whew! a couple of weeks and my self-image has transformed from incipiently-chubby-office-worker-person to buff biker chica. that's me in the mornings, pushing it stubbornly up the manhattan bridge, eating the dust of the n/r train till i can smell the fish markets in chinatown. that's me, slaloming between delivery trucks on canal street and nodding to the traffic cops. before my first cup of coffee, before getting any sugar in my blood. the first few trips i wasn't sure it was ever going to get easier, but this week it suddenly doesn't feel so futile. i'm putting the pieces together to learn where things are, to figure out the best route. i look out for other bikers and follow them to little shortcuts. i try not to be an asshole to pedestrians and bikers. it feels good. it falls into the no-longer-so-distant-goals list of healthy living along with bread baking, paper sorting, healthy cooking, and being a better correspondent. as yet to be started upon goals include blowing the dust off my lovely musical instruments and writing dead-tree letters. and practicing my french. and reading novels in spanish.
i like deciding what is important to me. i like deciding what kind of adult i want to be. certainly there are things i wish i was more invested in, but i want to stop wasting my time worrying about the world and spend more putting one foot in front of the other. little things. the more i ride up and down brooklyn on my bike the more people i see. watching people in front of their homes, playing and talking and fronting and flirting is nothing like seeing them zombied out on the subway trying to block out all external stimuli. and all the other bikers! there are the guys tricked out with biker shorts and special jerseys and rearview mirrors and then the hipster girls with sack skirts and pointed heels. one time with a skirt was enough for me. i change in the bathroom at work, wondering if it would be inappro if one of my coworkers walked in to see my taking off my sportsbra.