There's something completely satisfying and invigorating about a 2 mile walk to the store and back, as cold muscles warm up, skin prickles in the heat. I find intense satisfaction in the primal taste of my own sweat on my lips. I'm just getting reacquainted with this feeling after leading a sedentary lifestyle for a number of years.
I remember being about thirteen, on my old two-speed bike, cycling back and forth on the street my daddy and (at the time) stepmother lived on. Racing back and forth, air rushing across my face, it almost felt like flying, or letting go.
There was so much to let go of. The arguing at home, always concealed behind a locked door. A strained relationship with my mom and the number of events that led up to the tension. Lack of close friends. A cautious identity struggling to emerge, not sure it was ready to face the world. And "boy problems" as I would call them now. Always "boy problems".
But with those wheels spinning beneath me I didn't have to think about any of that. Who would I be trying to impress by displaying my outstanding maturity in the face of troubles? The neighbors? The empty cars? There was nothing but the street and the line of mailboxes, ending in a cul-de-sac, the cracked pavement peppered with flowering weeds. There was no one to make me act adult before I was one.
Of course when I crashed into someone's mailbox, toppling over and leaving an inch long gash that dripped blood all the way back to the house and left a noticeable scar, that was the end of my biking adventures. I was too afraid of getting hurt again. But for that brief year, I found in the spin of the tires and hum of the nearby highway a serenity I haven't really known before then or since. Until now.
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