Friday, July 10, 2009

the road ahead...




I bought a bike today...after days of scouring craigslist. It met most of my criteria. It symbolizes the journies that lie ahead. Good health...cheers! And sharing the skies with hawks again. Living in an urban area makes owning a bike a challenge, but I need to remember that even in Oakland, my backyard is full of winding roads unfurled by my eyes, a Japanese scroll waiting to be read.

I miss the days of having a camera slung on my back in Japan and stopping to ask some innocent Japanese farmer, who was taken aback by this gaijin (foreigner--literally, "outside person"), for directions to wherever. The response, nine times out of ten, was "go about a kilometer down the road, turn right, then you'll see a large tree, and then you'll get to a fork in the road, and then find someone else and ask them."

I want to stop the gas crisis with minimizing my carbon footprint just a little. Getting the wrong bike last time on craigslist was a lesson either in humility or stupidity. You be the judge. Helps to know a thing or two about bike mechanics. I'm now willing to learn. I have a book. I've even read a few of the chapters. I'm probably crazy enough to try it.

I tried making paper once from a book I borrowed from the Sebastopol Public Library. I went to the hardware store, got all the materials I needed to make the frame and deckle thing....only to realize that I didn't have the right TOOLS! Sometimes, paying others is WORTH it!

So, cheers to the Way, le chemin, la camina, and discovery and adventures!

1 comment:

  1. I just got a bike too! lets go for a ride with cameras on our backs!

    -Roberta

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