pavement beating and tears, an uncanny fury of enthusiasm without escape valve but heavy soul. The thud of my careworn footsteps on disconsolate concrete, the enormity of the sausage machine of academia and school that wanted to rid me of my lust for adventures and shape me into a suited man, a gargoyle of capitalist serfdom and a boy petrified with fear of neighbourhood bullies who would harass him on the way home.
The monotony of life on the block and its unpalatable denezins combined with a school syllabus evermore focused on performance.
Bereft of just what I’d hitherto enjoyed – exploration of the mind through prose and the oneiric places they took me, I skidded down the hill abruptly dragging my leg behind.
My yearning for far flung places and the earth metamorphosed into math class and racist teachers, my nagging Mum and the reality of growing up as the only whitie in school. Thankfully I made it through but it wasn’t cool.
Secondary school on the Dulwich Estate followed, a blast of middle class existence and new school, no more neighbourhood thugs and renewed love for Geography and English and Ms Kempster’s beautiful eyes.
The 30 minute walk was a breeze and more importantly my first love appeared in my life, though it hadn’t yet dawned on me: my bicycle. I’d peddle my way to school and when it got broken run back.
Then I met Chris, a good for nothing skater and we’d go on cross city jaunts, hanging on to the backs of buses and leaping over stairs, narrowly avoiding getting squashed.
Somehow we came to be hanging out with older kids at the cutty sark who took all sorts of noxive substances and got stoned at the park. Chris turned out to be an ass and full of hatred, we had a row and never spoke again. Perhaps I was closing an avenue I knew wasn’t right, cos then I rediscovered my bike and didn’t look back.
Just at that stage again where I felt trapped by the characters around me and smallness of Mayall Rd, my Mum bought me a road bike. A blue Reynolds with steel tubes and new age gear shifters, my ticket to the moon.
At one point or another I met James and learnt the way out of the big haze, about 40 mins through some steep slopes to Crystal Palace park and then downhill to Bromley. Chain gang night rights and lactic induced burn, I slowly became a seasoned cyclist, but the thing I liked most was the open road, to head in any given direction then be bold. At first it was the south coast and Scotland, couch surfing and welcoming strangers who didn’t shout or criticise me and then, then I branched out and my wheels led me further south across an ocean.
We went to Tenerife with the lads and drifted across moonscapes and evergreen trees, hours of climbing and heart wrenching ascents and shot back down at warp speed to a coastal city full of chavs.
Next came the French Pyrenees and tinkle of cowbells, ice cold alpine streams and meandering roads into the sky. I grappled slowly up, struggling to stay sat in my seat and roll the gear, at the same time enamoured by life’s beauty far away from my messy room and jeering dinner ladies of my childhood. My heavy breath subsided and the pass flattened out. I packed in some newspaper into my jersey and felt the howling wind. I looked up and saw the view of multiple valleys thousands of feet below and indiscernible speckles of human life on mountain folds and large peaks looming high on the horizon. A gust of filled my lungs anew and jumped back on to the saddle. This time I knew I was on the right track.
.
Créditos de la imagen de portada: Pixabay, ThorstenF, https://pixabay.com/photos/bicycle-brake-child-boy-4088917/ Créditos de la imagen inferior: Colección del autor.
Estimado citizen,
Como ciclista desde mi infancia, primero en una 20 y después en una 26, me recordó a mis años de intrépido e imprudente y a los recientes de exploración mental.
Estimado citizen,
Como ciclista desde mi infancia, primero en una 20 y después en una 26, me recordó a mis años de intrépido e imprudente y a los recientes de exploración mental.