It is a common wish to relive one’s college years. For most people, I imagine this originates in a feeling of nostalgia, a longing for freer times long expired after the career grind fails to provide adequate intellectual and social nourishment.
Receiving several billions of dollars in aid from the world’s preeminent military superpower is apparently not enough. In addition to F-35 bombers, the Israel Defense Forces also need teens with lactose intolerance to run interference for their online reputation. Their posts follow a basic script: any sentiment against zionism not qualified with thirty or so proactive apologies to the Jewish people is antisemitic. And it’s not just Israel. All over the world, strife and conflict are reduced to linguistic squabbles, with sides racing to brand their enemies unpretty things like “racist” and “bigot,” all to win the hearts and minds of out-of-the-loop social media users.
I love reading. I read so much; reading sustains me in a way very little else does in life. I feel terrible on dating apps juxtaposed to all the people who list rock climbing, hiking the AT, and underwater basket weaving as active and exotic hobbies. I have even found a way to make a career of interacting with books. Yet even I have a limit.
The pandemic is a terrible thing. But it is the best thing to ever happen to the Department of Motor Vehicles. At least from the perspective of this resident of the District of Columbia, that is. Hear me out.
We have all been there, or heard what it is like to be there. Abhorring the DMV and its Kafkaesque procedures is practically an American tradition. Growing up, I recall family members speaking of a trip to the DMV in absolutely funereal tones. Loved ones would hug and kiss the departing soul, uncertain of when or if they would return. The goodbyes would then echo throughout the silent household with bleak anxiety only comparable, I am sure, to that of families ravaged by military draft orders.
I have returned to the cycling world like a chicken coming home to roost, one of thousands to flock to the sport as a result of ongoing COVID-19 concerns and gym closures. This passion of my youth went on pause when I went to college and entered the workforce, but now it’s back in full force. Cue the pablum about never forgetting how to ride a bike. That tired saying is true, though, and the childlike joy that comes from a late afternoon ride down an unfamiliar trail approaches the realm of the sacred when so many of our usual sources of happiness are off limits.