it is advised not to consume it or get the sap on the skin. It isn’t an olive, as many think, instead, it belongs to the Apocyanace family, which also includes dogbane, and the very fragrant plumeria.
In all honesty, I will probably breathe it in on the way home tomorrow as well.
Pushing Petals