There's a picture that AG took in Bilbao that isn't what it appears. Josu, Luis and I are standing in front of the Guggenheim, and it's pretty clear (in spite of what I wrote before) that Josu is staring at my ass. It isn't quite what it seems.
February 13th, 2005 - for those of you who live in Madrid, you probably remember that date as the day that the Torre Windsor burned down and screwed up train service for the better part of three days. That particular Sunday, a bunch of us were supposed to go to Guadalajara to do a day trip around the Alcarria and visit Lupiana Monastery, which was an important mapmaking centre in the 16th Century. Needless to say, with the train service mucked up, we didn't make it to Guadalajara in time to visit the Monastery, and we got, er, diverted off our path and ended up having to cut through a wheat field, mud and plants and all, supposedly owned by one of Madrid's most prominent families. That not-so-shortcut took us to the town of Iriépal, and from there, we had to climb up 5 kilometres and 400 metres to get on top of the plains. I had a €99 banger from El Corte Inglés that would pop its chain if you stood on the pedals to gain force. And I barely made it to the top alive because I didn't know at all how to climb.
Luckily, Josu (who has ridden bikes since he could stand upright) was on that ride, too, and he stayed with me the entire time. Just do what you need to do to keep yourself going forward, he said. Don't bash the pedals, don't try to drop anyone - just pedal as much as you need to pedal to keep yourself from falling over. How the hell does someone make it to the age of 35 without knowing that much? I thought, but didn't say. So I did. I crawled along at 6 kilometres an hour, trying to keep the rising sense of panic from strangling me, but dammit, I got up the hills and didn't hurt too badly the next day.
And here we are, just over four years later. Josu hasn't been out with us much in the past two years -- "Everyone keeps getting better and I'm stuck in the same place, and I'm not getting any better..." On the car up to Bilbao, AG and I got talking about cycling and he asked me, Where do you see yourself going with this? Regionals, I said. Regionals in 2010.
What, to participate?
Participate, hell. No. To win them.
You're joking.I'm not joking; why would you take part in something like that if you didn't have the inspiration and the desire to win?
There. It's out there. Regionals in 2010. And I want to be able to kick everyone's ass while I'm doing it.
So, knowing AG, he's told Jesús, who will never ask me out on a date now that I've laid that out on the table (and let's be honest, being the only woman in Madrid who buys the MARCA sports paper probably eliminated me from the Potential Girlfriend Pool a LONG time ago). AG is going to tell the others, who will nod politely from now on when I tell them that I need to do something specific on a specific day, because that's what Yago has laid out for me, and one of two things is going to happen: They're either not going to go out with me because THEY're afraid of getting their asses kicked (SuperLopez has already taken to calling me the Dominatrix, which is laughable if you knew how infrequently I manage to hook up) or they're going to try to kick MY ass, which I probably need and deserve.
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Why is it so frightening to be honest about what you really want? I thought about this long and hard when we were supposed to be having siestas last Saturday in the youth hostel in Bilbao. I could hear AG and Luis breathing heavily, and thought about how I'm fortunate that the guys don't treat me like a girl. I thought about a guy (not Jesús) who I could seriously fall in love with, a guy who understands why I like Weegee and Gary Winogrand and Nan Goldin, who I want to wear miniskirts and silly dresses and long earrings for, and I realized how afraid I am that he's going to catch on to how much I like him, and he's going to disappear or break my heart, and that I would rather ride up the Alpe d'Huez with my hands tied behind my back than risk that happening again. I realized how much I like being in the Basque Country, with its green landscapes and its stocky, prickly people, its raging coastlines, and thinking, God, wouldn't it be marvellous to be offered the chance to ride professionally up here?
SuperLopez would probably make some crack about Lutheran guilt. People in Eastern Ontario would probably quote Tom Cochrane: Don't push your luck, Angel Face. But I want it. I want to be able to fly up mountains without feeling that steely, bloody wheeze leaking up from the bottom of my lungs and choking me. I want to be able to look a guy in the eyes and tell him how I feel about him and know that doing so will not mean him permanently disappearing. I'm not asking to win the lottery or be admitted as a member of the Spanish Royal Family. At heart, I really don't think I'm asking for that much.
(And at times like this, I'm kinda glad that the only people who read my blog on a regular basis are Chris M. and Yago. And Gary. You reading this, Gar?)
So it's out there. Regionals in 2010. Not totally blowing a relationship with a certain photographer. Dropping my weight to 62 kg. I don't really care if it is too much to ask for. I'm asking for it. And as much as my guts seize and my fingers ache from the side effect of hanging on too tight and too hard, I don't know that I have any other options, at this point.
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