Bad Breaks and Heartbreak

Well, I met someone here. We were introduced about a week or two after my arrival in Swakop and I’ve been seeing her since. My co-worker’s fiancé introduced us. He had come across her and thought that we’d really click. For a while he was right. He dropped her off at my house one day in October. I spent most of my first few hours with her not talking much. She really isn’t one for words. It was the little non-verbal cues – the posture, the eye contact, the presence. She was captivating.

I liked her because she’s complex. When we started talking about her past it was clear to me that she had her fair share of bad turns. She’d seen a lifetimes worth of pain and suffering, mistreatment and abuse. But she still stood strong. Held together by a thread, maybe, but standing nonetheless. For a while, it was perfect. Until she began to let me down. I don’t want to say she began to quit on me, because I don’t think that’s fair. I just think I expected too much of her. I should’ve been more pragmatic. More understanding. But I felt abandoned. Mostly, I felt stuck. If it wasn’t her wheels, it was her chain. If it wasn’t her chain, it was her handlebars. Let me explain.

I feel it’s time that I introduce you all to her. Here is a picture of my new (but otherwise old) bike. 

The white-almost-brown-rusted frame looks brand new compared to the crusty chain that looks like it was excavated from a sunken ship just last week. But as long as it works, I don’t mind too much. Not until I get on to ride the bike at which point my butt pierces with pain at each pedal against the hard shell plastic seat. My Peace Corps issued helmet has a softer exterior than the unbreakable, soft-as-a-baby-boulder, arguably a torture technique of a seat that I ride on. And to tease me, the bike has an 6 gear-shifter that has no wire attached to it. It just sits there on the handle bars and taunts me with what I could have had if I got to this bike before Y2K. And that’s the toughest part about it. I’ll be riding and I’ll think of what a bike she must have been in her glory years. Back when she had two functioning brakes instead of half of one. It’s so sad to see a legend out of his or her prime. Silly thing still thinks she is a great one.

She crapped out on me about two weeks ago. Technically I can go and get her fixed, but I can’t manage to swallow the frustration and, for the fifth time, go to get another part of her fixed.

A week after buying her, the back tire popped. I went to a bike repair place in town. As I was riding away the front tire blew out. Went back to the same place and got that fixed. A couple weeks later, rushing to a meeting I was late for, the screw connecting the handlebars to the bike came off. I was holding the handlebars with my left hand and steering from the base of the handlebar area with my right. Quite the task. Went and got that fixed too. A couple days later the chain came off the cogs. My sitemate Justin, having his fair share of bike experience, fixed that up for me. For a while things were going well – until the back tire popped again. I swore this would be the last thing I would fix. I went, bought a brand new tire track and got the tire tube replaced. Surely this would solve the problem for good. And it did. That problem anyways. As I was riding it home, the chain came off again. All I have to do is ask Justin to take another look at it, but I can’t. I hope you understand why. At a certain point you have to say, “Technology has failed me and broken my heart”. I know I can always rely on my own two legs. Plus, it gives me more time to Podcast. But every morning, as I lace up my shoes and get ready to walk out the door, I look at her with longing eyes. I do miss her. She just wants to be out on the open road. And I want to bring her there. I just need some space, I guess. Some time to think about her and me. Sometime to think about what it means to be a bike owner.