When I think of sturdy, I think of you walking across the park as night began to arrive. You look taller from a distance. You’d just used your Lime Bike app to buy me a ride. You’re the one that reached out to grab the electric bike so I wouldn’t crash into the fence.

I keep coming across the idea that we don’t need to do hard things alone.

This pushed up against how alone we sometimes all feel.

It’s a marriage of how it feels to be human.

Alone.

Until I crashed into you.

Somehow I met a person who believed in what I wanted more than I believed in what I wanted.

Lift.

It’s like you’ve been continually renting me an electric bike since I was 24 years old.

And then I circle back to all the people that have bought me rides on electric bikes. Before electric bikes existed: my parents.

But that idea, how we need to work off the drafts others provide for us: yes.

Look for someone sturdy. Ask for someone sturdy. Call out to the universe when you feel alone.

Sometimes trees are the sturdiest thing for miles around. A human is not always necessary for those flimsy moments. A tree or trees will often do.

So will music. So will the memory of the very small choir from Enumclaw singing “Blackbird.” The sturdiness of the good, which I try again and again to soak in. The moment when I called out to Kk last night and she and her friends replied and ran to me and Chris and Liz and surrounded us with themselves. One sturdy moment to be thankful for as I listen to “Blackbird.” Before I knock myself back into deadline city.