Even my Siamese cat complains and lies wilting in the shade. Vaguely affronted that conditions could so fail to be to his liking, he asks for distractions such as food, which he then finds also fail to please, so another lie down is called for.
In weather like this… I learned to ride a pushbike as a child of maybe seven. We lived in a very small provincial NZ town in a farming district. The streets were safe for an unsteady child on a two-wheeler, or so it seemed to me. Feeling tricked by my brother’s technique of pushing from behind and then letting go without me knowing, at some point I gathered together that terrifying, fragile sense of staying upright by keeping the forward momentum, and I tottered off down the street to claim Main Street as my own. What lingers is the combination of rushing air, the rhythmic sound of the tyres against bitumen, and the feeling of seeing things from higher than usual. So the curiously elongated letters in white paint, yards long, spelling ‘G-I-V-E W-A-Y’ and ‘S-T-O-P’ that make visual sense from a car, flowed like film reel under the bicycle tyres, now somehow different in meaning from the same words on lollipop signs at the street corners. The words were now mine: they were meant for me too. In my other life a scruffy, nondescript blonde-haired child of seven, up on the seat of the bike I was legitimately part of another world where the rules determined by adults were ones that I too could master and own.
In weather like this… I now learn to ride a road bike. I buy the helmet, the cycling shirt with pockets at the back; I already have the shoes with cleats. I go to my university campus, where acres of sun-browned fields and shady trees are circled by roads undisturbed by traffic this holiday weekend. The sun beats down. I park underneath a large leafy tree, unload the bike, put on the helmet and shoes. I scoot off down a slight grassy incline, mastering the crucial trick of clicking the shoes in – and out – of the cleats. I roll to a stop, one leg ready to connect with the ground. So many decades later, the basics are still there. Yes! I ride back to the car, uphill a little this time. Somehow I have the right gear, get there, unclick and get off. Yes! Second trip, I mis-judge the timing of unclicking my left foot, and the bike and I, united by shoe cleats, fall as one onto the grass. No worries. This is why I came today, and began on the grass. Back on again, and next time to the road.
A couple of circuits of the campus later, cocky now, I point the bike up a bit of an incline by the Mason Clinic heading for the Architecture School. Two observers sit in the shade, perhaps talking about me, or perhaps something else: either way, enough to distract me. I slow to a standstill, wrong gear, I forget about the feet, too late now … for an eternity we hang in a moment of balance, the bike and I, united by shoe cleats, then fall as one onto the road. Blood runs down my shin and the bike chain has come off. No worries. I wipe the blood off with leaves, fiddle with the chain, and find a tap to clean my hands. Back on the bike and away I go… and away I go… and away I go… the wind in my face, the road disappearing under me like film reel. I stand on the pedals a little at times to absorb the bumps and judder bars, loving it. I push hard to get up the little inclines, and feel a rush of playful pleasure as I sweep down the other side, onto long straights, judging the corners to tilt the bike a little to negotiate the arc. More downhill, more flat, and there! The sprinklers watering the field where the Auckland Blues train and I ride under them, one, two, three, as the spray blows onto the road.
A few circuits later, the road now mine, my face puce from the sun and the effort, I dismount, wrench off the shoes and helmet, toss them on the grass, gasp into the remains of the litre of water I’d brought, lie down on the grass under the large leafy tree and feel thrilled. The veil of leaves stirs and shifts over me. Cicadas scrape out a wall of sound. I study a cycle map of Auckland.
