“A new day”
keep art alive; art by rooze

“Low and behold things are killing me,
silly expectations of a dream.”

When I was a young girl my bicycle was one of my most treasured possessions. It represented some kind of freedom to me, a peace that I often did not find elsewhere, and a symbol of my longing to go, to wander, and to run away. I would spend hours just drifting around the neighborhoods near where I grew up, speeding up sometimes, coasting other times, my mind flying up above me, always lost in a daydream. I would often make up stories while I pedaled along, creating characters, or newly crafted versions of me, hardly noticing the time of day, or any recognizable passage of time while I rode along, my thoughts and I.

There were times when I rode with such drive and speed that I am surprised the tires did not catch afire and burn across the pavement. Days when I was upset by things in my life, or those times when my emotions felt so denied, and pushed so far down into myself, that I thought I might explode. It was then that I would ride and ride and ride until all my muscles ached, and sweat trickled down the back of my neck, and clung to the tendrils of my hair. I would return home, my face tear and dirt streaked, half-limping, but better for the release the road provided.

Sometimes I just rode around to explore, to see something different, to discover what existed just around the corner from my reality.

Later I would feel all this about my first car, and all the subsequent vehicles to follow. But, my first taste of that kind of freedom came in a two-wheeled metal framed Schwinn with a blue and white seat, and a clip on AM radio. Some days, like right now, this morning, I wish I still had that old bicycle of mine.

Day Old Blues :: Kings of Leon

“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it.” ~ Mark Twain