Raleigh

She sang the song on her guitar,

"you got to know what you want before you get it"

an elegant voice spun by the reel of humming strings

In Origins of Western Morality class, we read some Epicurean philosophy, part of which postulated that our thoughts and motions actions come about by images swirling in the air around us. Our mind, having an intention, prepares itself to receive the desired image, and since there are so many images of all sorts around us, it is not long before that image takes falls into the place prepared for it.

"you just got to make up your mind, and what you need will come to you and you know it"

Since my bicycle disappeared, I've been looking for a different one, reading a bit about different varieties, brands, models, years of bicycles, sorting out what aspects are necessary, what things I would like, what things I can fix myself, and what to avoid. I didn't just want something that moves - I wanted one that I could depend on as a touring bike and that I could really feel good about. At first, I didn't really know what this would mean beyond a loose collection of preferences I'd picked up here and there, but with some reading, consideration, and a little experimentation, I realized that I could list out all of those preferences and good reasons for them into a big picture of what I wanted to find. I'd begun sketching it during math class the previous day.

The same evening that I heard her singing that song,
I expected to go look at a bike I'd found on craigslist. It was a 12-speed Raleigh road bike, red-orange, ~23 pounds, and looking for the most part just the right shape, size, and color to go with the word Raleigh. The seller suggested it might be too large for me, but I figured I might as well go see it. For the price he was asking, I had decided not to buy it unless it was somehow the perfect bike. The price was not unreasonable by any means - I just knew that I could probably find one for cheaper that, with a little tuning, would work just fine.

I had been deciding that green or black and white would be my ideal bike colors, but Raleighs are oddly significant to me, most likely due to how the one word references both bicycles and Wagon Wheel and all of the myriad meanings that come with those. I was on a biking trip with a friend, a good escape, and seeing the occasional Raleigh along the bike path was like a fresh fluttering banner of cold, free air.

Raleigh is the hope at the end of the tunnel,
the light of morning on the shore you hope to wash up on,
the blur where the train tracks converge between the land and sky.

So I thought I'd give it a shot.

I borrowed a bike for the trip after arranging to meet the mechanic and warning him that for what I was looking for, I did not plan on buying his bike unless I really really liked it. He agreed easily in a voice that reminded me of one of my Chem Lab professors in that it seemed as though nothing would ever make it react out of surprise. With a voice both rough like a mechanic's hands and smooth with amiability, he invited me to try it out. His name is Gino. He types emails mostly in CAPS. His card says 'Old School Bikes.' He finds things, buys them, and fixes them. He's only bought one new bike in his life, and hasn't ridden it much - it was a model he just had to have.

I got there and tried the bike.
The short story is,
I got along with the bike far better than I expected to, and though I hadn't been planning on buying anything, I realized that it had everything that I wanted, plus or minus a few easily modifiable conveniences. I was faced with the sudden and unexpected prospect of ending my bicycle search right there.

Once when I was younger, maybe 5 or 8 or so and during the summer, my Dad was helping me write and send a letter. A muggy week had sealed all of our envelopes, so we had to go in search of letter materials. I had finished writing the letter and voiced some frustration at how much work it was to send it even after the letter itself had been written. Driving away with me and new envelopes in a blue pickup truck, my Dad told me that the hardest part of a job is finishing it. I thought this was silly, since all we should've had to do was stick it in an envelope and walk with it to the mailbox. But his words stayed in my head all these years, and I gradually understand them more and more.

I was walking with a friend to buy calligraphy supplies for a class we were teaching together. I mentioned the memory to her and she told me of a similar discussion she'd had on the topic of figuring out what the 'right thing' was to do and then doing it. She'd thought - and kind of wanted - it to be more difficult to decide what the 'right thing' was, because if you knew something was right, wouldn't that make it easy to actually do? Often it seems the other way around. The 'right thing' is really not so mysterious, and even with certainty, it's often difficult to actually accomplish.

Even with lots of good information, actually making decisions sometimes feels so uncertain.

I bought the bike.

Gino offered to give me a ride back to campus since he was headed downtown and I would have to find an ATM to pay him.

On the way, he talked about his kids and being concerned about his girls entering the 'boy-crazy' stage of life. I said I'd never really done that stage, and wasn't sure how I would handle it if I became the mother of girls who did. He said that was good - I was in college, I had a life and a career to prepare myself for and this was a good thing to focus on at this point in my life. Oh of course he said that didn't mean I shouldn't date people or have a little fun and find what's right for me, but there's no reason to get myself into a relationship, and certainly not to think that the first person I find is going to be it.

Boys are like cereal, he said. You have to try different kinds. If all you eat is cocoa puffs, then how do you know - maybe you really like froot loops! Or new shoes, he said. You have to make sure you find a pair that fits.
Just
whatever you do,
don't get pregnant.

I thought the cereal comparison was funny.

Freshmen year,
my quasi-roommates cornered me while hanging out in their room and interrogated me as to what sort of person was 'my type'. What sort of person could I see myself with? I didn't have a coherent picture or any solid ideas. It wasn't a label, list, or category that I wanted to set ahead of time. I didn't want to exclude something I didn't understand.

Sophomore year,
a friend tried to convince me to date people for the experience of seeing what worked for me. But I was not in much condition to give what I would expect of myself into a dating relationship. I didn't feel 'old enough' to date, anyway. And I can't treat people like bicycles.

Junior year,
I thought I could handle it. But, it turns out that handling something yourself and handling it as part of a pair are very different things. I was right, but only about myself, and just barely. maybe.

Now,


I am reminded of a question from one of Tom Weiting's 211 problem sets:
Do we call a thing what it is because it does what it does? Or does it do what it does because it is what it is?

(but then, many things are easier to describe in retrospect,
and partly because they are no longer present to defend themselves)




And, I want things - not just bike or boy things - to have the freedom to be what they are without being confused by the strings and wires of associations and expectations and interpretations that we try to understand them with.

But I also ought to take to wielding these - associations, expectations, interpretations, - conscientiously and responsibly so that I can prepare myself to recognize the things I really want when I see them, and with enough confidence to feel for the right thing, and, recognizing, act on it.



(pictures of bike to appear sometime)