Easter Ride 2024

"Spring drew on...and a greenness

grew over those brown beds, which, 

freshening daily, suggested the thought

that Hope traversed them at night, and

left each morning brighter traces of 

her steps."

Charlotte Bronte

As always, there is something about spring that makes me glad to be alive, to have survived another of winter of dark and dreary cold, and come out of on the other side.   I give a prayer of thanksgiving to God that he has let my eyes feast on yet another spring.  Today's ride, an unexpected gift on a day predicted to be rainy and stormy.  Instead, the sun bursts through the clouds and the sky is as blue as my granddaughter's eyes, and I suppose, as innocent.  Perhaps the greatest gift is that the wind is mild and not the strong, bossy, punishing wind of recent rides.  

I decide to take the Calfee, my new bike, rather than my old, dependable Lynskey.  I don't trust the Calfee yet, not in the way I trust the  Lynskey, and I spend part of the ride trying to decide why.  Don't get me wrong....I absolutely adore my new Calfee, particularly the electronic shifting.  The ride is smooth as silk.  It is a beauty with remarkable craftsmanship evident from stem to stern.  I think the only thing I might change in a do over is the disc brakes:  they seem rather an overkill and are still rather unfamiliar to me and what they mean for tire changing, etc.  

 

But I still love my Lynskey, the way it takes abuse without complaining, the triple that has gone out of style rather than a compact double though it was always rare for me to use the smaller chain ring.  I got the Lynskey right before the 2011 PBP and it has served me well.  I intend for it to be my go to bike during bad weather.  In the end, I think it is because the Lynskey has proven itself that makes me comfortable.  We have a relationship.  So many memories. The Calfee and I will have to spend time together to make that happen.  And with the spring, there is hope that there will be time.  

I worry about my mind going anymore, the way I struggle sometimes to recall things, to pronounce things, to draw the words from my mind to mouth.  I have no diagnosis, but I worry about dementia or Alzheimer's and how I will handle it if it becomes reality because, in this country, you don't have choices as you do in some other places.  But this day is for appreciation, for celebration of another spring, a day and season for HOPE. And so I thrust the negative thoughts behind me as forcefully as possible, leaving them on the road as can only happen on a delightful spring day on a bicycle. 

It always amazes me how quickly spring arrives.  I don't mean that the winter is short, but that once spring decides it is time, how quickly green commandeers the brown and gray of winter.  As I ride, fields are alive with purple deadnettle.  Soon the farmers will spray and till it into submission, but for now it is dominant and absolutely gorgeous.  It brings a memory back of pulling it in the garden to plant and a bee getting angry with me.  It flew into my hair getting caught in the strands and I ran indoors, screaming.  My husband took the sting in his hand pulling it free. How often he saved me pain.  Always the protector.  How I miss that. 

 

I decide to head toward Henryville for, despite the sun, there are predictions for afternoon thunder storms.   The daffodils still brighten the landscape, painting the roadsides yellow, though they are fading. I love  how they stare winter down, daring her to do her worst, how they laugh at the strong spring winds, dancing and showing how those that are flexible survive hardships thrust upon them better than those that are rigid.   

 

I pass Helen Trueblood's, her yard alive with color, and regret that, with her passing, these flowers will not be cherished and cared for as they were while she graced this earth.  But I also remember how you can almost always tell an old homestead, despite the house being dilapidated or gone, bones sagging with age, by the daffodils that someone once planted.  During a hike on the Knobstone, Chris and I found an old well he was looking for that way.    The house was long gone, but the daffodils remain.  The words of a Leann Womack song come to mind, "And that's something, something worth leaving behind."  The name of the artist long forgotten, but the beauty remains, a reminder that actions, perhaps, last longer in preserving our bit of time here. 

 

The wheels continue to roll as I decide what roads to take and pick a few I don't normally ride.  I think how we tend to become slaves to routes as we become familiar with an area, maybe because of terrain, maybe because a bad dog lives on a certain road, maybe just because.  I decide to ride past my mother-in-law's old house.  So many memories there, some my own some shared by  my husband while he was still alive.  

 

The sky begins to darken and I decide it is best to head homewards despite being reluctant to give up this precious time on the bike on a day that was predicted to be stormy and rainy.  The day, instead was an Easter gift, and Easter is, I suppose, like spring, about hope.  And despite the ride ending, I smile.