My smile has no shortcut; it is not generated with a command prompt. It cannot be recruited as a firewall against emotional violence.
It is not a productivity interface, nor a nostalgic CD-ROM.
It is a background program that can truly only be viewed, or shut down, by those with the code. You won’t know you’ve been given it until it’s already been keyed in.
Lately, only I know how frequently the status light has been green, and I seem to have forgotten which keys abort the sequence.
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A few months ago, I had a new bike built to semi-retire one that still lives by the grace of God and has tire limitations. What followed was over a month of adjustments to try to solve back tension to no end, so the old frame was rebuilt with new components. The trend continued and several more months of pain and stress stole what remained of my season.
The problem was sourced through rounds of conversation with two professional bike-fitters, AI, and research on the physiology of track sprinters and… golfers, that revealed an uncommon motor pattern that is underrepresented in bike-fit literature. Essentially, my comfort and power transfer depends on an anteriorly rotated pelvis and very little thoracic spinal flexion, thus making me intolerant of a more standard, compact form.
In layman’s terms, most people are Porsches, and I’m a Peterbilt—long and incredulously unsuitable for sharp turns.
The more interesting part is the potential of correlation between that profile and the pre-cycling history I have outlined in my writing. I plan to expand on this at a later date.
For now, the end of me flying out of my rocking chair and rides cut devastatingly short has arrived—just in time for my exclusively solar-powered self to enter my annual inward retreat.
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All is extremely quiet on the western front.
I am not dreading the holidays for the first time since I was a little kid, and someone was mysteriously on the roof of Papa’s house jingling Santa’s bells on Christmas Eve night. I’ll only have one person over, and no tree.
I’ve changed directions again because a whole system told me “No,” and another might just slow me down. I found a few lines of code that suggest something more aligned could be initializing.
And my face isn’t as much of a transmitter as my words are,
but you don’t yet know the zeal at my core,
and I’ll forward that data no sooner than it has been earned.
I will the machine. 