I was following the river on a very narrow path, about a foot wide, and it was bumpy. Tree roots, little soft holes where the soil has rotted away with rain… You know how you think, Gee I should maybe walk this bit? Or, “I hope I don’t drop this,” etc. And then: >whoooo…< I found myself peeling sharply outwards, dipping, losing balance, falling over the bank.
You have those two seconds which feel like ten where you get to think, Which way should I fall. I fell towards the bank, tried to fall upright and loose. As this was happening I swore, in German. Why not English. Then I was wedged, still on my bike, between the river and a handy leaning tree.
I had hardly time to wonder why "Scheisse!" and not "Crap!" before a party of four Swiss people on hardy mountain bikes came through the mist of trees. They were lycra angels in the afternoon sunlight. I handed them my bike and then two arms came down and two women - the men were busy marvelling that I had landed so fortuitously - hauled me up on the bank. A drop of about five feet. They lectured me but only very briefly and kindly. Those are really the wrong tyres! Are you sure you're ok? It felt cosy to be roused on by rescuing strangers.
On the way home I passed various other people using all different kinds of devices. A girl on a skateboard. A woman jogging, in earbuds. A couple sluicing gravely along on the asphalt with those stocks you use to push yourself on snow, for all the world as though they were skiing. I passed a truckload of army recruits who waved and smiled and when I waved back burst into ribald laughter. But my favourite was the guy gliding between two fields of cropped green stalks who appeared to be travelling on a moving walkway, who was, of course, on rollerblades.
Tag: cycling
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lucky, lucky accident
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a-biscuit, a-basket
O, the sweetest! Boy pedalling through the old part of town with his girlfriend in a wheeled box fixed to the front of the bike. It’s intended for children. He is wearing jeans and a stripey shirt and a little pork pie hat. Her blonde hair spills over the back of the box, she is tucked up in a blanket and eating a biscuit. At the traffic lights he slides forward off his seat and onto the ground, bends to give her a kiss in the small of her neck.
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jazz, godliness…
I’ve cycled past this jazz club in town maybe half a dozen times & never had the nerve to go in. Today in the afternoon sunlight both the doors were standing open and, oddly, two tables with bottles of soft drink stood at the entrance guarded by ribbed plastic cups. A handsome-looking man was pouring. I got off my bike. “Is this – open? I mean,” looking at the people in coats milling around inside, “are you… rehearsing?”
He flashed me with his blinding Amway grin. “It’s a church. You’re very welcome.” I stepped back. Looked up at the sign. “It’s not a… jazz club?” “It is a jazz club, just not today. But we have lots of music!!”
Who could put their faith in a church that’s willing to use disopsable cups? Looking back, I could have given him many better responses, the least of which might have been, “My only religion is jazz” (a lie). Instead I had that protective feeling one has around people who seem to look out wistfully from inside their own club and wonder why more don’t join. “Jazz,” I said, “godliness…. they’re related.” And we waved each other off, a pair of heathens, neither one willing to convert.
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cradle of many things
Cycling home under a high full moon through a dark city so cold it’s as though the streets stand motionless under water. Northern Europe, cradle of so many things, including me. The buildings stand serene on street corners, unafraid of waiting. Traffic sporadic, roads wide and smooth, trees utterly leafless with branches standing separate and bare against the sky but, if I were to reach up and drag one down, already the infestation of buds and bugs that’s Spring.
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through snow
a bell dings behind me, I step aside and watch the beautiful line of a bicycle’s tyres, drawing like dark pencil on white paper through the snow
