Julia Was My Bicycle
Written by Madelyn May
Julia was my bicycle. With big tan wheels, a poppy yellow frame, silver handlebars, and a little brown basket, she took me reliably from point A to point B throughout my post-pandemic college years.
I never had transportation of my own. Debilitating anxiety growing up meant a seat behind the wheel was a nonstarter. I’m better now, but for a time, I couldn’t comfortably sit in a car going more than 30 mph without my chest tightening, beads of sweat forming on my upper lip, and my hands going numb. Consequently, my mom drove me everywhere. I didn’t really mind, to be truthful. Even as all my friends got their licenses, I was happy to sing Carly Simon in the passenger seat while my mom drove me to dance class or school. She drove slowly and safely.
I suppose that moment others have in their late teens, the feeling of independence and freedom every road movie is based on, didn’t come for me until my early twenties, when I bought a Huffy Nel 26-inch Yellow Beach Cruiser off Facebook Marketplace. I took off whenever I felt like it, day or night, biking around my small Southern California college town. Often wearing nothing but sneakers and a slip dress, I remember how the cool air felt; the fewer clothes I wore, the freer I felt. Some of my most intense memories of Julia include saving her from being stolen by a crack addict on Vine Street, getting hit by a truck on my way back from boba tea off La Veta Avenue, and carrying flowers in her basket from the Orange Community Farmer’s Market.
At the height of my biking prowess, I was riding at least six miles a day: three miles to school, three miles back, and wherever else I wanted in between. I’d listen to long, long songs, like the eight-minute live version of“ Born Under Punches” by Talking Heads or Nina Simone’s“ Sinnerman,” pretending I was in a certain LA-set Sam Levinson TV show. But what I remember most are the traffic lights, twinkling red, yellow, and green, and the sky, always the California sky, blue, pink, and orange, bursting through the center of Los Angeles life.
I moved to New York City two and a half years ago. Before finding my apartment, my California life was stored in a unit in Orange County while I rented a room on East 89th Street for three months. The heat from the radiator made me sick the entire time. When I finally secured a place of my own, I paid movers to bring my California things to New York, including Julia.
In October 2022, the movers dropped everything on my doorstep, and I faced the daunting task of setting up my new apartment by myself. Julia lived part-time in my apartment and part-time in the hallway. I asked my neighbors if it was alright to leave her outside my door. While they gave me the okay, my apartment was too small for her, and she never felt like she truly fit into my new New York City life.
I took her out from time to time, but biking in New York felt like the antithesis of pedaling through California. There’s nothing carefree about it. Even in Central Park, I was dodging tourists and navigating hills my little Beach Cruiser simply wasn’t built for.
The last time I took Julia out was to get coffee at a shop ten blocks from my apartment. I locked her outside, as I always did, with my blue U-lock. I was in and out in ten minutes. When I returned with coffee in hand, the U-lock was open, and Julia was gone.
I didn’t mourn Julia as much as I thought I would. Being robbed is scary, of course, it feels like bigger forces than you reaching into your bubble and popping it. For days afterward, I cursed the world’s indifference to this small act of aggression and breach of safety. But a few days after that, I admit I felt relief.
I miss biking, I really do. But it’s not something I can feasibly do in New York City, and Julia’s constant presence was a reminder of how much my life had changed since California. When I envisioned my life here, it was idyllic: a dream job, a nice boyfriend, and an apartment with a view. But that vision only existed on my bike, cruising down wide California streets. Missed job opportunities, bad dates, and a shoebox apartment are what my life really is now. I could never find Julia’s place in all of it. It’s as if she represented a part of me that can’t simply get on a bike and leave my troubles behind anymore.
I have rent due, several survival jobs, and I know what the static, suffocating, hot air of the subway is like.
While there’s pain in realizing you aren’t who you used to be and your dreams aren’t what you thought they’d be, there’s also freedom to be found. New York City did what New York City does: it stole the California dream. And that’s just part of growing up, I suppose. If college is like training wheels for life, there’s peace in abandoning them, and, on rocky terrain, still knowing your feet (and OMNI card) can get you there.
…
In the most unexpected twist, I found Julia a few weeks ago, locked outside a bakery just four blocks from my apartment. I was tipsy, heading home from a friend’s birthday party, when I gasped into the cool 9pm air at the sight of her. Her handlebars were gone, replaced with artificial flowers. The tan leather seat, the cup holder, and my beloved blue sparkly butterfly bell were all missing. Yet, her basket remained intact, albeit dented, and her yellow frame shouted even louder against the dark blue backdrop of New York. She was bruised and battered but still unmistakably mine. A few days later, I stopped by the bakery to inquire where they had found the bike. I did my best to sound curious and relieved rather than accusatory. Unsurprisingly, they couldn’t recall. I explained I wasn’t there to reclaim her, though I don’t think I fully conveyed just how miraculous it felt to have Julia reappear in my life.
You can’t live in New York City without being at least a little intoxicated by the poppy of delusion. At my darkest moments here, the idea of who I could be has kept me fighting, even when who I was felt so far from that ideal. And, somehow, I’m lucky enough to have a tangible reminder of a version of myself I once loved, sitting just four blocks away. Your inner child doesn’t have to be left behind; they can exist lovingly alongside who you are now.
RIP JULIA
I’LL ALWAYS LOVE YOU
