Flat Tire PIE

Recently a flat tire on my beloved's bike gave me a huge piece of PIE. As per usual, he had taken our aged Buick to Dave-the-Wizard's car repair with the bike strapped to its trunk. Our general rule is that we bike home from car repair and await the tragic phone call telling of us the repair's price tag. Dave is always gentle with us and gives the number softly. But, on this day, my beloved called me and relayed the message that his bike had a flat tire. Would I come and get him? I did. Realizing the day would hold the usual afternoon deluge, I decided to take my piece of the PIE on foot. I drove to Dave's, loaded the husband and the wounded cycle on the Honda and asked to be dropped off at Phillips garden shop about a mile and a half from home. Walking home allowed me to purchase half price thyme,stop by N's for a good talk, locate my employer's new office suite,see Jake's urban farm and marvel at the change,stop on St. Johns Ave to watch the neighbors' new bed be delivered."We've had the old one for 29 years," the new bed owner confided to me (thus triggering my guilt for replacing mine with only a decade's wear.) None of these interactions and events would have taken place if I had stayed in the Honda. None of them were on my calendar. All of them added to the quality of my life by weaving the communal threads of plants and people. Traveling on foot speeds up my metabolism and slows down my life by having me take roads less traveled( by me anyway). Didn't Scott Peck say something about the value of those roads. If I remember correctly----he did.

Trash Walking

Walking is the basic unit of my P.I.E. program. On the days when I do not have time to hop on the bike, I try to get in an early walk in the hood. This morning I faced a day full of finance. Lots of checking numbers on register receipts against numbers on bank statements.My beloved husband insists on this activity and in the age of identity grabbing, I guess he's right. So, knowing I had to wear the green eye shade all day, I pulled on my walking shoes at dawn and grabbed three letters to mail at the petite post office which is about a mile away. I didn't make it off the block before I found a giant cardboard box that was just the thing I needed for the bottom of my newest lasagna garden. Back to the house. I start again, and then stop to carry home a piece of jade green garden fence that will provide perimeter fencing for the grandkids' fairy play house.Back to my house. The third time, I actually made it off the street and started walking briskly to the post office. Mailed my letters and started home. Half way home I stumble over a refuse site containing four large framed pictures. I know that I can't drag them home. They are heavy,copper framed,and modern. They are a little water stained, but surely, another urban recycler will pick them up. Reluctantly, I lean them back against the black, plastic cans. It is then that I notice the last picture, a smaller one, oak framed. It is the second pull of a print with a run of thirty. It is signed by the artist Hope Barton, and seems to depict the Suwanee River where I have camped and kayaked for the last two years. I can't leave the print. I pick it and start home. The picture is heavy, but I'm able to shift it from hand to hand and get it home. Having run a landfill in 1967 when I couldn't get a teaching job in Virginia while my husband was going through Marine OCS, I know what happens to trash. Everything gets smashed by a huge blade and transported to the same deep hole. That is why I recycle some pieces of my neighbors' trash. I take many of the items to Goodwill where they can be used by someone else. It requires a little effort on my part to transport them, but my personal satisfaction is immense. I think the Hope Barton print will hang on my wall. For a few days anyway.