Glorious Sunshine

"O, Sunshine!  The most

precious gold to be found on 

earth." 

Roman Payne

It is amazing how a bicycle and a good dose of sunshine can pull you out of the doldrums.  Monday and yesterday were perfect riding days, and I ride 67 miles one day and 27 another.

The red buds are receding, colors slowly dulling and fading, to be replaced by dogwoods trees.  Green has taken hold and runs riot through the forested areas.  Yellow flowers, Field Mustard, Butter Weed, and Wintercress, begin to color road sides. Daffodils are gone and the orange day lilies I love so have not yet emerged though I notice the foliage is growing tall and green.

  When I pause nearby, I see the pollinators beginning to work.  Looking down at my leg one time, I  notice a young bumblebee has settled down for a ride.  Stopping, I take a leaf and gently brush it away.  I wonder to myself if bumble bees navigate by the sun as my husband said honey bees do.  I suspect so, but I really don't know.

The bumble bee makes me think of when my husband and I first married and sold hay over at Churchill Downs.  I would go in the morning and make sales and after he got home from work we would deliver.  We would buy fields of hay or straw at times and put it up ourselves.  Once, retrieving it from a barn, we ran into a nest of bumble bees.  How we escaped with so few stings remains a mystery.  I miss those days, the way it felt working together.

I arrive in Commiskey wondering if the store will be closed.  As it sells gas, it is not a mandatory store closing, but it is such a small store.  I arrive to find it open.  I don't go in because I brought my own snacks and drinks, but I am glad.  I wonder how the closing of small country stores will impact distance riding.  By now I should have numerous centuries in, but this year is different in so many ways.

The spring is constant, however, and that is comforting.  Each spring is unique in some aspects:  some are unusually rainy or dry, some are windy and some are not, but all springs eventually melt into summer.  And spring always follows winter so long as we are alive.

The only down point either day is a dog, a big German Shepherd, that comes out in the road after me.  Since I have no chance of outrunning him, I hop off placing my bike between the dog and my body only to have the owner come to the edge of the yard yelling at me for daring to stop in front of her home.  I attempt to explain how if the dog bumped my wheel chasing me there would be more damage than if I just stop, but it never sinks in.  She struggles but eventually is able to gain enough control of the dog for me to quickly move onward.  She is yelling the entire time, face red and angry.

I thought about the stress we are all under in our changing world.  The words of a Jewell song come to mind, "Nature has a funny way of breaking what does not bend."  I hope the lady with the red face finds a way to relieve the stress she obviously is under at the present time.  We are all under stress, but some more than others, and we all have different resources to use to combat this stress.  How thankful I am that bicycling is in my arsenal.  

Today it rains and I will use this as a rest day and a day to clean my house unless I decide to Zwift, something new to me. The trainer my husband bought me in 2004 broke right before the pandemic became apparent and I replaced it with a smart trainer and started a Zwift subscription.  While it does not and never will replace cycling outside, it is less boring than the old trainer.  But, oh, how I miss my riding companions, the jokes, the laughter, the shared miles.  I remind myself it is not forever and that God has a reason for what is happening, and I remind myself to smile.  I am blessed in so many ways. 

I have a new painting idea that I want to start, a way to pass time that also started right before the pandemic hit.  With each one, I learn something new it seems.  And it helps to pass the time.  My most recent was plagiarized from Jay Lee's "Red Umbrella" painting.

  But soon I will be back on a bicycle.   Nothing could ever take its place. 

Pandemic Blues

"Never to be lonely like that--

the Early American figure on the beach in 

black coat and knee-breeches,

 scanning the didactic storm in privacy."

Adrienne Rich 

Today has been a struggle for me from the very start.  For some reason, the pack that is isolation has seemed much too heavy for me to bear.  And the above words of Adrienne Rich, read long ago in a college class, pass through my brain. Today I am lonely. I try, but those that have gone before pass through my thoughts in a constant stream and I miss them so badly.  Today it is not much fun to be me.  I would give anything to sit down next to a friend on a curb during a ride, to hug hello or goodbye, to be touched.  I want to see my granddaughter.  I am missing watching her grow.  She will not even know me.  I miss my daughter and my son.   I miss going to see my sister and brother, and I worry about them for they are at much higher risk than I am.  Will I ever get to see these people again or will they or I be struck down?

Recently they put up tents in town to serve various purposes in the midst of the pandemic.  Will I end up there not even being able to say good-bye to those I love?  Will they end up in someplace similar where I can't reach them to care for them, to be with them?  It is all so troubling.

