i am more proud, i think, of being able to change a tire on my bicycle than i am about anything, any test scores or awards, any poems or creations or accolades.

it is concrete, finite: before, i could not do this thing, and now, now i can.

maybe this is just an illustration, a metaphor for one of my own demons: the ocean of space between talent and skill. one you are born with, you have no responsibility for its insistent intrusions into your life, no reason to take pride in it; you are blonde, you can play the piano, you remember the nuanced meanings of words, you have freckles on your shoulders.

a skill is something towards which you work; you start with nothing, and then the first thing you do is you fail, you fuck it up, over and over you fuck it up, until you can do it: you can throw a frisbee or hit a golf ball; you can fix the computers, the plumbing, the broken étagère; play the guitar, cook a steak, make the fucking bed like a normal person.

one of these i have in self-satisfied/self-hating abundance, and the other wholly absent: a justifiable source of shame. i can talk pretty sometimes, i can punctuate like a motherfucker, and i can barely iron a shirt without setting something on fire.

but at least i can change a bicycle tire.