sturdy legs

“Sarah Bernhardt made me see the thin arms of Frenchwomen….It was only many years later when the styles changed, in those days they wore long skirts, that I realized what sturdy legs went with those thin arms. That is what makes the French such good soldiers the sturdy legs, thin arms and sturdy legs, if you see what I mean, peaceful and exciting.
That is what makes all the French able to ride up hill on bicycles the way they do, no hill is so steep but that slowly pedaling up and up they go, men and girls and little children, the sturdy legs and thin arms.”
—Gertrude Stein, Paris, France, 1940

Today is also the one-week anniversary of me and my little blue bike. I love my little blue bike! I love it in spite of the horrible pain it puts me in. I’m a fool for its punishment. I’ve ridden it every day but one this week—to my friends’ house, to the drugstore, to the library, and yesterday the long haul—to the church and the grocery store. That was a challenge, a pause-giving consideration. Not of the bike’s powers but of mine, and also of the relationship. I bought it not only for love, but also for practicality—everywhere I need to go this summer seemed reachable by bicycle. Including church and grocery. But the thought of actually making the journey last evening, after a full hot day of trekking around town already, made me wonder if I had been idealistic. I am that, on rare occasions.

But do you know, it wasn’t a battle really at all, in the sense that it was not a real question of whether or not I would go forth on my little blue bike. The only doubt was of how far I would get before I passed out or something. The commitment was there, it had been from the moment I set eyes…well, hindquarters, actually…on the bottle-blue fat-tired fifty-year-old Mercury, the commitment to go nowhere without it, even if it meant forgoing the most direct route. As in the present case of church and grocery.

There is a lot to be said for pain at the beginning of something, as opposed to having it come later. It lets you know what you’re getting into. This morning I felt like I’d been run over by a truck. My body is sore in places that it will be no consolation to have callouses in. But yeah, yeah, as soon as I can move about and get a shower, I’ll be back on that little blue machine. I don’t anticipate that the pain I’m undergoing now is only for a time, that I’m getting it out of the way early. This bike only has one speed. It’s just less painful than paying for gas. That is freedom, I think—being able to choose what brand of suffering you will live with.

Love.

(first published 6/29/07, 9.08am)