 I let myself mourn for the world and the changes we are all having to go through as I work towards acceptance that what Dr. Fauci says is probably right.  Life may never be the normal that it was before.  I cry. I cry until my nose runs and my eyes are red and I let the sadness flow out. My tears feel mixed with blood from a leaking heart.  My very heart  aches.  I want my big brother.  I want my mom.  I want my husband and how it made things better when he said they would get better even if they really wouldn't because he was there, always he was there.  I want all the pets that have been dear to me but have passed.  But with death there is no do over, and I remind myself that is why I isolate.  Not so much to protect myself, but to protect others. I want to be a good citizen. 

Though I do not want to, I do the on-line Pilates class and that Tabata Pump class that Chrissie is now putting on Facebook.  I find that even my bike holds no allure.  I tell myself that if I don't ride, I can't sit and sulk and I must clean the closet where I keep my riding clothes.  Maybe I'll run across the wool arm warmers I have misplaced.  And so I clean.  And I do find them.  But I finish to find the sun is still shining and so I give up, grab the bike and head out.  Tomorrow and the next week are not supposed to be so nice for riding.  If I don't ride, I will be sorry.  I do hate to waste a spring day.

Despite my initial reluctance and a body that is relatively tired, I soon find my rhythm.   I decide I will not ride far or at a fast pace, but will just enjoy being in shorts and a jersey on an 80 degree April day.  All around me there are red buds in full bloom.  Salem Road has been freshly paved.  The sunshine puts a new slant on things and I am reminded to be grateful.  There is still beauty in the world. Perhaps, I think, we needed this virus as a wake-up call, to remind us of what is really important.  Regardless, I am spent.  Sadness still courses through me, but my tears have dried and I know I can move forward and put one foot in front of the other, at least for today.  Thank you, bicycle, yet again.  You are my hero. 

Leota Hill

"Every spring is the only spring,

a perpetual astonishment."

Ellis Peters

I am tired from a night of restless dreams, tossing and turning, and a full day of exercise yesterday, but the sun peeks out and calls to me.  Spring, I have learned, passes all too quickly. And, as Peters notes, it is always a perpetual astonishment.  I head out knowing that I will see something that is new and fresh and not there the previous day.  And so, as I have oft done before, I put my leg over the bike and head out so as not to waste the day. 

I don't feel up to fighting the dog on the way I would like to go, so I head toward Salem up Leota Hill.  As experience has taught, legs that object and say, "You're kidding, right?" the first few miles gradually loosen up and give in and stop complaining.   As I climb, I notice that the red buds have started to bloom.  Some are still buds, but some have burst open treating me to various shades of pink and purple.  My God, they are beautiful.  Soon dogwood will follow, but not yet. Dandelions, bright yellow, emphasize the deepening green in the lawns that I pass.  I am undone by the beauty around me and so glad that I came out to ride.

As I climb, I notice a hiker crossing the road to reach the Leota trail head.  I can't see her head because of the large, black pack she is carrying, but I know it is a women from the curve of her slender hips.  I warn her I am coming up behind and on her right and she looks back.  She is in her thirties or forties, fine featured, medium length hair pulled back.  When I ask, (from an appropriate distance and without dismounting or stopping) she confirms that she is doing a through hike.  She says the hills are starting to get to her.  I tell her she will be fine.  And she will be if she truly wants to finish the entire trail.

When I pass the trail head at the top of the climb, I stop to remove a layer and to take off knee warmers as I have overdressed.  I am at the mouth of the trailhead.  She has climbed the short hill further in and is crossing over to go on to the Elk Creek trail head.  I spend a bit of time thinking that maybe that is something I could do while isolating, then realize that these are not the times to hire a cat sitter. I think for a bit of the through hike I did with Diana and how I enjoyed it though we did not camp. Her husband picked us up at the end of the day and dropped us off where we had left off the following day.

I think about isolating and wonder how long it will last.  The longer it goes on the harder it gets, and I don't delude myself:  for this to be successful it is not going to be for only a week or two. I grieve for my friends.  On a day like today we would be riding together and laughing and joking enjoying the beautiful spring weather.  Sharing.  I truly miss that and I truly miss them.  I miss Paul and Amelia and Lynn and John and Mike and the others.  But I will be a good citizen.  Because I love these people, I would not risk harm to them through my own selfishness.

I fear to go too far from home because if I would have an issue, how would I get home.  I don't think I have the virus, but I did have to go to the store last Tuesday.  So, between that and being tired, I head home getting in about 30 miles.  That is enough.  There is grass to be cut before the next rain comes in later in the week.  I remain grateful for my bicycle and the release and freedom it brings.  Ride, but ride safely.  Perhaps there is something to be learned in solitude that I am meant to learn, even if it is just a greater appreciation of friendship.