Bike Rides in Limbo

This morning I took the Cream Dream for its first Spokane ride. I went to the post office and my bank, which are both right downtown. The streets weren't very busy--maybe nine a.m. on a Monday morning is calmer than other times?--and a couple of the main streets even have bike lanes!

The only issue is that the traffic lights are timed in such a way that I end up stopping at every street. Maybe I just need to become a faster biker. After finding the post office, which reminds me of a larger version of Marquette's, I rode around looking into the windows of restaurants and coffee shops. Even if we can't afford to go out to eat now, it's nice to plan where our first meal might take place. 

Spokane is starting to look a little better, but I miss everyone. Right now, with no local friends, or internet, or furniture, it feels like we aren't really living here. It feels like we are going to pick up and leave at any time. Nothing is on our walls or covering our windows, and nothing will be for at least another month. But on the bright side, I've been doing a lot of reading.

One Elizabeth Bishop poem really made me smile yesterday. When I finally post pictures of our apartment, you'll see that, outside our front window, is a tree, whose deep purple leaves shimmer like a glass of Merlot in the evening. Reading Bishop's poem made me think of my tree:

Oh, tree outside my window, we are kin,
For you ask nothing of a friend but this:
To lean against the window and peer in
And watch me move about! Sufficient bliss

For me, who stand behind its framework stout,
Full of my tiny tragedies and grotesque grieves,
To lean against the window and peer out,
Admiring infinites’mal leaves.



Later today Joe and I are going to go for a bike ride. Maybe we'll make some more tree friends.