That ole frame just needs a wheel set

My neighbor let me know about a bike frame that he's been keeping for me out behind the house next door. I did a double take because I had just hauled a mountain bike frame out of the garbage the night before, but his words, "Blue" and a company name that rhymes with "shh" and "wind" had me. Two days later I wondered back there after locking my bike up this morning and there it was. Beautiful, shiny, blue. Its shape seemed to suggest congruence with the way things were.

It needs a wheel set, some handlebars, and other fixin's. But, as my neighbor said to me today, you could fix it up and sell it. I'm thinkin' I could use the money, but that's almost more trouble than just fixing it and putting it out there. When you're fixing a bike I like to think it wants you to approach with a specific attitude. It always seems to be asking, "What am I going to do for you?" and "How am I going to affect your life?" Like it exists on a higher level than money and greed. It enables efficiency at an amazing cost. The willingness to give up something that, more or less, would cost the world a whole lot more. When you step on to a bike, though you may be using it to get around or provide exercise, you're not causing more harm. It's that fine line the wheels follow that seem like the middle of the yin and yang.

Up through the rain I'd bear the pain to grab the handle bars and take you away. To show you the world at 12 miles per hour, just so you could see it just so, and we could be back in an hour, for a trip that usually takes thirty minutes, I'd rather take the thrill and the extra moments, to breathe hard and feel slow, bored by rest of ya'lls complaints about the "takin' too long" I'd dream a dream for you and find comfort that it was me you took.