A Carnival Ride

"Friends are God's way of taking 

care of us."

Unknown

Such beautiful weather for January, more like late February or even March weather.  And today is the second day of such weather.  While I rode yesterday, it did not comfort me as it usually does and it was a hard day on many levels.  It was just one of those crummy days where you can't define why you don't feel so chipper, you should feel chipper, but you just don't.  And there is no good reason you can put your finger on.  Age has brought me the understanding of how quickly feelings can change.  Or maybe not the understanding, at least of why, but the realization that no matter how down I may get eventually the sky will seem blue again and a smile will tease my face.  Still, those blah days sometimes take some getting through.

Today is different.  I will be riding with people that I have not ridden with for about a year, but I am so looking forward to it.  And they greet me as a friend with smiles and some hugs. Rich had the brilliant idea of buying carnival beads to pass to people during the ride as it is the first day of carnival.  While I am aware of carnival and Mardi Gras, I have never been and it would never have crossed my mind that it was starting.  My beads are green, purple, and gold.  At one point during the ride I wonder if the colors have meanings, but by the time I am riding close enough to Rich to ask, the thought has slipped through this steel sieve that now seems to be my mind.  The thought of giving away the beads makes me think of my first PBP when I took along little plastic parachutes, candies, and stickers to give to the children I saw along the route.  But that is another story for another day.

At the ride start, we do as cyclists do when the weather is supposed to have a large temperature range and question whether we have enough layers on or too many.  Will we be too warm?  Will we freeze?  I opt to add another layer, but shed it early in the ride, overdressing as usual.  I know my hands will be warm as I have my barr mitts taped to my handlebar from when it was a bit colder and won't undo them until winter is over.  I love the chatter that spills out at the start of a ride as hearts and minds share the things they have been storing up for a face to face meeting.  Sometimes I participate, often I participate, but sometimes I just like to listen even if I can't distinguish what is being said.  It is the music of voices, the comfort of the sounds of communication that is amiable and pleasant.  It is very rare on a ride to hear the harsh, strident tones of anger, unless it is directed toward a motorist that has unnecessarily and thoughtlessly caused safety concerns.  

We are doing a road ride today as Pat does not have his mountain bike with him, and I grin when I hear Tim sold his road bike and is riding a hybrid.  He is strong enough to do this, but I later tease him about the irony of a bike store owner not having a road bike.  I would have come to the ride regardless and got through the mountain biking parts as best I could, but I know that the only struggle I will have on this ride are the hills, and are there hills.  Three lovely, long climbs are included on what turned out to be a low traffic, beautiful course.  And of course, where there are delicious climbs, something I am glad to find I can still enjoy, there are even better descents.  Tim compliments me on one descent and it makes me think of the time Mike "Sparky" Pitt told me I was a fearless descender and should have learned to ski.  I store these new nice words with the old nice words to pull out when I am doubting my talent or ability or any time I need them.  Nice words do that to us.  Sometimes I wonder why we do so much tearing down of others when nice words are so powerful, but maybe they don't affect others as they do me, at least when I feel they are sincere.

Rich will later bring it up over lunch, but I quickly remember what a treat it is riding with Keith because of his keen powers of observation.  At one point he points out a small hole in the clouds (most of the day was sunny but for some reason at that point there were clouds) that has what appears to be a rainbow of changing colors.  We stop to watch and Tim says that he thinks it is aurora borealus.  I don't know if it that or a rainbow, only that it is beautiful and that we have stopped by one of the many creeks we have ridden by and the sound of the rushing water is music to my ears.  I think how I like that about this group, how they don't mind stopping to just take a minute and look at something if they feel like it.  I like how Pat can climb the hills leaving us all in his dust, yet patiently sits and waits and protests if you tell him he climbs like a goat.  (He does and must have a wonderful weight/strength ratio).  His build reminds me of Mike "Diesel" Kamenish, another strong climber that I know.  

I think of Mike again during this ride because of how he looked up so much history of the route he put together for one ride.  Rich always seems to know the history of places we are riding and since I love both history and stories, this is right up my alley.  After one of his stories, I think of how I hope I make it to the International Story Telling Festival in Tennessee again this year.  It has been awhile since I attended, but I truly enjoyed it.  

We are supposed to give away our beads during the ride, but as we near the end Tim is the only one who has done so.  I stop as we ride along next to the river to give mine away, the first to a couple and the last to a woman in a purple coat who looked as if she could use a smile and a touch of kindness.  It is strange how things work, because this took my mind off the way I teared up as we rode past Key West Shrimp House where my husband and I shared so many anniversaries.  I miss him.  I will always miss him.  But mostly I am grateful that we had our time together.  Because we are beadless at the end, Rich gives us some beads to keep as a memory of the ride.  After lunch, when I return home, I hang them  in my new bike room.  

