![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Exercise bikes and the old homeplace
Apr. 26th, 2004 01:23 amI never really believed that exercise could make you feel good. I'm completely uninterested in it, as a rule. But I decided to commit to working out on the new exercise bike, and I'm off to an exceedingly good start, I must say. What really disturbs me is that it really does make me feel pleasantly tired and happy. That's so unlike me I don't even know where to begin discussing how wrong it feels. :) However, it has a few things going for it that I think might make me stick with it. a) It's in the living room, so I can watch TV perfectly. b) It's ultra-quiet, so the sound doesn't drive either of us crazy or interrupt said television. c) I can read. d) I can even tat, if I want to take it a little easier than I have been, and tonight's discovery... the one that means we're giant nerds.. e) I can read blogs. Clever angling of the computer screen plus Opera's ability to zoom the screen plus the small table beside me plus wireless mouse equals computer usage while exercising. It's great, I tell you. It gets a little old with the bouncing around, but it's perfect for say, commercials. Typing would be much harder but not quite impossible.
The bike also gave me a bit of indirect amusement this afternoon, and it's a perfect example of what my grandfather is like--I always have a hard time here explaining him as he really is. When we got to my grandfather's house, there were no seats left in the kitchen, so I sat down on my Papaw's (traditional) exercise bike. It's in the kitchen because he insists on looking out of the window while he uses it. It's old and rickety and louder than a freight train, so I was just using it for a chair and not for exercise. He was sitting in a stool chair beside the thing and he motioned for me to use the pedals. I humored him for a minute and then stopped due to the noise and told him that we had just bought a bike this week, only ours had a real seat and not one of those nightmare triangle seats like his had. He just grinned good-naturedly and didn't say much else (he's definitely the quiet sort), and after a few minutes, a seat at the bar was vacated and I ran to get it. A few minutes later, the bike started up again and we all looked to see which of the kids was on it... but it was empty. He had situated the bike directly in front of his stool chair and was pedaling the bike from the chair in front--exactly like our fancy recumbent bike. *grin*
We went over to Lawrence County with my parents after lunch to check on things. The house where my grandmother grew up is there, so it's sort of the old homeplace of the family. My grandparents own it now, and they spent a bit of time and money fixing it up, and they've used it, until the last couple of years, as a place to have Memorial Day reunions with her whole family. Last year was the first year that they didn't have it there, and there won't be any more now. She's certainly not able to do it anymore, what with the Alzheimer's, and they've sort of emptied out the place now because there have been at least two or three break-ins this year. (Some lovely soul broke in and used the bathroom a while back--in a home that the water has been off for a year.. it had molded and .. ewww.) There's a front porch swing and rocking chairs, and a lilac bush in full bloom in the front yard. While the rest of them were digging up irises for Mom to take home, I walked around and sat there in the swing, watching six butterflies flutter around the lilac bush. It's on a very small country road--there's a large yard and a field, and trees across the road. I sat on the porch with Mamaw two years ago and commented on how pretty the trees were, all green and lush. She just shook her head and said that it was sad the way it had all grown up. The young girl in her remembered a brilliantly green field there, and to her, the trees there now are an unwelcome menace. I've thought of that a lot in the two years since--how two people can look at something and see something completely different after it's been filtered through their memories. Pardon my melodrama as I step into metaphor, but in my mind, I think of her Alzheimer's as that hill--what was once pristine has become cluttered and overgrown.
I could write a lot more about that, but I still don't really feel up to it--I'm not entirely sure I ever will. I wasn't really intending to go in that direction, anyway. I was writing about the house. I've always felt very attached to the house--there's something utterly peaceful and calming about it. It's exactly the sort of house that M and I will buy when we're both writing full-time--we'll use it during the weekdays for inspiration and live in our other house, closer to civilization, during the weekend. Okay, so that will never happen but it's a nice daydream. ;) I painted it once--all in black and white except for a light in the upstairs window. It was one of the only artistic endeavors I was ever really pleased with--I mean, I recognize that there was no skill in the artistry, but there was a a definitely clear concept and idea that I was happy with. I still have it around here somewhere, but no, I will not find it and scan it. ;) It's just such a piece of my past. I spent very little time there, relatively speaking, but yet it still feels like home in many ways.
