March 19th, 2009
Wait! This is dangerous! (AHHHHHHH!)
It is so great to get out on your bike after long, pregnancy-induced sedentarism (is that a real word?). Yesterday I dropped the kids with the Wednesday sitter and jumped up on Anne’s bike. I had to use hers as mine had been out of commission for so long that the tires were low. It amused me to be riding Anne’s bike from North to NW Portland, largely because she had lived in NW and to my thinking, her bike was “accustomed” to coming the other way. I was thinking of a bike like a horse when you ride it away from the barn and it is all reluctant and difficult. Then you turn it for home and it is suddenly so fast and cooperative. Anne’s bike seemed happy to be going west.
Down Greeley hill it occurred to me that I ought to be careful. It wouldn’t be wise to get hurt when two kids are with a sitter, one is in school, husband is at work and I don’t own a cell phone. I’m not even sure how someone coming upon my crushed body at an intersection might reach my important people.
Into the Pearl I pedaled feeling powerful and free and happy to be out in the sun. Suddenly I noticed that I was on a street with streetcar lines. Oh dear! Wait, didn’t Anne totally bite it when she first moved to Portland? And then didn’t she do a blog entry about it using the icon from that sign that says to be careful on a bike around streetcar tracks? I had better get off this street!
I thought this and then–
Duuuuuufff! (Sound of my body being thrown from the bike). Biff! (Sound of my knee meeting the pavement). Trickle! (Sound of my blood exiting my elbow. It does so enthusiastically). And
Silence. A deaf man, (I kid you not), helped me up, signed “O K?” to me and continued on his way.
It obviously does me little good to think thoughts of self-preservation. The world happens too quickly sometimes.
I’m okay today. Just a little sore today, as though someone threw me from a cliff. The kids are impressed with my wounds. I am trying to give a good example of how to not be a whiny, whiny baby. Maybe, just maybe, we can all learn from this?
