Poppy

My bike is named Poppy. She is cornflower blue and she is one of my most prized possessions. Handmade and bought for me by a beloved ex boyfriend many years ago. 

I have never bought my own bike. My first bike was a Christmas gift as a girl. It had tinsel handlebars and no stabilisers because my Mum thought they would stunt me. Poppy has a basket, she is dramatic. The bike reminds me of Cambridge and cobblestones. I feel like a children’s book character ,or Jessica Fletcher (RIP Angela Lansbury) when I ride her. She is twee. The seat is stiff and covered in worn brown leather, it looks uncomfortable but isn’t. The woven basket is large enough to hold a picnic.I picture myself with a gingham blanket covering baked goods to deliver to my friends frog and toad in the mossy woods, cycling home after a glass of wine like an overgrown Denis the menace. Poppy is heavy and obstructive but her blue is a peaceful shade, cartoonishly cute with a certain arrogance. 

I cycle mainly on footpaths and the bell has a haughty ding that I refrain from using with pedestrians.I don’t know how a bell can be bitchy but Poppy’s bell is. Despite common sense I rarely wear a helmet because I have a curated Spotify playlist for when I’m soaring around. Last Spring I had health issues morose and melodramatically fearing mortality I wrote my will in Botanic Gardens whilst watching the ferris wheel. In my will, I left Poppy to a friend of mine who I would cycle to Lagan Meadows with in the Summertime. 

Riding Poppy always signals a change in season., I rarely cycle in the winter. It feels too sad and scary to take her out into the 4pm darkness and dreary weather. I have started cycling into work and it wakes me up in the morning coasting alongside the river. It’s a good reminder of fun before a day of computer screens and instant coffee. Both a bike seat and an office chair are stationary but you move with the scenery when riding a bike, sitting in an office is stagnant. I pass seagulls prying open muscles on the city quay and my own muscles atrophy over conversations about porridge.Cycling makes my heart beat quickly and I remember I have one living inside my chest,before I enter a grey room to look at digits for the day.

Belfast is a hilly city. The spring slumps in bumpingly like potholed roads, the slants and slopes match the uphill battle of greenness pushing through. The sunlight fights to play outside for a little longer, as I pedal up Stranmillis and notice which darkened treetops begin to bloom first. Poppy because she is large can be a bit slow which is how I like the things I ride. Going uphill feels Sisyphean, dressed often as an autumnal Kermit the frog in my tweed or fur coat with a scarf draped around me to fend off the wind. I often arrive at my destinations sweaty, frazzled but sprightly.

Cycling downhill is like flying, the breeze on your face and the lightness is freeing. Often I struggle to be present in my body. It's easy mindfulness, observing the tension in my thighs, releasing my clogged up brain, letting go of a little rage I have on the road. Cycling with one hand, cigarette in another to satiate my nicotine addiction (please read my previous substack, a love letter to smokes) quelling oral fixation whilst physically engaged is true satisfaction, alchemising angst unrestrained cycling steeply downward feeling the air surrounding me. 

With my basket full of shopping, it is calming, and flamboyant. I bought myself tulips, a favourite flower of mine because it signals spring. They poke through my tote bag I bought on a trip to London. I had ingredients for an elaborate meal packed to prepare at home: honey, chorizo, pasta, red wine. Craving my life to be coloured with alluring mundanity, pondering how I would feed myself a nourishing meal, lighting votive candles, how I would set my table. Intentful and curated, I need things to be beautiful in order to enjoy them practically, all the while my body is concurrent with the concrete pavement I speed along. 

I can’t zone out my surroundings, safety, self preservation, an aversion for injuring others dictates I engage. Bobbing and weaving by people, overtaking traffic makes me feel connected to the world. It’s being and seeing in a childlike concoction. Seamless observation,sensing my way through a crowd, looking around,playfully present and entirely immersed into the environs of surrounding.I refuse to run because I’m not that insane, but I imagine it’s close to a runners high, cycling home from a friends house the other night listening to “get on top” by Red Hot Chilli Peppers was the happiest I’d been that day. 

Per the request of my housemate whose bike was robbed, I would advise you to lock up your bikes. I lock my sublimely crafted bike with a 10 pound chain and hope for the best.