I feel like I've been vaccinated with a Victrola needle tonight, as my daddy would say. I might as well stop with the rambling and get ready for bed. I'm so tired, and I'm going to try to get back to work on some stuff this week.
The bike also gave me a bit of indirect amusement this afternoon, and it's a perfect example of what my grandfather is like--I always have a hard time here explaining him as he really is. When we got to my grandfather's house, there were no seats left in the kitchen, so I sat down on my Papaw's (traditional) exercise bike. It's in the kitchen because he insists on looking out of the window while he uses it. It's old and rickety and louder than a freight train, so I was just using it for a chair and not for exercise. He was sitting in a stool chair beside the thing and he motioned for me to use the pedals. I humored him for a minute and then stopped due to the noise and told him that we had just bought a bike this week, only ours had a real seat and not one of those nightmare triangle seats like his had. He just grinned good-naturedly and didn't say much else (he's definitely the quiet sort), and after a few minutes, a seat at the bar was vacated and I ran to get it. A few minutes later, the bike started up again and we all looked to see which of the kids was on it... but it was empty. He had situated the bike directly in front of his stool chair and was pedaling the bike from the chair in front--exactly like our fancy recumbent bike. *grin*
We went over to Lawrence County with my parents after lunch to check on things. The house where my grandmother grew up is there, so it's sort of the old homeplace of the family. My grandparents own it now, and they spent a bit of time and money fixing it up, and they've used it, until the last couple of years, as a place to have Memorial Day reunions with her whole family. Last year was the first year that they didn't have it there, and there won't be any more now. She's certainly not able to do it anymore, what with the Alzheimer's, and they've sort of emptied out the place now because there have been at least two or three break-ins this year. (Some lovely soul broke in and used the bathroom a while back--in a home that the water has been off for a year.. it had molded and .. ewww.) There's a front porch swing and rocking chairs, and a lilac bush in full bloom in the front yard. While the rest of them were digging up irises for Mom to take home, I walked around and sat there in the swing, watching six butterflies flutter around the lilac bush. It's on a very small country road--there's a large yard and a field, and trees across the road. I sat on the porch with Mamaw two years ago and commented on how pretty the trees were, all green and lush. She just shook her head and said that it was sad the way it had all grown up. The young girl in her remembered a brilliantly green field there, and to her, the trees there now are an unwelcome menace. I've thought of that a lot in the two years since--how two people can look at something and see something completely different after it's been filtered through their memories. Pardon my melodrama as I step into metaphor, but in my mind, I think of her Alzheimer's as that hill--what was once pristine has become cluttered and overgrown.
I could write a lot more about that, but I still don't really feel up to it--I'm not entirely sure I ever will. I wasn't really intending to go in that direction, anyway. I was writing about the house. I've always felt very attached to the house--there's something utterly peaceful and calming about it. It's exactly the sort of house that M and I will buy when we're both writing full-time--we'll use it during the weekdays for inspiration and live in our other house, closer to civilization, during the weekend. Okay, so that will never happen but it's a nice daydream. ;) I painted it once--all in black and white except for a light in the upstairs window. It was one of the only artistic endeavors I was ever really pleased with--I mean, I recognize that there was no skill in the artistry, but there was a a definitely clear concept and idea that I was happy with. I still have it around here somewhere, but no, I will not find it and scan it. ;) It's just such a piece of my past. I spent very little time there, relatively speaking, but yet it still feels like home in many ways.
I feel like I've been vaccinated with a Victrola needle tonight, as my daddy would say. I might as well stop with the rambling and get ready for bed. I'm so tired, and I'm going to try to get back to work on some stuff this week.
