i wrote this in a tweet earlier, but putting it there is simply not enough. welcome to an interlude of news in which i process something that happened before having anything to eat today and therefore not actually being alive yet.
the tale of one hundred thousand glad cyclists
it was around 8 am. i saw them from down the street. i didn’t know what else to do other than just keep walking. they were a gigantic clump of humans, without any openings, and they were taking up the entire sidewalk. i would have to contort my body around them while making a path for my dog to walk through, but it was 8 am and i had been awake for approximately seven minutes and felt a dumb confidence that comes with only 1/4 of your brain working. so i said, fuck it. we’re walking through this.
i had never seen that many bicyclists before up close, especially ones that were just…standing. no one was actually ON a bike, just dressed for riding a bike, wearing variations of neon spandex and helmets atop their heads. there had to be at least 30 of them, maybe more, clustered together like a fitness amoeba next to their parked bikes, drinking coffee, laughing. obviously they had just finished a big ride and this was the post-biking celebration.
we approached the clump of bicyclists, me walking roxy on her little pink leash, and one of them shouted to the others, “WALKER!” the clump opened up, making a small winding path for us, and a thousand people screamed. every face turned to me and then down to my little dog and their eyes lit up like explosions when they saw her. it felt like we had just entered a surprise birthday party. suddenly we were being passed through the clump like crowd surfers but walking, grinning faces all around us.
my dog, an extrovert and extreme cutie, greeted every single biker, to each of their delight and shock. they screamed when she wobbled up to them, one by one. everywhere i turned, there was a smiling head and they were all talking to me all at once and i had no idea what anyone was actually saying. occasionally, i would catch a few words (“she’s so cute!” or “oh my god, look!”) but mostly it was a warbled jumble of joyous shrieks.
my dog was LOVING it. this was her party and i was just along for the ride. every now and then, i would hear a different voice say the same joke (“this is the longest walk they’ll ever go on!”) as piles of strangers kneeled on the sidewalk and gleefully pet her. a man asked to show me something on his phone and i stopped and let him show me a youtube of a dog unknowingly walking through a parade. we agreed that, yes, this situation was also like that.
someone suddenly shouted, “is your dog’s name audrey?” and i stared at them, a new and deeper level of disoriented until i remembered that the back of my dog’s name tag had my name and phone number on it, and responded, “no, I’M audrey.” then a guy pointed at another woman and said, “THIS is audrey, too!” and i said hi to the other audrey and pointed at my dog and said, “this is roxy,” and one million voices all at once rang out, “hi roxy!” i turned around and a different woman was filming my dog, her face lit up with pure joy at my dog’s smiling mouth.
the thing is, i was just there, and that was fine. the shouts, they were for roxy, and they were warranted! she truly is a shockingly cute dog. and when you have a shockingly cute dog, people stare at the dog and want to know it, and then look up at you like you are their friend—you own this wonderful being after all, and are therefore their gatekeeper to greeting the being, so they like you. it’s a pleasant and not overwhelming feeling and also not personal at all. it just is.
as i walked away from the massive clump of bicyclists in shock (and sort of uncontrollably laughing softly), i wondered if a group existed on the planet MORE joyous than them. every single one of them appeared to be having the time of their LIVES, while standing outside of a frame store and drinking coffees at 8 am. i turned around to see some of them had begun biking towards me and i thought, “oh, this isn’t over.” in that moment, it seemed as if they were going to follow me, and my whole life would be forever surrounded by a sea of glad bicyclists. at the last second, however, they swerved and went another direction. it WAS over.
they were wrong about one thing, though. it was NOT the longest walk ever. in fact, it felt like the shortest one because, unlike regular mornings where i just thought about whatever and watched roxy like a lifeguard, a large part of my brain was now processing what had just happened like it was math. before i knew it, i was back at my apartment building and the morning walk was over.
i needed an english muffin more than ever because the gas tank in my brain had been depleted. hell, i thought, perhaps this is a two english muffin morning. and on that note, it’s time for my second english muffin.
Two muffins!