Wackelig
Several weeks ago I was zipping along on my bike when all of a sudden I developed a (whoa!) distinct wobble. Startled I set to examining my wheels but everything looked straight and, um, inflated. The shimmy continued, to the point where I started to wonder if maybe it was me. It didn’t help I was listening to a book on tape by Carl Sagan and was right in the middle of a section where he talks about how common it is for human beings to hallucinate.
Nervous but also a little put out that I might actually be that susceptible to the power of suggestion, I started trying to figure out how exactly one determines if the dizziness comes from within or without. That’s when I finally noticed it, a crack in the the front post of my bike frame. Fortunately still being held together by the main bar of the fork which runs between the handlebars and the front wheel.
I wavered along the few remaining blocks to work, scared I might get dumped on my bum but mostly just sad. My good ole bike was broke! I’ve written before about this bike, that I got as a Christmas gift from my parents when I was 13 and which has faithfully served me ever since. I’ve had plans to upgrade sometime in the near future, but frankly have been in no hurry. Somewhere my wife is rolling her eyes, ’cause the truth is I’m rather unnaturally attached to this beater of a bike.
AL may get plenty entertained by my numerous quirks, but she’s also quick to help out when I’m in a pinch. So after work she swung over and helped me load the remains of my poor ole bike into the back of the car. I kept trying to help her understand that my bike’s demise was much more important than what she was focused on–the possibility that I could have gotten hurt. She does tend to stubbornly fixate sometimes.
She dropped me and my bike off at my friendly neighborhood bike shop, where Monica the bike guru was also oddly focused on my lack of bruises and bandages. What’s wrong with people? I didn’t want her distracted from the primary concern, namely whether my bike could somehow be resuscitated. See, I trust the folks at my bike shop. They’re clearly about keeping bikes running as opposed to pushing their customers to continue buying new and better. So some months back when Monica told me she thought it might be time for me to look into buying a new bike, I took it seriously. And proceeded to go brag to everyone I knew that the Firehouse Bike people thought I had ridden my bike enough to have earned a new one. I felt like I’d won a prize.
Anyway, Monica took one of her thoughtful looks at the cracked frame, and I could tell right away repair was not going to be an option. I asked her for my options, and she told me I could make the jump to the new bike now, or I could root through their back room for a replacement frame.
Somewhere my wife is rolling her eyes again (do that too much, dear, and they may stick in the position!), because of course I chose to replace the frame. Here was my logic:
- I could get my bike fixed for about 1/4 of what it will eventually cost me to buy a new bike.
- They could get it done in a day and a half, when ordering the new bike would have taken two weeks.
- In the long run, even when I get my new bike, I’d really like to have a backup so I never get stuck without transportation.
- It’s my good ole bike! I like my bike.
Continuing to grieve that night, I did what anyone might do in a crisis … called my parents. And proceeded to complain that they obviously must not love me much to have gotten me such a cheap, breakable bike in the first place. Apparently this struck them as amusing ’cause they simply chuckled in the face of my I-thought-quite-legitimate beef. But not before once more dragging out the same old oh-it’s-so-good-you-didn’t-get hurt refrain. Ah well, I tried to remind myself, they’re parents. Why even expect them to get where I’m coming from?
At a certain point in the evening it occurred to me that perhaps I was looking at this the wrong way. Here I’d been grieving because my bike, this bike that had been my faithful companion for 27 years, had finally broken. But my grief hinged on the assumption that the bike’s essence, it’s bikeness, resided in the frame. Was this a fair supposition? For years I’ve had to swap off parts as they wore out. Innumerable tires, a good number of wheels, handlebars, the seat, reflectors, lights, etc. etc. have popped, bent, cracked, fallen apart and I’ve replaced them all while still knowing that this was my same good ole bike. Wasn’t replacing the frame just an extension of that process? Admittedly the surgery was a bit more drastic, but shouldn’t it be possible for me to think of this as just another step in the evolution of my bike? Stop rolling your eyes, wife!
So now I have me a “new” bike that still feels, sort of, like my good ole one. It’s not fancy, which suits me and suits the environment in which I ride it. It looks different, which is perhaps the hardest thing. It feels a little different, which isn’t entirely bad because some of the differences are improvements. For instance, the frame is slightly newer so it holds the wheels more firmly and straighter. And it still rolls along like it always has, as long as I keep pumping away.
As should be obvious by now, I’m not the greatest when it comes to change. It takes some doing to get me to alter my thinking, much less my habits. But life seems bent set on not allowing me to just coast along. I’m trying, therefore, to learn to adjust to what we’re given even if it’s not what I originally had in mind.
Yesterday Ana Lisa reached 24 weeks of pregnancy. This Sunday, 24 weeks plus 3 days, will be the exact stage in the pregnancy when Javid was born. Boy was that not part of any plan! Tiny and fragile, skittering along on the razor’s edge of survival for all those months, he was not the addition to our life we had anticipated. And wrapping him into our concept of family took plenty of adjustments. The mental surgery was easily as drastic as the actual needed to keep him alive. But it was surgery we’ll always be grateful for, and a part of our developing concept of who we are that I would never want to give up.
We’re also just a little more than a week now from the one-year anniversary of our little boy’s death. I looked back this morning and realized that on this day last year we sat down with his attending doctor and made the decision to schedule a tracheostomy. Man it’s weird to think now of what those next 10 days would bring, and how little of an idea we had at that point.
It’s also oh so very strange to be having all these anniversaries right at a time when it’s hard not to be anxious about the possibility of a preeclampsia repeat. If we can get through the next 4-6 weeks, the consequences of a reoccurrence may not be all that terrible. But in the meantime we try (and of course fail) not to worry.
Javid didn’t hang around nearly as long as wished, but in his short life he managed to become, remarkably quickly, our good ole dearest little Wee Boy. We wanted to keep him, and a year later are by no means adjusted to the fact that we didn’t get to. But we’re trying to adapt, and looking forward to the chance to wrap this new little one growing inside of Ana Lisa into our evolving family structure, which will always include Javid as well.
Today we went to see Dr. Johannson, the gentle doc with the warm laugh who guided us so deftly through the horrible process of Ana Lisa’s diagnosis and delivery a year and a half ago. He checked her blood pressure and the protein levels in her urine. He listened to the baby’s heartbeat, then to our questions about the various discomforts and odd sensations Ana Lisa’s had over the last two weeks. From here on out we’re in territory we never got to explore the first time around, so we had lots of questions. In some ways it feels like a “new” experience, while in other it seems just an extension of what we’ve been at for quite some time now.
At the moment everything looks fine. Dr. J’s going to see us every two weeks now, and told us it will probably stay that way until he’s seeing us every one week. We’re grateful for his attention, and for yours.
In the meantime, we’re trying to remain firmly planted in the saddle and–with certain adjustments for the ever-shifting center of gravity–to keep rolling along.
Print This Post
Email This Post
April 19th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
hey Tony and Ana Lisa, just wanted to let you know I was curious about how you are doing and came to check it out. Glad things are going well!
April 19th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Beautiful, funny, and moving! Thanks, Tony! We’re still using my bike from that Christmas as well!