Free Wheel

I am sitting in a basement playroom with three men, aged 22, 25, and 29. They are playing Contra on an old Nintendo and we are drinking homemade brown ginger beer.

I've been on vacation for a month. School starts tomorrow.

Today my boyfriend helped me tune up an old French mixte racing bike I got at a yard sale. I've been riding an old Schwinn fixed gear with fashion wheels for a couple years. I've got my current bike set up more like a European city bike as opposed to the aggressively traffic taunting track bikes that have given fixies a bad name. I mostly have stuck with riding fixed because of how much control I have at slow speeds, which is really handy for a klutz like me in the snow and rain and permanently eroding Chicago streets.

A few months ago I changed neighborhoods. My new place is on the top floor and full of light. I am so happy to be able to see nothing but sky out my windows, but the extra
mileage and extra stairs have my leg muscles feeling like old crumbly rubber
bands.

After M trimmed my new bike's bars and redid the brakes and derailleurs, I did a lap around the block. It took me a while to get used to the pedals not moving when I stopped pedalling.


Life's been too good to write about without sounding schmatlzy. It scares the crap out of me sometimes. I keep waiting for the catch. I get a little bit closer to being able to let go and relax and be happy.

Sometimes it feels so good to stop pedalling and just coast.