Melted

Yesterday was one of those days living in San Francisco, where you pinch yourself at your luck that you get to call this place home. If you’re me, you also look around and have nonstop exclamations about how incredibly BEAUTIFUL: the weather, the city, the dahlia’s, the playground, the people… you get it… are. To fully catapult myself in to this headspace, I decided to ride my bike to pick my kid up from school.

I get in to these fits and starts with my bike. You see, I like freedom of choice and also I don’t like to be told what to do, even when it’s from myself. I LOVE BIKING, and I enjoy being outside but I get in the habit of taking my car, or the bus or making a nice long walk out of the occassion. Then, I just… convince myself it’s all good, and I am fine, and I am for sure not developing a fear about if I can still make it up our hills with our growing child on the back of my steed, and there I am walking/busing/driving again.

I know I’m not alone at being good at avoidance of things I’m fretting over. But, then enough is enough, and just like I won’t be told I have to do something, I also won’t let myself say I can’t do something because I am feeling fear or discomfort.

So, with the beautiful sunshine on my face, I popped my bike bag on to accommodate the child’s backpack for the ride home. I grabbed a few snacks for the insatiable hunger that always comes flying at the pickup parent, clicked on the ole helmet, swiped my sunnies on to my face and off I went! Oh was it glorious! When I tell you I felt such freedom and joy from the wind on my face, and standing up on my pedals like I’m ten years old again… wooooohhhhhhoooooweeeee it was DELICIOUS! My child seemed to also be feeling the good weather vibes and so I says to the kid, “hey kid, do you wanna go hit up a local playground or park and let the good times fly?”, and my broski says, “OF COURSE!”, and off we go to climb some shiz, and snack on a few Andes mints, pretzels and Honest fruit punch juice boxes (IYKYK they SLAP). All the while, the stunning landscape of Golden Gate Park, complete with hawks flying over head and the dahlia garden in full bloom, greet my eyes at every turn. I’m texting my wife about what a great time we’re having , and how we’ll see each other so soon for the taco Tuesday spread I’ve already prepped, long before I threw a leg over my crossbar and jetted down the hills to the flats.

Our good time/park time wrapped itself up naturally, as our stomachs started asking for a real meal. As such, we hopped back on the bike, and headed for home. We were laughing! We were joking! We were making up stories that made no sense to anyone, ourselves included, but they were funny because we said so…

It was one of those afternoons that I know will make an appearance in my sizzle real of my life. You know, the one I get to see in totality a final time before my spirit goes poof in to the vastness of it all. It was all so, so great.

Then, as I turned the corner from Hugo onto 6th Ave (for those nearby following along), I went to crank down on my pedal while I was in a standing/upward on the pedals position. This was in anticipation of pairing the balancing from the lefthand turn I’d just made, knowing I’d be going immediately in to the uphill we were going to encounter as we made our way up 6th. I felt my brain slow waaaaaaay down, because it realized something was off well before my body caught up. I heard a ping, then a crack, and then metal hitting the ground. In this slowed down time dimension it felt like a minute passed, when in reality, it must have simply been a microsecond before my seat-post-bracket that was charged with the job of holding my seat on to the post, came flying off mid-pedal.

Now, fortunately for my: child, body and bike, no one else was in the intersection. So, when my reflexes kicked in and majorly swerved so we could stay upright while in motion, we weren’t in any physical danger from motor vehicles. Unfortunately for my most private of body parts, the power from my standing pedal downstroke towards my no longer secured seat had to go somewhere.

Because I was so caught off guard by all of this, I did not filter my reaction to my pain, and Miles heard me yell, “AHHHHHH, my vagina is ruined!”

In a panic, he screamed “OH NO! Your vagina melted OFF?!!”

While trying to control the bike and pull it over safely to the sidewalk, I hollered, “what do you think is happening in my downstairs rn? The seat slammed up into my vagina but nothing melted ok!”

Once he heard my business has not in any way melted, he was good to go and smiling again.

I got my feet flat on the ground while I called Anne, and she helped me make a plan to attempt biking home safely with an unsecured seat. If you had the good fortune of being a witness to any or all of this scene, you are welcome! It was in the top ten of my best fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-we’re-in-the-shit-for-a-sec, parenting work.

I biked like an absolute doofus all of the way home, because I had to place my bike seat super far back on to Miles’s cargo bench seat. This caused my moving knees to be up by my ears, but allowed Miles to safely hold tight to my seat when I had to stop at what felt like each and every light, stop sign or wildly driving car etc.; I felt insane. We made it home safely despite the protest from my thighs, which were being asked to perform at a totally unnatural angle, and by my vagina, which has since recovered thank you for asking ;)

The rest of our evening was delightful, and the sunset was an absolute banger, complete with an ocean topped with fluffy clouds and all of the colors of the rainbow. I felt proud of myself for not wiping out. I was also hyping myself up for not throwing an epic tantrum, or giving up when things suddenly felt they very much weren’t going my way for a bit there. Sometimes shit happens. Sometimes when said shit happens, I am willing and able to tuck and roll, all the while doing my best to laugh at the ridiculousness alllll theeeeee way doooooooown.