Flat Pedals

A lot has happened in the last 2 weeks. I’m terrified. Back in June I threw up my hands in regard to school and I said to God ”If this is the way you want me to go then you are going to have to make it evident because I’m deaf and blind and I don’t know what to do.” As a result it seems that all the roadblocks to school are frickin dissolving before my very eyes. It doesn’t seem to matter what the particular hindrance is. A caseworker that is not advocating, an inability to type, or not being able to afford gas, they’re all dissolving just the same. I was particularly focused on the next wave of present imaginary problems. Reliable transportation. To distract my self I went to a class at church. It was called Rhyming with Orange. The class is about sparking the creative thinking process, and the habits of creative thinking people. It doesn’t much matter what your creation or endeavor is. It could be art, writing, starting a business or developing the courage to bomb down a hill on single track in the dark. It’s about the process. We were taught about how our environment and community impact our ability to succeed. It’s important to be influenced by people who believe you can do it, whatever “it” is. Sitting there listening I received a message on how this impacts more than just the creative process. It impacts the heart.

The instructor held a demonstration. Two volunteers went into the hallway. They would be assigned a task. The only clues we could give would be to cheer or boo. Like we used to play Hot and Cold when I was a kid. The instructor put a marker on top of one of the speakers. Locating the marker was Donna’s task. When she entered the room he told her she had a task. Nothing more. He said we would cheer or boo to indicate if she was making progress on completing the task. Donna located the marker on our cheers and boos alone in less than a minute and a half. Sue was given the same instruction when she came in. The only difference in our instruction was that we were only aloud to boo. That’s it. No cheering. Sue started out excited to meet the challenge, but after several minutes of constant booing even when she was close to accomplishing her task, she turned to the group threw up her hands and said “I have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to do?” I saw. I heard. That was me. That was my daughter. That was my son. I understood. I almost had to leave the room. I haven’t known what to do much of my life. I’ve always done the wrong thing because of it. No direction just floundering. A lifetime of knee jerk emotional reactions to the crap life has thrown at me has brought me to this. Thirty-nine years old, alone, uneducated with a potentially progressive chronic illness under this seemingly healthy exterior. The only thing I have left to do is ask, “What do you want me to do next?”

It would seem that I was the only one who had such an emotional reaction to this simple demonstration. I really didn’t learn anything that night that I don’t already know cognitively. It’s the difference between knowing that 8 is the answer to 4+4 and knowing how 8 is the answer. I sat through the rest of the class choking back the tears because I also understood the difference between my life now and my life a year ago. Encouragement and a bicycle. Nothing more. In some strange hocus pocus kind of way whenever I have received encouragement from someone about mountain biking it has transcended itself into every other area of my life. The basic principles of riding single track seem to apply everywhere. Another reason why my panties get in a bunch when my bike isn’t functioning properly. My bike and myself are on the injured list as I sit here typing. This is the story.

My friend Nate asked me if I wanted to go for a night ride. We meet at the trailhead at dusk. Donning our spelunking attire we head out on the first loop. That sensation that we are being watched creeps upon me. I dare to glance away from the trail and I can see their eyes glinting back at me. The boogey men of the single-track night. Shadows cast changing the trails terrain. Familiar but new at the same time. Like an old friend that you haven’t seen in years. After a few miles the comfort of the ride settles in. Eyes have adjusted to the darkness and we start chit chatting. Nate happens to mention someone that we both know. My attention wanders because of this as we descend upon the down hill root wall. Endo. Handlebar in chest. Face plant. Nate checks my teeth with his light. It’s all good. I get up and get back on my bike but my left foot won’t clip into the pedal. At the top of the hill we look at it. I’ve blown out the bottom of my sole. I was grateful that I wasn’t paralyzed and my teeth were still good but at that moment when I saw my cleat still clipped into my pedal and a hole in the bottom of my shoe I did a mental death spiral. In my imagination I had to sell my Ice Man entry because I don’t have any cold weather gear especially now that I can't afford new shoes and I’ll have to back out of school because there is no way I’ll be able to do any of this if I can’t ride my bike and I can’t ride my bike if my shoe is blown out and I can’t afford new shoes because I have to pay a speeding ticket and if I don’t pay my speeding ticket then I’ll lose my driving privileges and if I lose my driving privileges I’ll have to ride my bike that I can’t ride because the shoe is blown out so I’ll have to use flat pedals and that makes as much sense as getting back together with my ex-boyfriend and the thought of this makes me want to throw up.

