a series of fruitless endeavors

I decided, after eating a huge meal of canned vegetarian chili and tortilla chips (and vowing to stop eating processed foods and give my poor stomach a rest) to sit on my cushion for awhile, something I haven't been doing much lately. I sat on the cushion and almost immediately started crying about CB. Will this ever end? The slightest sinking inside myself puts me in touch w/ a vibrant strain of love still in there. The truth is: it takes more than love to keep a relationship alive. I love CB so much. She is so full of love and tenderness and care. I just couldn't live with her anymore. I could no longer find myself in a happy future with her. So I am surprised every day by my grief, which still holds me and shakes me and squeezes my heart.

So I sat on my cushion awhile crying and crying and then decided I needed to get out of my house. I had a bizarre errand in mind -- I threw all my piled up recycling into two cloth bags and hung them over my little bike rack like saddle bags and rode down to the Wild Oats down the street where they have a recycling center. A woefully inadequate recycling center. There was no container for paper or aluminum. Why?? I don't know. So I rode back home with my bags still full, having only been able to unload a few glass and plastic bottles.

Then I decided to cycle up to a thrift shop I recently noticed in my neighborhood. Cycling in the rain, getting soaked, getting tired. The thrift store, on 7th and Fremont, was nice, but overpriced. The staff were all sitting around a table in the middle eating lunch which smelled like thai peanut sauce and made me hungry. I found a pair of pants that looked nice and a few books, but forced myself to leave without buying anything. I wanted to look for kitchen stuff, to try and round out my pitiful collection of kitchen-ware. They didn't have anything I needed. I zipped up my rain-jacket and prepared to ride back home in the rain, empty-handed.

I thought, instead, that I would maybe just ride up to my coffeeshop. From the thrift store to my coffeeshop, about fifteen blocks, is all up-hill. I got about halfway there and just couldn't go another pedal stroke further. I am so out of shape. I'm ashamed. I turned down a flat street, then turned myself around and coasted downhill all the way home. Thank god for downhill coasting. Past the damp, blooming tulips and heavy, hanging blossoms, through sprays of tiny, blowing petals and the rain falling in fat drops. I was soaked and weak when I got home. My poor thighs... so weak. If I ride a little every day I will build these muscles. I have been so sedentary for so long -- I'll be like a new person riding my bike around. I wonder how I'll feel...