bike wheel

Yep, it’s that time of year. We are frazzled and fizzling. Hot weather makes us lazy and recalcitrant. Nearing the ends of our wicks at the bottom of the candle, the promise of summer beckons seductively from eight short infinite weeks away.

I can feel that things are changing. Jafa’s foster baby could be here by the end of the month. Next year Corky, my bedrock-keystone, is leaning toward some other adventure in some other part of the world – really far away! like Cambodia or Tanzania. Soon the much-anticipated Organization Sheet will appear in our mailboxes, sealing our fates for the next school year. I feel the cycle taking its turn.

I’m trying to be okay with change. Corky had a great poem at her grassroots Inner Resilience that she started at her house, about enduring change like a tree – losing your leaves gracefully, knowing that they will return; bending with the wind, letting it shape you, but remaining your true self, standing tall, uncompromised.

A similar, somewhat less bucolic analogy occurred to me today in the form of my bike. My bike which I discovered this afternoon as I left school, chained to the signpost where I had left it that morning as usual, only missing one important piece: the front wheel.

This bike I have had for a long time now, since I was fourteen or so, and like anyone, it might be just a bit worse for the wear. Left it out in the rain and the chain rusted up a bit. Gear-shift not what it used to be. Paint is tarnished and scratched in spots… I’m not trying to imply that I, or my bike, is a decrepit old hag, but no one gets through all those miles without some wear and tear.

But anyway, this bike, my bike, the bike of me… it’s comfortable, it works well. It has gained and lost various acoutrements across time, but it is still the same, reliable old bike. The chain can be greased, the wheel replaced, with a little love and tenderness it will, hopefully, continue to serve well for a long time.

So that’s kind of what I’m relying on. That the sameness of me will carry on throughout the changes. I just know that every year of teaching is a whole different universe, and I’ve really liked this universe. This universe, despite everything, has been the best year yet. I’d say I wish it could stay the same except I know I really don’t because even if you could keep your life always the same, the rest of the world inevitably goes on without you, and then your life changes by virtue of trying to keep it un-changed…

And the last two days, since on Testing Days there’s not really so much teaching to prepare for, I have managed to leave school the earliest ever, and it’s been glorious! Going to the gym, time for groceries and laundry and mid-week errands, drinks with a friend, warming a chair in my newly opened neighborhood coffee shop…

I can begin to anticipate what it will be like next year, working for the first time ever without the burden of grad school heavy at my back… imagine! What WON’T I have time for??!! Volleyball and NYCORE and triathlon training and gosh, maybe resurrect my social life?

Can't wait.