It is good to have memories, and maybe even better to make new ones. It is good to have friends.  These things are blessings.  Precious and to be held onto and appreciated.  Thanks, everyone, for a special day on the bike. 

Riding to Work

"Strange, what brings these past things

so vividly back to us, sometimes."

Harriet Beecher Stowe

It is my first commute since Lloyd left me. I have to plan my commutes to work as I often need my car for my job, but there have been numerous opportunities.  I just have not taken advantage of them. I know he would have been disappointed in me, but I also know he would have understood. All things in their time and place.

Despite leaving so early, I had not thought I would need a head light, but the sky is cloudy and the fog is as thick as a blanket so I quickly slap one on.  As I leave, there is nobody to tell me to be careful, and I again felt the immensity of my loss.  Yes, I still have people who love and care for me, but not in the same all encompassing way he did.   Everything changes.  I have always struggled with that.  Mary Wollstonecraft wrote, "To have in this uncertain world some stay which cannot be undermined is of the utmost importance."  You, love, were my stay.  And I flounder in these new waters. But I move forward and still you sustain me.  I realize you will always be with me because you became a part of me.

I am surprised when I notice the  yellow sweet clover is in bloom daintily lining the edge of the road.  It just seems too early.  Time has a way of slipping past us wasted if not noticed and appreciated.  I do not recall seeing sweet clover on last week-ends century ride, but perhaps I was busy talking. How very peculiar it is that I notice so many things on a bicycle that I do not notice when in my car. 

I smile thinking of how I would have told Lloyd about what was in bloom when I got home and how he would have bemoaned the fact that there is so little sweet clover now due to the highway department mowing the roadsides.  Like him,  I see little sense in all that mowing unless it is near an intersection.  But for me it is not merely because of the killing of the bee pasture, but because it pleases my eye.  There is a certain beauty in the unkempt, gypsy roadways of the countryside. Grass does not really take well to taming.  There is inevitably the errant rebel blade that is higher than the rest and will not bow to the will of the mower.

The daisies also are also in bloom, and I remember how when we first started our lives together I would gather them from the horse pasture and put them in a vase to bring their cheery brightness into our small mobile home.  I remember the velvety softness of B.J.'s soft horse lips nuzzling me as I walked the field, the moist warmth of his breath tickling my ear, his earthy, horsy smell a tonic. I laugh out loud remembering the look on Lloyd's face the day he unexpectedly came home and I was cleaning sans clothing because I had so little clothing and did not want to soil what little I did have.  We did not yet have our fifteen dollar sale barn washing machine, and dirty clothes also needed to be hauled the the laundromat.  And I always bathe after cleaning. That look was priceless and is still with me. The feel and smell of him.  Every sense engaged. The mattress on the floor because we could not yet afford a bed to put it on.  Youth and love sustained us, a love we were fortunate enough to grow against all  odds. 

I become thankful for the time we had and regret those times we wasted on petty, silly, little fights or disagreements.  As with child rearing, couples should pick battles carefully and be grateful to have a stay in this world. How few have any real meaning down the road. But even in the disagreements, there are memories to be treasured and growth to be had as we find our paths.  I particularly remember telling him one time that it was rather silly, fighting, when each of us knew the other was going nowhere. We made each other a promise.  The lines from a forgotten movie come to mind, " I made a promise.  You're old enough to remember when that meant something."  And it did. Oddly enough, even with him gone it still does.

Rather than lessening, the fog thickens as I crest the big climb that lies between me and my place of employment.  I am surprised at the relative sparseness of cars.  What a difference an hour makes in morning traffic. For just a few moments, it is as if it is just me and my bicycle in this world: no cars, no lights, no people.  The fog conceals whatever animal is making the rustling sound in the woods that side the climb, and I hope that nothing runs in front of my front wheel.  At this speed, unless I fall over the side of the guard rail, I will likely not get hurt.  But I still don't want to fall.  I cannot tell you how much enjoy being able to sleep on my shoulders much of the night without waking up with them aching. Not enough, perhaps, to quit this nonsense that is riding a bicycle and its potential dangers, but enough that I appreciate what I have. 

