Whatever you have going on in your life — your struggles, frustrations — listen to this wise child and be inspired.
you can do it!
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Tag Archives: breakdown
Adventures in Urban Composting: preamblings
Every time I clean the bathroom at work I see it. A little sign declaring, “Waste is a choice.” This sign, small and below eye-level as it may be, haunts me.
In context the sign is simply saying, “throw your paper towel into the compost rather than the trash.” Innocent enough.
Lately, though, every time I see it I imagine myself at home, throwing my apple cores and broccoli peels into the trash.
I don’t compost. I wish I did.
I grew up sorting my compost — my mom wanted the rich soil for her gardens. I’ve lived in and worked at places where others have taken the leap, yet I go home and make excuses for sending carrot tops and garlic peels to the landfill. There, they decay amidst other trash, rendering them useless and creating methane, a potent and extra-villainous greenhouse gas.
No more excuses. I’m gonna do it.
But how?
Here is my first resource: Urban Homestead. It’s a book, but the people who made it also have a website.
Second resource: composing how-to from Eureka Recycling
So now I’m off to do research and collect ingredients. Be back soon to get things started!
Diary of a Winter Biking Virgin: last days
In case you didn’t notice, it’s spring now.
Spring has its own tricks and traps. The mornings are icy and very slippery, the afternoons and evenings are muddy and very messy. At all times there are pot-holes, which are dangerous for bikes and bikers. But the sun is feeding us hope and we have the energy to live again.
This will probably be my last post. I always thought I would sum things up with the positivity of bike commuting and my general feelings of success and radness. While the act of bike commuting has been overwhelmingly positive, I would say that there are parts of my life that were changed by it somewhat negatively.
I could no longer drive to visit family members 50 miles away. While I could bike there (and have in summers past), it’s not practical to make a day trip. I’ve been seeing less of my parents, sisters and nephews. I don’t think this would sit as sharply in my heart, but in the past couple of weeks my father nearly died and was subsequently hospitalized. I am borrowing a car to be able to see him in the hospital, and I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to.
I hate to go all indie film on you and fill this ending with contradiction and uncertainty. I guess those filmmakers were right when they told us that real-life issues don’t reach resolution in an hour and a half — or even a winter. We tried to make the best of hitting a deer and now I’m questioning whether we made the right decision. We’re not in control and I’m not sure there are any right answers.
I’m still biking though. Since my sister and I are sharing the borrowed car, each of us ends up biking to or from the hospital with some frequency.
I still love being on the bike. I still believe it draws me into the city and allows me an intimacy I couldn’t otherwise access.
Tonight I rode home as the sun descended. It was easy to sense that the fleeting evening light in my eyes was the end of a day, a small part of a lifetime. I went a little out of my way to ride by some old haunts. I wasn’t as interested in reliving memories as I was in seeing who was there now, how things may have changed. 
To my surprise, things looked very much the same. Yet I no longer belonged there. I was the one that changed, simply by growing older — hopefully growing in every sense of the word.
Time passes, lives begin and end. All we can do is appreciate moments of beauty, show gratitude, cultivate love and try to grow.
Diary of a Winter Biking Virgin: day 15 {tale of quick-release caution}
I’m learning new things every day. Today, for instance, I learned a couple of things about loose snow and quick-release tires.
The aforementioned loose snow made it hard to get traction. I was riding along and probably resembled a cartoon character whose feet are moving though they’re not going anywhere. Suddenly, back tire just locks up.
Yes, there were people walking by. There always are when you look like a fool. That’s simply the way ’tis. I know of one exception: the time I ran full-speed into a fence. Luckily, it was late at night and not a passerby to be seen. Though I almost wish that someone had been there. What a shame to let this moment of head-over-wheels slapstick go to waste. Alas, no witnesses live to tell the tale.
If, perchance, you are reading this and saying to yourself, “I saw someone bike into a fence on Lyndale Avenue late at night 5 years ago,” please contact me. I’ve always wondered if someone happened to be looking out of their apartment window.
To get back to the original story (in which my back tire is refusing to move, people are walking by and I am cussing), I got off the bike and flipped it over right there in the middle of the bike path. Yes, I probably should have gone off the path. Luckily, no one was around to see this (additional) breech of good judgment.
Turns out the quick release was open and the wheel was starting to come out. Who was to blame for this, I’m not sure. The bike shop was the last one to put the wheel back in, so they’re the obvious scapegoat. It’s not really important. It was an easy fix and a good lesson: check in to make sure your quick release handles are closed, especially after they’ve been worked on. Also, the lack of traction and loose snow seemed to have something to do with it, so take that into account too.
Would have been much worse if it had been the front tire …
Dairy of a Winter Biking Virgin: day 4 {existential/bike breakdown}
Today I left a little early for work.
How nice it will be to get there a few minutes early, I thought to myself. I’ll check my email, get the coffee started and by 9 I’ll be ready to attack that to-do list.
I should have known right then and there that something would go wrong.
Things seemed normal for the first mile or so. After awhile, however, I noticed that the bike seemed a little slow today and that there was shiftiness with the gears. And by that I mean it felt like the bike might be shifting gears without direction from me. After awhile, I figured out that it was not shifting, but the chain was slipping from time to time. Namely, this was happening when I put more pressure on it. For instance, going up hills or trying to gain speed.
I tried changing gears. Rather than solve the problem, the shifting mechanism appeared to break or at least loosen to a point of uselessness. No, I wouldn’t be shifting gears today, nor perhaps any time in the near future.
Meanwhile, the bike resisted each turn of the pedal. As a result, I was moving very slowly. Clearly, this is not an ideal position to be in on one’s way to work. With stout-hearted patience such as mine, however, it could be done. It would be done! I had left early, after all.
Perhaps it is needless to say that I found myself walking up hills (more than usual). The chain-slippage prevented me from pushing up the hill or gaining much speed beforehand. Most of the ride is slightly uphill snd today, of course, there was a biting headwind. I forced through but the ride dragged and I regretted that I was the one pulling it.
I don’t know exactly how cold it was this morning at 8:30am, but I would guess it was below zero (yes, fahrenheit). It would have felt cold even if I had been able to pedal my fastest and therefore get my blood pumping, but this enforced slowness was preventing me from the luxury of self-created heat. My toes were chilled, my thumbs were complaining, my cheeks were stinging.
Frustrated, exhausted and generally peeved, by the time I was three-quarters of the way to the office I was beyond questioning my decision to take up biking. Instead, I was questioning my reasons for existing at all. Never mind this morning”s uphill battles and hostile winds. They were merely a metaphor for my entire life, which suddenly appeared to me as a relentless series of struggles with no reward.
Objectively (and from a heated room), I can say that this is false. At that particular moment, however, I cursed the heavens. I cursed my very existence, out loud and with every ounce of my being. Perhaps there will be some divine retribution, but I’m not sure it could be any worse than the moment itself.
In the end, I made it to work (five minutes late, despite having left early). Tonight, I’ll bring my bike to the shop. Tomorrow, with any luck, things will be back to normal.