sweet ol' harrisonburg

I'm a sucker for color-splashed downtown. For the little potted flowers tucked in the curves of brick buildings on which you can still see the old names in fading white paint. For the people and the breads and the greens at the farmer's market. For the folks who take the bus, and walk, and bike.

It's my second early morning in a row parked at this coffeeshop with my new macbook, and yesterday I got spotted over on benches in front of the library by the same person who'd seen me here in the morning. He called me a transient, and I took it as a compliment. There are bikes all over this city, and a vibe I don't remember being quite so strong or so cool.

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I applied at Clementine and saw the "eat fresh, eat local" poster and felt the warm afternoon camraderie of the staff, and decided that's where I want to work. But they want commitment, and I am still young - commitment comes hard.  I went back out to to think in the sunshine, then leapt, and felt as if I was answering life again, same old formula, new freedom. We (women, mostly) have marveled at focus and a narrowing of interest that leads to "success and happiness" perhaps. I want that, or the passion at least. The women I was asking said for awhile they had wanted that too.

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It's been barely three days of biking, but so far it feels good. There are sunsets and rolling hills north of town. There are burning thighs and the old questions about how much I can push. There are shops that I notice, and explore. The eight-dollar Keens at Granny Longlegs.

There are the hazards too. Glass shards scattered wide on the bridge on Reservoir. So wide I have to pick up my bike and carry it over them. Those damn train tracks on Country Club. So far I've swung wide to hit them at close to perpendicular. I hold my breath when the dumptrucks go roaring but, but Kratzer feels safer than 11, like Dan said it would. Sailing down that big hill out on Kratzer for the first time, I placed my fingers on a bee which had settled on my handlebars. I can't remember the last time I was stung. My finger swelled and ached. Somehow though, the fall air on my face and the view of the rolling hills lessened the sharpness. And Jill is waiting for me in the white farmhouse with walnuts in the yard and a hundred cookbooks on the shelf. There was a shorn field that I passed going home - I wrote this:

Round bales lie on the field

rolled so smooth they shine.

In the second afternoon I see

the tractor moving, the front fork,

the fast reverse, effortless lift, a line

made neat at the edge of the field.

Beyond it all - behind the bales

and the field and the tractor and

the invisible farmer, back behind

the mountains, the sun is setting.