1. Due to weather, time, and baby, don't ride your beloved bike for, oh, nine months.
2. Have a productive morning, going to the park with the baby and dog, working on the surprise baby gift for C's shower this weekend, and generally crossing things off your list while feeling Very Efficient, Indeed.
3. After fortifying yourself with a piece of homemade bread and peanut butter (um, not homemade, because you're a hippie but you're not crazy), hand off the babe to your grease-monkey husband who has just tuned up your bike for you (and yes, ideally you'd be all Rosie the Riveter and do it yourself, but you were baking bread, sewing, and minding the baby...less Rosie the Riveter and more Rosie the Robot from the Jetsons, but never mind) and grab your helmet.
4. Reassure instantly-sobbing baby that you'll be gone for 30 minutes and that you are not, as he would assert, taking the very oxygen from his lungs while you're gone.
5. Start pedaling, relishing the muscles moving in familiar ways, feeling that quintessential almost-flying-but-still-grounded feeling that you love. Your MP3 player begins playing the Shins' "Kissing the Lipless." For a minute, you aren't the sleep-deprived mom with gray roots, working long hours and fretting about healthcare reform and an ominous-sounding "re-organization" at work--you're That Girl, wearing stripey knee socks and Chucks, grinning at pedestrians and pitying drivers trapped inside vehicles as the breeze lifts your hair and you stand on the pedals to crank up a hill.
6. As you get to a nearly deserted street, get some speed behind you and coast around the corner into the full-on sunshine, just as the Shins hit the chorus.
There.
(Hee. I included the video as a way to share the song, but didn't realize until I watched it that it features a Napoleon Dynamite-esque skating dude. You're welcome.)
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Awesome! Every time I ride my bike, I feel like a kid again. But I ride a lot without my fam because getting a few of my own minutes whisking through sunshine is like my own version of church. Love it.
ReplyDeleteP.S. If you haven't ridden in a while, I'm guessing today your lady parts are crying, "Why? Why? Why?" today. It will get better. :)
It sounds so much more like fun when someone else is doing it. I have really bad balance. I prefer to walk in the sun. ; )
ReplyDeleteMy crotch doesn't like bicycles, yet I wish I still had one. I just can't convince myself to store it in my living room. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteajm--An excellent description of a solo bike ride. Surprisingly, my lady bits were just fine. I have a really squooshy seat, and was only out for a half-hour. But I know the soreness of which you speak, and yea, it sucketh.
ReplyDeleteSoccerMom--See, and I feel more ungainly when I walk! I trip a lot...
Elly--No matter how squooshy the seat, a bike isn't kind to the Vajazzled.