New bikes!

Isabella and Tyler are riding back and forth in front of me. Tyler wants Isabella's new purple bike, given by a generous neighbor, because it is a girl bike and therefore eternally more appealing. She is getting the hang of it, now that she is using shoes instead of sandals. Oops, she just fell, but she says, "I know what I am doing it is just really hard when I use it with those shoes. Just try and try and try like me. I don't know how to do it still, but I am learning, right mommy?" Right. I wish I were so willing to fail and try again.

We're different, she's definitely an improvement.

My dad, possibly the greatest man ever, in my humble opinion, just brought me a new bike too. Well, not really a new one, but one I bought and then used very little, so, practically new, and happily a gendered bike, so riding it to school will not require flashing half the world as I lift my skirt to climb on. I could just not wear skirts, I suppose, but in one of my more or less paradoxical ontological states, I am eternally feminine, just not in the traditional sense. Isabella will be a high femme, I am sure, with painted nails and lipstick on her lips (she burned herself last night:( unpleasantly marring her pout. But I am more the earthy type, preferring cotton fabrics to all others. If I think about the implications of this I might just have to decide never to where clothing again, being forced to boycott everything for one reason or another, but this just won't be effective in civil society, alas.

So back to my dad. The other day, a seemingly learned man was discussing that for the man, there is the need to anhilate the father in order to acheive realization. I don't know about all that. But then, I am not a man. It has also been said that all girls are in love with their fathers, but Isabella would be an exception to that rule (not that she doesn't love her father, she does, just that she is madly in love with her mother going against standard developmental norms- go on girl!). I don't think that I am searching to replace my father, I just think he is really wonderful. I am sure that his dissappearing into his work aggravates my mom to no end, as it would probably aggravate me- eternally wanting to be the center of attention, la luz de los ojos, of whomever. He is just the kindest, most soft-spoken, generous and moral man I know, and I know a lot of men... and he drove all of my things, selflessly, across the country, just so I would be happy. Of course he knows, and worries, that I never really will be happy, in the basic sense of the word, but we have analyzed this over tea and eggs benedict, and I assured him that I will be ok, if not eternally blissful. He knows that I am of the tribe of the eternally discontent, he being the one who tried to explain the government's right to eminent domain to me while I questioned the underlying morality of it. I was five. It didn't seem fair then and it doesn't seem fair now, but for different reasons. I think that one thing that my father has always provided for me was a deep sense of safety, sometimes I do wish that I felt protected like I used to, and that I didn't have to pay the bills myself:( but other than that...

I hope that I can provide that sense of safety to my daughter. Sometimes I feel like I have (actively?) sought role reversal, I want to be the father... only to find a deep sense of dissatisfaction and wont. Perhaps it is too complex for me to grasp right now. I am watching, Isabella keeps falling down, but I think that the falling down is good for her. You can't avoid pain in life, just learn how to deal with it. The kids are on the slim sidewalk in front of my house, next to the semi-circuit that encircles the housing complex. I don't like the view just in front of me, the bike path and then the fenced-off houses, overly ostentatious, for what they are. Poorly planned space designed for maximum profit of the developer and minimum care for the environment. Huge boxy structure on top of another, no real privacy, no green space. I wonder if they can see me when I stand naked in front of the window, dressing in the mornings. I doubt that they have much cause to look this way. I would be very sad if that were my crowning acheivement, owning a box like that, and at the same time, I absolutely understand the desire to have a safe, owned space. More contradictions, more confusion. I would like to expand to the point that everyone have their own bedroom, their own office, their own safe zone, but that would be anti-ecological and against my more basic need for community. I just haven't figured a way to construct (or maintain) that community, and then miserably, I always end up fleeing and detonating the explosives that blow my little constructions apart.

Laura made me promise one thing, and perhaps that should be my little goal, the ounce of control, the piece that I can manipulate. She said that I have to try to change at least one gear on my bike today. I will, even if it makes that grinding noise that sends panic messages to my brain. I can control that and perhaps it will make me happy? If not, I won't be alone in my perpetual search. Off I go. New bikes, new adventures, scraped knees and elbows and tears and the flying, racing letting go.