Today I rode my bike around 11 miles, shorter than usual, because it was drizzling the entire time. I kept hoping the sun would fight its way through the clouds but it gave up. I didn’t give up, though, because I was enjoying myself. I only cut the ride short because I was getting too wet.<\/p>\n
I always enjoy my ride. Always. I don’t always look forward to it, and sometimes it is a true bitch, but there’s something about it. And as I pushed on my thick black pedals, it came to me: it’s the singing. I wear my earbuds — on low, so don’t bug me — and I listen to my favorite stuff. Over and over. You only get like 90 songs or something on a shuffle, so there’s a lot of repeating.<\/p>\n
The songs are repeating, the tires go round and round, my routes are nearly always the same. I’m alone. I can’t hold onto thoughts when I ride. If something’s bothering me, it sounds like this: “Why did he, why does he always?” and then I blank out. And then, oh, yeah, “Why does he…?” Sometimes I don’t even remember the problem. I get distracted by nothing and everything: Where did that gorgeous scent come from?<\/em> Hey, those shrubs are blooming now!\u00a0 Oops, stick, watch out. Fucking car. Ha ha cute chipmunk. <\/em> The tires are new and bouncy, with treads like hard muscle, and they sound as loud as a car; sometimes I think a car is right behind me and it’s only me. Especially when the roads are wet: that’s when my tires are the loudest.<\/p>\n The music feels like sweet chocolate in the middle of a good bite of candy. No matter how many times I hear Neil Young sing, “The sky is blue and so is the sea,” my lungs expand with that tender, simple truth. Even when the sky is toadstool grey. And I sing along. I sing all the time on my bike. I whistle, too. I whistle when I’m passing walkers, because I don’t want them to hear me sing. But other than that, I’m singing, and when cars pass me, my mouth is wide open and my lips are bent around lyrics. I probably look kind of silly.<\/p>\n I have to sing when I ride; I just can’t help it. Well, I guess I can help it, of course. It’s not like breathing or something. But the thing is, I don’t want to help it. When others want to ride with me, it is a compromise for me. I love the company of dear ones, but I also have to forgo my music when I’m with them. I miss it during those times. I long for it when I can’t have it, when my battery’s dead and I can’t sing on my ride.<\/p>\n And today while rounding one of my favorite corners, as the wet from the road hit me in the face, so did the realization that I am just like Nat. My singing\/riding is my stim. I do it almost uncontrollably because the zen of it is so pleasurable. I’m lost in it, lost to it. I look a bit weird doing it. I try to modify it around others but in the end, I gotta do it.\u00a0 And so, if I can do it, so can he.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today I rode my bike around 11 miles, shorter than usual, because it was drizzling the entire time. I kept hoping the sun would fight its way through the clouds but it gave up. I didn’t give up, though, because I was enjoying myself. I only cut the ride short because I was getting too […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-Ka","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2864,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions\/2864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}