The weather forecast this week was for snow. I didn’t see much falling. I’m glad. I’m not ready to put the bike away. I’m not ready to let go of the rides that keep me grounded, keep me connected to others and to myself. When I leave work now, the sky is dark with the promise of night and city streetlamps mark my path home. The days are shorter, my vision is shorter, future plans recede into a murky unknown. Winter isn’t just about snow and cold weather. For me, Winter is a time of drawing inward, of reflecting on the previous year and digesting what happened. The bike is my steady companion except during Winter- difficult because this time of year is when I most need what she offers.
I often ride to clear my head. It doesn’t start out this way, of course. It starts out that I need to get somewhere or I need to be anywhere except here so I hop on and head out for a ride. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes and other times an hour but I am always assured that on the bike I can get some perspective. Get relief from these thoughts that press in on me and make me question myself, my life’s work, where I’m really headed in this life of mine.
My bike has been at the dealership all week getting looked at. Pat called me to tell me the seal on my oil filter was broken and that I need a new head gasket. While he was in there replacing that, he checked the valves for me too- part of the 12,000 mile service that I hadn’t found the money for so neglected to have done. The reason the bike wasn’t starting was because the battery is no longer holding a charge. I had thought it wouldn’t start, was running poorly, and had the oil leaks because something major had happened. I had thought it happened because I didn’t have the valves checked. I thought all this was happening because I didn’t have my priorities in line, because I hadn’t figured out a way to take care of the bike so it could keep taking care of me.
My friend Tracy and I both have the same response to technology. It makes us a little anxious. I’m not afraid to try new things and I don’t let anxiety paralyze me with inaction but I do think it gets in the way. I think there are times when I take too long to act and it costs me. This time with the bike, was one of those times. I thought I had caused the oil leaks by neglecting the bike. After talking with a mechanic, a service man and a few friends, I now realize I can’t cause an oil leak. The seals fail, I didn’t. I am grateful for this discovery but still wary. I am self-conscious about what I don’t know. One friend tells me I don’t give myself enough credit; that I’m being too hard on myself. I don’t disagree. But how do I break a habit like this? How do start giving myself the benefit of the doubt in every situation?
When my mom found herself alone after 38 years, she had to learn to do everything my dad had done for her, for the two of them. As you can imagine, or may even know for yourself, a relationship this long had lead to some pretty defined roles for each of them. My dad took out the garbage, mowed the lawn, maintained appliances and the cars, wrote out the monthly checks for the bills. My dad built the house they shared together; he knew every screw and nail, every brick and board, had cans of paint labeled and stacked on a shelf in his workshop. When dad died, she lost a life partner and a life task partner. She had to learn how to do it all herself- or she thought she did. That’s when my sister Laurie and I stepped in. We reminded her that we had spent many single years managing all of the things she needed to learn how to do. We told her she had good resources in us. We told her she didn’t have to know how to do everything, she just had to know how to find the people that know.
I am amazed at how often I give the advice that I most need to hear myself. I swear, if I could just replay the tape of advice I give out to others, each night before I go to bed, I may be able to change some of these habits of mine, some of these habits of thinking.
I was talking about my bike and its repairs yesterday with a friend over coffee. The cost of the repairs is reasonable and while not so much what I can afford, is just about what I’m able to scrape together. I am grateful for this- grateful that the mechanic listened to my concerns about cost and is giving me a break on it. My friend informed me that I may not be getting the break I think I am. He educated me. We talked about the anatomy of the engine and what’s involved in checking the valve clearance, this costly service I had been afraid of. He told me what a good deal on a valve check and adjustment is. My face fell. I had not researched the cost of this service and because I don’t know much about how the engine works, I didn’t realize how simple it is to do, once the head is off to replace the seal. I felt like a fool for not knowing this. But worse, I had been seen not knowing. I got caught. I hate when that happens. I hate that I didn’t know any better, I hate that I got found out. I wanted the good deal. I wanted to have handled the situation well. I wanted to trust my decision on this.
I imagine that yesterday, while sitting in the coffee shop, I felt pretty much the way my mom felt at realizing she had to learn how to do everything my dad used to do. It’s a pretty helpless feeling. Right about now, I’d like to jump on the bike, take her for a long ride and forget about feeling this way. I want to feel myself handling her, the second-nature of it, and remember those first rides on a motorcycle. I want to be reminded of what I didn’t know when I first started so I can feel, right in the middle of a ride, how far I’ve come since then. This is the kind of feeling my bike knows how to deal with. Together, her and I have been able to break some of my patterns of thinking. It’s funny because it feels like the Bonnie helps me think - I always feel more clear-headed after climbing off her. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that she frees me from thinking though- she supports me sure and steady while the wind blows about us and clears out all those thoughts that just get in the way of things. I sure could use a ride.
My friend didn’t mean to hurt my feelings- he didn’t know he was encroaching on tender territory until he saw my face, until I told him so. I had been caught not knowing enough again. I hate not knowing. My other riding friends would probably find this ironic since I’m always asking questions about the bike, how to ride better, what approach to take. It’s another thing entirely though, when someone else schools you- when answers come to questions you weren’t ready to ask.
I’ve been hearing lately in conversation, that there is a “natural order” to things. I’m not sure exactly what is meant when this is said. The first thing I think of is the natural order of the sexes. I look at what I, as a woman, am capable of, good at, born into. And then the converse of that- what men are capable of, good at, reared to do well. I don’t much like thinking of things in terms of sex: what she does because “that’s a woman for you” and what he does because, well, “that’s just how men are.” I really dislike sweeping generalizations. It would be fair to say I resist them altogether. But what I’m exploring here isn’t really what the world says I, as a woman, should be, but rather what I have internalized I should be.
I don’t have the strut and stride of a man that proclaims confidence. I apologize often. I try to find “the right time” to say what needs to be said instead of just saying it already. I’m not saying I want to walk like a man, or that I shouldn’t admit it when I’m wrong or that thinking before acting isn’t wise, what I’m saying is different altogether. I want to feel deep on the inside that what I want, what I think, what I feel are Right. I want to give myself that. I want to assume the best of myself rather than doubt myself.
Of the things I most love about men, these top the list. I see a man walking with a hitch in his step, I hear him stating his views and making decisions for himself and his family and I think: I want THAT. I don’t accept that this is the natural order of things and that I will always doubt myself or wish I had done better. Instead, I want to take that masculine way of being into myself and make it my own. Male and female, black and white, light and dark. These are opposing ways of seeing things. Maybe the world is ordered to show us opposites so we can see ourselves more clearly, not so much to show us our place in the order of things. I like thinking about it that way. I’m gonna try that on for awhile and see how it fits. I don’t know how to do it yet. But maybe I can find someone who does.
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