Spoke

Yay, i finally ended my quest for finding a bike. It all happened as i had expected it to. It came from someone who has nothing to do with the places i had intended to buy from (by the way, the guy who wouldn't answer his phone last week sent me a message apologizing for being out of the city. no shit, bike-guy, i thought you were just ignoring a potential customer. oh wait, you were doing that). It looks and works much better than any bike i could have found for my budget and it was even below my initial budget, let alone the new budget that i had thought would bring me a better array of offers. And, as luck would have it, it wasn't even listed anywhere. I just asked some guy in an online bike service (he does the service offline, but advertises on facebook, as if that's going to work... well, it did for me) if he didn't have a bike for me within my budget. He was going to receive one today and was going to let me know about it. I did not expect him to actually keep to his word, so i was so happy that he wrote a message just at the right time. I called him to tell him i'll come to see the bike and he wouldn't let me finish the conversation, kept on telling me how awesome the bike is (for that kind of money...). If your customer is coming to your shop/service/whatever, that's the place to make the sale, not on the phone call that had the sole purpose of letting you know that the potential customer is coming over. I got there a bit earlier, got a little bit of love and a bit of a stink from the resident dog (who's a cutie) and saw the bike. I don't know how to judge bikes and used my little knowledge accumulated during the past two weeks to inspect the bike. It looked all right. He adjusted things here and there and let me go on a little ride out on the street. I had not ridden a bike for more than five years prior to this moment. Thankfully, one never forgets how to ride a bike (unless they suffer from brain damage, but that's a long stretch), so, after a few hiccups, i was up and running, riding actually, trying out this beauty. Well, this nice bike, it's not beautiful in the 'classic' sense of the word, but it's wonderful for me. I love it. So i bought it at a really good price (i have a hunch that the guy sold it to me cheaper because i'm a woman and he really needed some cash - i had not expected him to be my own age, ah well). No matter the reason for the really good price, i think it was a really nice acquisition. I'll now be able to go around the city and dance at the milongas and meet my friends again, after spending so many months in this dump (no, really, walking through mud every day to the university seems a bit off-putting). Today i couldn't see the mud from the light coat of snow that has been falling for the past two days, but it's there, i can feel it.

Feeling brave and suddenly freed by some anonymous force, i decided to pedal back home. It would have been a long and boring walk home beside my new bike. So what if there was a whole lot of snow everywhere? I was so happy to be on a bike and move faster than before. So what if, because of the kick scooter, i'm afraid of even the smallest bump in the road and all the ascents/descents to and from the sidewalk? So what if i don't yet have enough control of the bike to navigate tight spaces? I did get home on the bike, with my legs somewhat locked within themselves, having fallen only once on my face because i clutched the brakes when i didn't have to and they did their thing and stopped me in my path. I only locked the front brakes a bit, but i'm a problem solver, so i solved this in a few minutes, while the snow was piling up on my head. It was so odd, riding with the blizzard sending bits of fluffy ice in my eyes, in my nose. I couldn't breathe, but i've been practicing, so i relaxed and took long, deep breaths to calm down my heart and keep going. Half of the time i was going down anyway. I don't know why i felt the need to go such a long way, i could have taken a much shorter route, it felt safer this way. Less of a difference in height. To my surprise, changing speeds was so easy and after a few minutes it became so normal, that i was able to cross my most hated bridge in two minutes or something. That was a victory! I'm so proud of this bike, even though the roads suck and the traffic is crazy and it was snowing. I made it home safely and will cherish this day for a long time to come. This has been the first step in a, hopefully, very long journey. The hills and surrounding villages await, the mountains and the rivers and the lakes are there just for the taking. Spring and summer, here i come. I've never felt so joyous for having a bike. Nor have i ever been so thankful for it. Now i am.

Regarding the other things, my feelings towards certain people, the ones i'm not talking about, i'd like to say that today i have hit a new low in how bad i feel about this pseudo-friendship of mine with this sweet person far, far away. It seems like every day we drift more and more apart, like he finds excuses (and gets into situations and has things happen to him and his other friends) to not talk to me. It's sad. It hurts. But i'm a strong human being and will get over it. I watched a few TED talks today, one by a french Buddhist monk who seems like a really nice person. He reminded me of the use of mental training. Part of it can be done in writing, acknowledging your feelings and letting them go, cleaning your 'mirror', but part of it can only be done in silent meditation. I think, i don't know, i've tried both methods, writing is much more effective for me in times like these when there is so much going on that thinking is too chaotic or repetitive to be enough for letting go of things. Once written, these feelings can stay written, there is no need to take them back into the mind.

I've been reading Oliver Sacks' Awakenings these last few days, it's a wonderful book that somehow touches me way beyond the clinical/social aspects. I feel these people who had survived until the book was written. They were the last fighters, all smart and exceptional in their own way, none of them is ordinary. It feels like an ordinary person with that illness and the syndrome following the illness would not have made it far. Only the most creative, resilient, strong people made it to 60-70 years of age with that illness. Because they refused to give in to despair and anger, even though they lived more than half or even two thirds of their lives locked inside, unable to move most of the time. They all wrote in their journals. It was so odd to read that. They expressed their feelings in a way they never could have through speech. I feel like one of those people, except i'm young, can move in whichever way i want, and have access to a whole lot of technology, people and research. What is wrong with this head of mine...