Freewheeling Past the Graveyard

(My favorite film critic these days is the very wonderful Mark Kermode, who provides weekly radio commentary which the BBC (Auntie Beeb) kindly provides to deadbeats like me around the world. From Kermode, I have relearned a very useful and British expression. Forgive the liberal use of it in this post. It's a word my family encourages because it's printable and they feel I need to move on from former life as a sailor.)

Anyway, my Friday started well. I had my plans for the day, well, planned. I'd go pick up a heart monitor at Freewheeling Bikes; then I'd head back to the "Wee Flat Across from My Old House" and once there put some beef tips on the stove for the evening pasta. Then I'd work on my blog. Then I'd pick up the kid, then I'd knit a bit while watching polygamous Mormons on Big Love (I'd do anything -- anything but move to Utah -- to have fantasy neighbors like these living across the street!). After that, I'd play Scramble, this mind-suckingly addictive game on my IPhone. For an hour tops. Really. Just one hour.

Well, I did make it to Freewheeling. And they did have the Sigma chest strap I'd ordered (don't buy Polar heart monitors; they're pants.) I'd not been in the shop but a minute when in walked the new owners of my old house. The male half, William, is an avid cyclist and he was apparently picking up gear. He was also meeting, for the first time, the female half of a couple who once owned Freewheeling (she still runs the place), and who, once upon a time, also owned the very house that I just sold, that William and his wife just bought.

So, three different parties, same interest in bikes, same house. Nope, none of us heard of the house through mutual cycling friends or even knew each other existed. And not only is there the spooky bike connection, there is also the spooky ethnic connection. My husband is a British ex-pat, and William is a British ex-pat. And as soon as Ms Freewheeling opened her mouth, I had a pretty good idea that she, too, was from the land of great beer (Belgian beer, and all lager in fact, is total pants). And it turned out, upon questioning, that she was from, you guessed it, England. More exactly, she's from Suffolk, a fine county, flattish and good for cycling.

Happy occasion you'd think, no? But I had to suppress a few tears and quell a sense of dread. The tears came from just realizing again that I can't go home. And the dread came from a sense of being over-burdened by convergences. You see, not long after the Freewheeling couple moved away from my beloved old house, the house to which they'd added a fine garden dining room and a meditation loft we used for a kid-space, Frank, the male half of the couple, died of cancer. That's some dozen years ago, now.

We all know I don't believe in signs or portents or any mystical thing. What gripped my heart on this occasion was simple dread. How capricious a universe it must be to send me to a store at just the moment in time where I'd run into the past and present owners of the house I'm trying not to miss. It felt like lightning striking.

And doesn't it always strike twice? Is this just a prologue for the next strike? These occasional jolts of dread, this anxiety that lightning is always just biding its time, gathering itself into a mighty ball, will it ever go away? I realize I should take great confidence from the fact that my prognosis is good, that I have a 95% chance of not having my cancer recur. But, hey, I had a 90% chance of not getting cancer in the first place, but here I am. Numbers aren't quite the comfort they once were.

So I came back to the Wee Flat and rat-holed. I tinkered with my laptop for hours for no good purpose. It appears I can have DVD playback or non-jerky ITunes downloads, but not both. Or I can take the damn laptop to the shop after all. This conclusion should not have taken me hours to come to. Of course, I wasn't just tinkering while I tried one software module after another. Oh, no. During every gap of ten seconds or more, I played Scramble again and again, my score dropping with every round. I had to recharge my IPhone three times.

I can't handle the game and I can't leave it alone. And my highest score is complete pants.