Skip to main content

Cycling in Toronto: That Girl

I have been a grown-up urban cyclist for almost a month (maybe more?). I'm amazed at how easily I've fallen into it, how quickly I've become THAT GIRL.

  • that girl with chain grease on at least one (if not both) shins at all times. How will my wardrobe survive in the fall??
  • that girl ringing her bell loudly as she passes a recently parked car.
  • that girl on the sidewalk going up the big big hills.
  • that girl in the clunky helmet because WHO CARES ABOUT FASHION.
  • that girl occasionally sneaking the wrong way up a one way street.
  • that girl madly peddling to make it through a yellow light.
  • that girl with the pannier full of vegetables from the farmer's market.
  • that girl carrying a bag of groceries precariously over her shoulder.
  • that girl who wears her helmet in the grocery store because I'm not an octopus with enough hands for everything.
  • that girl whose butt is constantly slightly sore, whose quads cramp occasionally from this new repetitive exercise.
  • that girl cycling in a skirt, showing off her thighs and hopefully nothing more.
  • that girl who arrives at work slightly sweaty and with a bad case of helmet-hair.
  • that girl on the sidewalk putting her chain back on, tightening her brakes, covering herself in grease.
  • that girl rapping & laughing with a friend as they cycle through the night-time streets. (no joke. more to come on this story.)
That's me.


When my friend gave me this bike, he also gave me two pieces of advice that I'm doing my best to follow:

"Ride like you belong. And be predictable."

No traffic-weaving for me, no curb-hugging, and no danger-inducing quick moves. Predictable, steady, confident cycling is where it's at.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thin
1 comment
Read more

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro
2 comments
Read more

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st
Post a Comment
Read more