I haven’t been riding my bicycle much in the last few weeks. I don’t like to start a ride in the rain and I never ride on snow or ice, and that means weather has kept me bus-bound for awhile. I’ve been on my bike every chance I get, but sadly, the chances have been rare. I miss the ease of riding and the control I have over my time that comes with ice-free roads. My mood is better, my wait times are shorter, and I feel free in a way I just don’t when I have to depend on an undependable transit system.

And then there’s the part where I just feel at home on a bicycle. That feeling’s been particularly elusive since my dad was killed. Everything changed in an instant; what I thought was a reliable reality is gone. The order of things is out of order, and the part where I moved offices and homes in the midst of all of this hasn’t helped matters. When I get on my bike, though, I feel like my old self again. The first ride after blizzardmageddon was amazing, and three pedals in I heard myself talking out loud: “Yes. It works. It still works. This is so good.” So good.

Weather’s kept me from getting back into rhythm, but I’m glad to know it’s still there, as is the way bicycling affords peeks at the world. I snapped this picture on a rare ride last Friday. It was so, so cold, but that doesn’t stop me from biking, so I was out and about. I first rode up to Roland Park to see my therapist for another session of weeping, stopped home, and then headed down to Baltimore City Detention Center for my women’s studies class. I couldn’t get in, the whole facility on lockdown. Talk about not being able to find a sense of home or routine–wow, I take that assumption of a right to it for granted. I headed home up Fallsway, a quick snap of this pile of trash tucked away just down the block from the jail’s front door. So much garbage just below the surface, if that. And then I was home, back in my pajamas, in bed, reading the magazines I’d planned to use for an activity with my students. Bachelor Ben fell in love with two people and now people are wondering if it’s actually possible to be in love with more than one person at a time. Welp, if this is what it takes to get folks pondering such a radical outside possibility, there you go. Come on, spring, I know you’re out there.