When I was four I taught myself how to ride a bike, a two wheeler.  I don't know what was so important about it, it was just something I thought I'd do one day.

My first "grownup" bike was a Sears Free Spirit 10-speed.  It was white.  There's a picture of me somewhere, taken from the window, of my back as I ride away.  In the picture I'm just a blur.   I rode to school every day and would meander through orange groves after and never want to go home and was just  crazy in love with it all.

 

 

When I was living in NYC I bought this bike off the street for like ten dollars, maybe less.  It was way beautiful to me.

I stopped taking the subway and rode it everywhere. 

One night I was riding across the 59th Street Bridge and got mugged.  The guy made me get on my knees and stuck a knife into the back of my neck, took my eight dollars, and then hopped on my bike and rode away.  I ran into the middle of the roadway and flagged a cab, jumped in, pointed to my disappearing bike, and said, "Get him!" And we did.

When I moved to LA I didn't ride for years.  It was spread out and there were a lot of hills but mostly the drivers scared the crap out of me. 

Also, I'd become interested in other things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I left my job to see if I couldn't make it as an artist, and when I did this I needed to downsize.  So I got rid of my very cool car and started riding a bike I found in the dumpster.  My first ride was a mile and a half to  Starbucks.  I thought I was going to die and wanted to take a taxi home.  

 

It took a while, a few years actually, but I eventually worked it out.

The world and I...we just never really found each other...

...I have no friends, I've never found love (nor it me), and I've never figured out how to get along with others.

When I started getting sick, separate from the Should-I Stay-or-Should-I-Go debate I lost my ability to ride, to breathe, and I figured I was just losing my transportation.

But (I came to realize) it was more than that; I started recalling rides like they were long lost friends, reminiscing, missing.  I had a million rides, all with little variables and tweeks to keep them new and interesting, all great and fearless rides. I'd lost more than my way around, I lost all my friends. 

I'd spend whole days on the bike.  We were one, an extension of the other, and we could go anywhere and do anything at will.  Cohorts and compadres, everything was bearable, there was an ease and a love here that counteracted my inability to get on in the world.  Everything worthwhile was either by way of painting or riding, both of them keeping me sane in their separate and necessary ways.

The other night I had to be somewhere nearby and I was painting and running late and to make it on time I grabbed my bike and made a break for it - like a bat out of hell - minus thought or ponder, just a crazy dash on two demonic wheels, and it felt great, it reminded me of what it once was...the joy of it and the pureness of it...

...and I decided, the next day...I was in the library and decided I needed my friends back.  I need to find my way back to my bike.