Monday was my first bike ride since my dad was killed by a driver, and I was pretty nervous about it. Would I be extra skittish around cars? Would a giant hole of sadness open up inside me as I did the thing we both loved to do on the bicycle that he bought me and he knew was my home? Would the bent stem on my front wheel’s tube make it so hard to pump up that I’d just start crying frustration tears and not make it out the door? I gathered my things, pumped up my tires–the stem miraculously working fine for the first time since July (thanks, pops)–and headed out, layers and hats and gloves for protection. And it was fine.

I rode down Greenmount for a couple blocks, made my right, snaked up to Hampden, ran my errand, ate a bagel, got back on the bike, and headed to Mount Vernon to meet N. and B. for beers. I took the Jones Falls Trail in hopes of getting a glimpse of something beautiful. That’s another thing that scares me right now–what will happen when I see beautiful things and can’t tell him about it? This shot was the best I could do, and to me, it was beautiful. Sure, that water’s full of sewage and that intersection down there is totally scary and the bike lane full of leaves and sticks, but it’s my sewage, and my dangerous intersection, and my messy bike lane. This is my home, and I’m glad to be back here. And it turns out that yes, I’ll think of my dad on a lot of bike rides, I’m sure, but I’ve been riding a bike almost every day for coming up on ten years. It was our thing, but it’s also my thing, and I was happy to be back to it. It’s my normal, and that’s not going to change. I pedaled down and up and down and up and down and saw B. and got off and walked the rest of the way with him. We had some beers, ate some nachos, shared some stories, and then it was time to ride back home. It was raining a bit so I took it slow. Don’t start a ride in the rain, my dad always said. You’ll spend plenty of time finishing them in it. True that.