A Return to Form

Just write about bikes dude and riding them, says me to myself.  Michael Jackson don’t want to be in your little story.  He just wants to be the King of Pop resting in peace, and if nobody cares about his vitiligous hand and his first sequined glove then so be it, just tell your own damn story and leave him out of it.

Fine then, I WILL says the pouting inner child to a furiously reasonable adult ego state.  I WILL! he screams his little tantrum brains out.  And that is how we find ourselves now in the national forest, as though no time at all has passed since we last took a bike ride through the woods then plopped down at the computer to tell the world how it went.

I don’t really know many plant names so I can only say that the stuff that grows just over knee high and then bolts into spores of fuzz like tiny white fireworks is blooming, or more likely just finished blooming, and now it sends its hopeful seeds into the air, brushed off by our legs dipping into the penumbric edge of the turns, a passing shadow scouring the trails’ edge.  Riding a bike is just like riding a bike, you never forget how to do it, but you do forget how good it feels.  You sit pissed off, bullied by dubious priorities, letting the filing of your flexible spending account claims forms thump you on the back of the ear and it stings through lunch and into 4th period Earth Science.  Minding your own business walking to class on the edge of the hall then shoved- SLAM- into the combination lock on 242 by “Be sure to file your homestead exemption.” A frog sets up under the skin and you rub it all through Pre-Alegbra, thinking of a way to get even.  When the final bell rings you are already in position outside 3rd hall and you catch I need the final agenda by Friday standing slack in its flip flops and before it knows what hit it you have bowled it head first down into the garbage can and taken off running as fast as you can go for your bike, then out to the woods where it is safe.

Juancho