Reunited with one of my great loves

I was reunited with one of the great loves of my life this afternoon. My parents dropped her off yesterday, and her curves, lines, and quirks are as familiar to me, as nostalgic to behold, as the arrival (and departure) gates at San Francisco International Airport. I couldn’t keep my hands off her, and this morning I woke with the question of where to take her for breakfast.

I had however, forgotten about the rack she has now.

This afternoon we went to the grocery store, an errand I remember with particular fondness in times and lands past…but today’s trip was good too, just in a different way. I picked out jalapeño salsa tortillas, pomegranate berry yogurt, and dark chocolate coconut chews. (The store was magnificent, so impressive it was no surprise to see the wrinkles of discontent in affluent brows that patrolled the aisles, looking for things they could complain about not finding.) We danced together the whole way home, no need for music, we made our own rhythm and melody.

I bought her some new jewellery, to lock her down and keep her for myself. I asked the salesman where the best places to take her around here are, and was gratified to hear his answer, “around here, pretty much anywhere.”

We danced so much in fact, that the Voice of Responsibility in my head had to remind me to pay attention to the sluggish creatures sharing the floor with us; cars just aren’t as graceful as the swoops and leans of my beloved bicycle.

Suddenly this city, not large in itself, but part of a metropolis that spreads far beyond each horizon, is much more attainable, and to my circumstantial delight I find it is crisscrossed with “bike route” streets which offer shady avenues with less autos to pass, more fellow cyclists to nod hello to.

 

Riding again, I just couldn’t stop smiling. Sometimes I fear that a grin that just won’t quit will sometimes drift down to a smirk, but I don’t think that was the case today, as it evoked a succession of kindred expressions, until I was riding through a haze of happy, sparkling with smiles, warm September air, and a body moving in harmony with a machine, with itself, with a place.

God I enjoy bike riding.