I spend a lot of time thinking about what my life would be like had I taken a different path. Turned right at the fork instead of left. (As my cyclists friends know, I don’t turn right.) Chosen up instead of down.
Life is an extremely complicated and thick Choose Your Own Adventure novel. And, unfortunately, we can’t skip to the end to see how it turns out and then flip back to the beginning to alter our decisions accordingly. As amazing as it might be to bend space and time like Hiro Nakamura, I’m not yet that evolved. Plus, Hiro almost totally fucked up history with his shenanigans. (As an aside, new season of Heroes coming this fall! Both excited for and scared about this. There is no substitute for Sylar, and I hope they don’t try and replicate the old series.)
Back to the point – when I imagine my life as a concrete thing, I see it as a deep and involved root system that extends far into the earth and for miles just beneath the surface. Each root is connected to a decision I’ve made, and each decision leads me closer to the trunk of the tree and its branches reaching toward the light of day. Or maybe the stars at night. Yeah, stars at night. That’s more my thing. The root system is intricate and beautiful and not something with which I want to tamper.
Though I may not be happy with things I’ve done in my life or proud of decisions I’ve made, I’m here now because of those actions and decisions. And yeah, life can be frustrating and stressful sometimes, but I feel pretty damn lucky and am pretty damn satisfied. So once again, I’m cheating on this list. Hey, it’s better than cheating on a person. And that’s one thing I can say I’ve never done in my life.
Just to clarify, you literally don’t turn right when you cycle?
Also, do you have any recs for bike shops to tune up a bike? I was given free use of a good road bike (woohoo) but I’d like to get the brakes checked as well as the seat & handlebars raised. I’m a Yelp junkie but I love direct recommendations 🙂
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Hi Sabrina!
I do turn right, but I’m much better at turning left. Especially when the turns are sharp (like my tan lines). It’s something I joke about with my bikey friends.
Anyway, nice on getting the road bike! To borrow or keep? My favorite shop is Huckleberry on Market and 7th. But I’ve also had good experiences with San Francyclo on Arguello. American Cyclery is okay, but they cop attitude sometimes. The mechanics at Sports Basement on Bryant are decent as well. I’ve heard good things about Freewheel, but I’ve never gone myself. So yeah, I’d go with Huckleberry. You’ll just have to resist the urge to buy everything in the store. 🙂
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