P&Y Plans Foiled: It's All Good

"Sometimes our fate resembles a 

fruit tree in winter.  Who would think

those branches would turn green and

blossom, but we hope it, we know it."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

 

 

It is the rare January day when it is supposed to be in the fifties the majority of the day, and so I suggest to Jon that we embark on a lunch ride to P&Y, a place I have become rather fond of during shorter the colder  months.  It is halfway in a fifty mile ride and rather flat.  The food is good and the store is small and normally not crowded.  He agrees and plans are laid to meet at ten and ride for lunch.  

 I do consider chickening out when looking at the wind prediction, but remind myself that  it is not only normal for winter, but relatively mild.  And it is time to get back into shape after a few weeks of Christmas festivities that included overeating and eating things that are decidedly unhealthy. Time to quit being a wimp, something gradually becoming more pronounced as I age.  And despite having my family in, I am ready for a friend.  Don't get me wrong.  I delight in my children and the grands, but visits are demanding in a way friendship is not, particularly with the children still being so small.  

We are both happy to be on our bikes and it feels good to be out.  Even the wind that will be my enemy is almost welcome, still light and caressing my face rather than viciously slapping it.  Sometimes, I suppose, being on a bicycle is like coming home.  How many hours and miles have I spent?  Uncounted and lost along with the Big Dog Site and all the memories the narratives held.  During the first half of the ride I keep thinking repeatedly just how very good it feels to get out, to use my muscles, to see the world however bleak it might be this time year.

I barely notice the long climb up Hatcher Hill, and only later discover that my bike was  in the small chain ring.  Duh, no wonder.  The day is warm enough that I stop at the bottom of the climb and lose my jacket.  Later I will be very glad to have that jacket as the temperature drops and the winds increase, but for now I am happy to stick it in my jersey pocket.  

It is shortly thereafter, right when we are making the transition from city to country, that the funniest event of the day happens.  I hear a cat.  This is a very loud cat.  It is a cat who sounds as if he needs help and I can't ride on by perhaps because a cats meow, according to research, somehow mimic the cries of a human baby.  "Where is that cat?," I ask Jon, only then remembering that the previous night I had changed my phone ring from the Nutcracker to a cat.  I burst out laughing at my own cluelessness and will chuckle about it throughout the day.  Perhaps at least now I will hear my phone rather then tuning it out like the "Yes, Dear" husband who is paying absolutely no attention to the question being asked. Not that I usually answer it if it rings as it is normally a spam caller, just another change the world has wrought during my lifetime. 

When we reach the lunch stop we find it is still closed for the holidays.  We discuss whether to go to Butlersville or North Vernon.  Butlersville is closer.  It is noon and I don't have a light if something would go wrong.  Butlersville will bring us in around 60 miles whereas North Vernon would be closer to 80 and would be a longer lunch.  I am relieved that Jon does not seem terribly disappointed when I say I don't want to go to Vernon.  I am relieved that he knows the route to Butlersville, for I do not.  

We arrive and my intention to begin eating more sensibly vanishes when the girl says the special is a cheeseburger and fries.  The store is crowded and we decide to eat outside at the picnic table.  We both gobble our food as it is cold (the weather not the food) and seems to be growing colder by the moment.  We later lament that we did not have the good sense to eat at the side of the building sheltering from the wind.  But there you have it.  The food was unexpectedly good for a gas station type store. And if we had good sense we probably would not be out on bicycles in this weather, which while warm for January is still quite cold.  

 

The ride home becomes a trial every time we turn into the wind.  But since it will only turn out to be around sixty miles, it is not a real concern, just a hindrance, one that will hopefully help me to become stronger and bloom for spring riding.  Branches will, despite doubts, become green.  Effort will blossom.  And barring illness or accident, there is another year of riding in front of me.  And so, I wish everyone a Happy New Year that includes many hours on the bike knowing that some of them may be more miserable than happy as fitness gives birth, but knowing that the bad days make those good days, the ones where you feel like you could ride strongly and forever and with great joy.  May 2023 be blessed for us all. We finish the day with a few miles of hiking at Clifty Falls, then head to our homes to rest, to build, to prepare for the coming spring.