Thank God for friends who are willing to extend a hand of encouragement into the pit and pull me out. Double D told me to go to the shop I bought them from. Trout Smith told me I would find a way. Speedy reminded me of how good my life is. The Jode offered to give me a pair of her shoes. 1 Guy 1 Gear told me I have nice legs and Kristina told me I’d be back to work on Monday telling some phenomenal story equivalent to red dragonflies and owls and how God provided what I needed. Like wings their words carried me out of my despair to the land of milk and honey once again. My new shoes will be here by the end of the week and I don’t have to get back with my ex-boyfriend.

In the mean time I’m going crazy because I haven’t been on my bike. I broke down yesterday and had my friend Thomas put on the flat pedals. I was going to go to Yankee but I thought perhaps I should test them out first. It was exactly like I imagine getting back with my ex would be. A waste of time, energy and unexpectedly painful. Literally. I felt a pop in the sore spot on my chest where I impaled myself the other night. Ouch! My feet wouldn’t stay connected on the upstroke. They would bounce off at the slightest bump and I wondered how I ever survived without my pedals and shoes before. That got me thinking about my life before I was aware that God cares. I was once again reminded of the importance of staying connected with Him and the people He has brought into my life. This is how my bike talks to me. It's a language that I can understand. It reconnects my head with my heart, God Almighty, and to you, my encouragers who cheer me on toward the marker on the speaker. My salvation truly is a group effort.

That being said; both adjustment knobs are broken on my fork and if I can’t adjust my fork then I can’t……. Okay God, what do you want me to do next?

Pieces

It’s February 3,1983. I’m thirteen. 4:00 am. I can’t sleep. I put my thumb back in my mouth. There’s a feeling in my guts that won’t go away. Like butterflies or a motor running. I sense that my dad isn’t there. I slip out of bed and look out my window. His truck is gone. I go out to the living room and sit on the couch to read my book. I ‘ve got this neurotic habit of rocking back and forth on the couch while I moan and chant. My little sister has the same habit. Everyone called us the “Bouncy Twins.” Trying to make light of our obvious dysfunction. I don’t know how many couches we have destroyed by this point. She was always yelling at me for it. I couldn’t sit still on the couch no matter what the consequences were. She told me I was retarded and maybe I should think about stopping because other people would find out. I became so self-conscious about it that I would try to stop if I heard someone coming. Sometimes all I could do was mange to stop the moaning/chanting and slow the full swing rocking to just a small movement back and forth.

On this February morning as I’m on the couch reading and rocking I hear the storm door open and click shut. I know its only going to be 15 seconds before I hear the key in the lock. I slow down my rock as my Dad is opening the door. I come to a dead stop when I see the flower arrangements my sister and I had made for her a few days earlier. “She’s dead isn’t she? What time?” “I’m sorry babe,” he said “right around 5:30“. “I need to get ready for school.” I said. He said I wouldn’t be going for a while. “How long?” I ask. “As long as it takes.” I started rocking again and crying, in part because of the unexpected compassion in his voice.

I wasn’t prepared for her death. I mean we all knew it was coming but I wasn’t done hating her yet. Hating her for being sick, for everything that she did and didn’t do .I hated her just because of who she was. I knew I was supposed to love her no matter what. I couldn’t wrap my mind around losing her while I still felt this way.

It’s the Christmas before she dies. Our Hospice Nurse took us shopping to buy a gift for her. She took us to The Lantern, a Christian bookstore in Urbandale. I remember the spray on snow in the windows. Everything looked so warm and fuzzy. The happy faces of the shoppers. Caroles playing. My little sister the loyal one, excited to buy her something. I felt so much like the old cliché, “on the outside looking in.” I was certain that we were the only ones in the store whose mother was dying. Perhaps I was the only one in the world who hated their mother as she was.

