2010-08-21 - 10:06 p.m.

I don't own a house and I've never much cared for cars. I don't get excited about expensive things. Mostly, I don't. Other than my camera, which I like very much and which helps me see the world in a certain way, I don't go in for shiny gadgets, for things you have to worry about getting stolen.

But then I got my new bike. It is straight-up lovely almost in the way that girls are lovely. And of course that's not at all true but, man, when I'm flying down Falls Road on an August evening, I could almost convince myself that it is. It's made of old-fashioned steel, and it's got a leather seat, and though the handlebars took some getting used to, like all good things now I don't know what I did without them. The lettering on its sides is done in cursive and it's made of just three colors: white, black, and brown. I worry about it getting stolen. I bought a lock that is sometimes difficult for even me to open, and I've got the key.

What I'm saying is that I understand now why people get worked up about their cars. I get it. I was foolish and scratched up the paint on the fork and now I'm searching auto-parts stores for little jars of just the right color.

Going forty down Falls Road yesterday, after a swim, my shorts wet by drying fast, all was fluid. I pedaled and when the cars passed they passed slowly and the wind in my ears made for a one-note music and as all of these things happened, the bike carried me downward, forward, into the night. The bike just went. The Jones Falls, close by on my right, sung to me.

When you're in a moment in which everything works, in which everything pulls you toward some shining point that you're sure you'll touch, at those moments it's true that you're a click or two more alive.

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