Yesterday I went for my yearly physical. Given the age I am now (see previous post), it had new resonance. Some numbers were higher, some numbers were lower; some were just right, others are yet to be determined. There will be this and that test to be taken. No need to go into further detail. I’m sure most of us have been there. Or if not, we most likely will be.
Thankfully, I dearly like my doctor. She gets Western medicine, she values Eastern methods, too, and she doesn’t wince every time I ask for a referral, since I live with an HMO. My doctor shares stories from her own life, about caffeine addiction, blueberries, and Wii kickboxing her stress to smithereens. She is a great listener. She is not above a hug. Once she came to see me in the sterile, little room where we have our heart-to-hearts, still red-eyed and flushed with weeping because she’d been with a patient in the last hours of the patient’s life. My doctor ministers with compassion. Because I have witnessed other methods, this is a deep relief.
And my doctor loves to ride her bike.
Last year at this time, she told me how she rides to work every morning, weather permitting, and I sighed enviously (inwardly), because I was very much out-of-love with my bike and the whole experience of bike-riding in general.
Once upon a time, I was a passionate biker chick. As a child, I had a little red number that I rode around our block, and around our block, and around our block. One boring, summer day (remember boredom?), I put my favored-to-limpness stuffed dog Cinnamon in the bike’s basket and ran away, by which I mean, I straddled my bike at the end of our driveway until I was sure my mother was beginning to wonder where I was, and then I road my bike around the block and came home.
After Little Red, there was the orange Schwinn 10-speed, which looked cool enough for high school, but which had thin tires that were, more often than not, flat.
What followed were many years of riding around in cars.
Then my bright blue Trek mountain bikc—and glorious WXRT Sunday morning rides down empty city streets, surrounded by like-minded-twenty-something comrades, and also long after-work-spins along the Chicago lakefront, some years before those winding lanes were quite so crazed, before rollerblades. skateboards, long boards, scooters, jogging strollers and Burleys came on the scene.
I was newly married when my Trek got stolen, along with my husband’s Giant, from the garage of our first home together. It was sad, but there was insurance, and we blithely shopped for matching, red Bridgestones. We were proud; we bought American. Our friends called us the Bobbsey Twins, and I suppose Greg and I were more “we” than “I” and “Thou” at that stage of the newlywed game.
Greg and I have been married for twenty-one years now. About ten years ago, I realized that I was uncomfortable on my sporty, red, men’s Bridgestone. I no longer wanted to take the trails at Kettle Moraine by storm; I was tired of skidding around dirt curves and smack-dab into bushes. I was, more frequently, tired.
But there was never the spare change around to invest in something new. The kids were needing bikes from season to season. And Greg, who is never more free than when he is riding on two wheels (unless it’s behind the lens of his camera), really, really had driven his Bridgestone into the ground. One year, we got him a new Giant, and he was a very happy man.
So . . . what does this have to do with my doctor, my physical, this recent birthday of mine?
You guessed it. Last week, I finally got a bike.
An Electra Amsterdam. Three speeds. Coaster brakes (and one handbrake, for good measure). A bell. Fenders. A skirt guard. A generator light. A kickstand.
Did I mention the bell?
I bought my bike at Kozy’s Cyclery in Chicago. It was January 4th, but the weather was more like early March, ’round these parts, and tall, courtly Theo at Kozy let me take my Amsterdam out for a spin. I took her out twice. (Her? I had no idea!) She and I trolled up and down this city block and that, banking widely, sedately around corners and parked cars. Upright as I was, my shoulder blades slid into their best allignment (I, who am so often hunched over a computer keyboard, over life). I felt regal. I felt securely my age. I felt (thank you, Jesus) like I might never need to wear Lycra again.
We brought her home that very day. Later, Greg said, “I knew as soon as you came back after that first ride that this was the bike for you.”
The weather continued to be kind, and for several days in a row, I found time to ride my new bike. I went here and there, on the Prairie Path and around the neighborhood. I biked to the library and the post office. I road steadily and slowly enough to really look around. I liked what I saw.
Yesterday I told my doctor a little bit of this news. She told me that at our age, exercise is everything. I smiled. I thought of Little Red, oh, so many years ago. I didn’t know I was exercising way back then. I thought I was having fun, running away from what contained me, seeing the world on two-wheels.
I’ll hold on to that thought, even now. I’ll let her ride.