I found a wall plaque that said, “ I asked Jesus how much He loved me and He spread His arms wide and said “I love you this much!” The minute I saw it I knew that was the gift. Until she opened it that is. She was so frail and skinny. Her knobby fingers tore away the paper. I waited in anticipation. Hoping that for once I could please her. She just sobbed when she read it. I didn’t know what to do. I had obviously made a mistake. I started crying too. I was going to leave but then she looked me in the eye and said, “Thank you” and as she glanced away she said, “I love you” I don’t remember her telling me that before. I don’t mean to say that she never spoke those words to me. I truly wouldn’t know. It just happens to be the only time I remember her saying it. Her actions on any given day for the most part spoke something all together contrary.

It’s not that I got beat everyday because I didn’t. But everyday I got beat it just seemed so random and it came with no warning. My memory isn’t complete on a lot of the details. Especially the part I played in it. Funny how that is. On this particular occasion she had just had her teeth pulled because she was getting dentures. I remember being in the kitchen and she was angry. She was trying to swallow her pain pills but her lips wouldn’t grip the straw. She asked me if I was lying. About what I don’t remember. The next thing I know my head is bouncing off the cinder block wall repeatedly. I was screaming for her to stop as she was screaming “Jesus fucking Christ I hate you! Don’t ever lie to me again! I wish you would go to hell!” She didn’t stop slamming my head into the wall until I screamed, “ I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding please Mom stop!” The mention of blood caught her attention and she stopped to look at my head. It turns out that what I thought was blood was just the sweat of panic. An over reaction on my part I guess. She grabbed me by the hair and pushed me against the wall as my head bounced for the last time. She told me to go to my room. It was over.

I remembered this incident the day I bought the plaque as she lay in her bed slowly dying, barely 75 lbs. Some how I knew that as much as we were different there was a part of me that was the same as her. We understood what it was like to pay for someone else’s sins. I guess we had that in common with Him (not exactly the co-inheritance of Christ). Our responses just happened to be different I guess. She carried on the tradition. I abandoned my children so it wouldn’t continue. He remained sinless. I wanted to be sinless too, but I just couldn’t. There is still that part of me that wants to be a saint. To remain unaffected. To love and understand and be willing to take the hits for the team. My humanity won’t let me.



There are numerous episodes like this one. To many to recall. The lines have blurred together over time. Sometimes I’m not sure who was getting beat or accosted. One of my siblings or myself. It’s almost as if we are all one melded together. I’ve tried to separate myself from my childhood, from my family. It’s like trying to remove my skin or draining the blood from my veins. I need these things to be, just as my past makes me who I am. At the same time when I recall these memories it is much like dragging around an amputated limb. It doesn’t function and if there is any flesh left on it, it just stinks. People can tell.

The worst wasn’t necessarily being beat. I t was the verbal blows that came with each strike of the fist, and the remorse that would strike her later. I would always betray myself and fall into her arms and sob while she stroked the hair on the head that she just beat and told me how sorry she was. These were the only times I received affection from her. I hated myself for falling for this again. She didn’t mean it. She’d try harder next time. I still believe that.


A few years ago I started praying for understanding. Largely because of my own inept parenting skills. I’ve had enough counseling to know that there is a connection. Although I don’t beat my children or call them names, I lack the coping skills necessary to deal with them effectively. I started asking questions of relatives about my mother. I was almost fourteen when she died. I don’t really know much about her other than my own experiences with her. I’m old enough and aware enough to know that my perceptions and knowledge are very limited, and her life was comprised of more than just the time frame that we knew each other. From what I’ve gathered my mother grew up in foster homes and orphanages. No one is clear on the circumstances as to why she ended up there. I do know that she suffered serious abuse. She was called a niger wop while she was being beat. That is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s also the extent of my knowledge of her childhood.

The bitch about understanding is this. I understand. Limited yes, but I understand. Pieces of the puzzle fall into place and I say, “No wonder, it wouldn’t make sense any other way.” Suddenly the Blame Thrower malfunctions in my grip and I find myself burned. Responsible for my actions although still unaware of what or how to change them.

No longer justified in my own mind, the realization came that I’m a broken vessel, trying to glue my pieces back together. Some pieces represent love. Some pieces represent hate.

Sometimes, to me, these pieces….They look the same.