Embrace the grey...

Or, as we Americans spell it, gray.

I’m in love. No, not that. I’m still figuring out how to separate my public life from my blog—even with a pseudonym, a lot of yins know who I am…

I have discovered something: I like foggy mornings. I even like driving in the fog (it forces me to pay attention.) I have chosen (YES) to live in Pittsburgh for over ten years. When I tell people I like winter, they look at me like I’m nuts. When I tell them I get depressed in the summer, they don’t get it. Yinzers know there’s a term for what we get this time of year in these parts: Pittsburgh gray. I love it. I do.

This morning I looked out and yes, it was gray. I bounced out for my walk and couldn’t wait to check the chain link fences along the Forestry Office to check for spider webs. Yes, I am in love with spider webs. And on foggy mornings like this one, they are like crystal necklaces left behind by some aristocratic lady. My brain catches over thoughts of Guy de Maupassant’s story about the necklace and I think, these are the real treasures. Men created necklaces and chandeliers because they studied spider webs. I don’t dare yet to bring my camera out there—I know I would be disappointed by the results. And after a week of dry mornings, I needed the surprise of dew studded necklaces on the chain link fence, on the trees, on…I must have seen ten sunburst style (I need to get a book to learn the terminology) and four or five partials. I even saw one spider. I blew, I touched the edge of the web, he didn’t budge. Do spiders sleep?

Now, I don’t know how I’d react if I found one inside, so don’t think I’m getting all brave. But outside, in my Father’s world, I love them.

I’m training for something: I couldn’t wait to get back here to write about this, so I ran part of the way home. It’s a trick I learned while training for my trek over the Teton mountains: run, walk. Run, walk. So my mind is training for more writing, and my body is training for…I really want to get a bike.

Yes. Me, the girl who never learned how in second grade—how I remember that failed lesson with my mom. She allowed it. (I still see that day as a picture in my mind--one of the few clear memories I have from that year.) And while the lowlands of Bonn, Germany are perfect for biking, where we moved in third grade, Tegucigalpa, Honduras is hilly like the slopes of Sou’ Side. (um, I'll have to take some pictures--Google images wasn't real helpful...) I learned briefly in high school, but like most people with high school French, it didn’t stick. So every time I get on a bike, I have to re-learn all the tricks.

I live in Pittsburgh. I can’t change my oil on my street because of the slope. But I have found some flat land, and today I watched the bikers glide past me in the other direction, talking as they rode about getting hotels in Germany and Seville.

That’s where writing takes you, my friends. It takes you from a color, gray, to a natural phenomenon, spider webs, to a childhood dream: I wanted to live in New York and be a ballerina and not own a car but bike everywhere.

Well, Pittsburgh will have to do until I have a chunk of change, I think I’d rather learn swing (but not until I have a partner—I do NOT like dancing with strange men), and I’ve not had a car for a good chunk of my adult life. I know what it is to take the bus to the grocery store and come home in the rain, walking five blocks with plastic bags, thinking I will never forget that it has gotten this bad.

I do not feel safe walking in certain parts of my neighborhood, but a bike gives you a little speed. Stay tuned…

I remember biking in Austria—I’ll tell yins about that later.