Traffic picks up as I near the construction area.  I take the middle of the lane to discourage people carelessly passing and not leaving me room.  At least the fog has lessened in this area so the danger lessens. The smell of exhaust begins to claim the air, taking away the morning freshness.  But I realize that I am singing, that I have been singing for quite a while, memories spilling from my mouth into the air and up to heaven, a kind of prayer.   And if you are up there, if there is indeed a heaven, I know you are listening and smiling. I  miss you, love, but I am happy today.  I know you would not begrudge me that, but will rejoice in my happiness.   I am trying to find the woman you once said was "as tough as a hickory nut." Perhaps my bicycle will  help me find her. And there is something about commuting by bicycle that just makes a work day more bearable, particularly on a warm, muggy morning with summer right around the corner. 

After work I head home and really take the long way home.  The ride back does not haunt me with memories the way the ride in did, but it is pleasant.  When you were alive and waiting, I never did this.  There were thoughts to share. I took a back way, but not the long back way.  But you are not there waiting, and while I regret that with all my heart there is a certain freedom now that I don't know that I have ever possessed before.  It is going to take some getting used to, but it may bring joy, this unexplored path.  The only way I know to find out is to ride it and see what happens. Not that I would not change things back if I could, but I can't.  And I am alive and may have years of being alive ahead of me, years that are a gift so long as I have my health, my memories,  my children, my friends, and my bicycle.  Hopefully I can hold on to that so I don't wake up one day and realize it is gone because you can't get those moments back.  You can only remember them. 

Dream

"I've dreamed a lot.  I'm tired now of dreaming but not 

tired of dreaming.   No one tired of dreaming because

to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh

on us, it is a dreamless sleep throughout which we 

remain awake.  In dreams I have achieved everything."

Fernando Pessoa

I am tired.  I did not bounce back from the 1000K Appalachian Adventure as readily as I would like.  I suppose I grow old or lazy or a combination of the two. Indeed, only yesterday did I do a century ride and it has been almost two weeks since the ending of the adventure, an adventure I did write about but cannot yet share.  Yes, yesterday I rode 116 miles with friends from Louisville to Mammoth Cave, or at least most of the ride was with friends. 

 Near the end I tire, really tire, and I ride in alone not stopping when the others stop for ice cream.   I must say I do enjoy parts of the ride, particularly the first fifty or sixty miles, before it becomes a chore rather than a pleasure, and for some odd reason those last few  miles when I was alone and the rain fell from the sky hard and steady. a malleable wall to fight. Mental or physical weariness, that is the question, for sometimes when a dream is fulfilled, despite that dream being satisfied, it takes awhile to lose the longing for that dream, to accept it is now a reality, particularly a reality that had a conclusion. For it is the human condition to strive for what we have not yet achieved or to perfect an experience that was imperfect, to be a bit dissatisfied however satisfying the experience.  It is why we go on.  It is why we dream.

And yet despite being weary, I do cherish the conversation with friends too seldom seen; I do smile and laugh and admire the flowers and the scenery, and I do mourn and let go of something, or at least let go a bit  of something that has haunted me for far too long, a might have been that I know very well would not have had a good conclusion for true happiness cannot be achieved on the back of others suffering, at least for me. 

The course brings back so many memories of trips to Mammoth Cave, both with friends and family.  And I sleep after I arrive and replenish my body, sleeping longer than I have in a number of years other than when ill, and perhaps replenish my soul. Being with my daughter who met me there does me good, for despite being her own person she is half me, bound by blood and the first suckle, bound by years of shared experiences, both happy and sad, and bound by love.

No, I do regret  not having to ride home as I have always done in the past other than the year nobody rode home due to unusually inclement weather, or I don't regret it enough to change my mind. For just a moment I worry that I have lost my love of the bike, of the effort, of the joyful way it makes me feel,  but deep down I know that soon my bicycle will call to me as a lover calls to his beloved, that I will once again be seduced by his blandishments,  and both my body and spirit will answer the call.  And I will have new dreams of achievements, some of which will become real and some of which will not, but all of which will nourish my soul.  And they will not weigh on me, but lift me upwards to new experiences and other achievements, however minor they may seem.  But until I hear his sylvan voice, I will rest knowing that however far he strays he will return.  And that even while resting, perhaps particularly while resting, I can dream. 

Thoughts of Hell Week 2014

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep

because reality is finally better than your dreams."

Dr. Seuss

It is cold and dreary here.  And while there a certain  beauty in the stern, unforgiving landscape with its crust of hard, white snow and ice covered roads, it is not conducive to bicycling...at least on a road bike or a regular mountain bike.  The roads are too icy and the alabaster snow that does not give under my feet while walking gives when the wheels of my mountain bike try to glide over the surface.  It is, however, conducive to dreaming and the cultivation of that inside, unnameable longing and inside ache that dreaming sometimes brings:  it is conducive to thoughts of Texas in the early spring.

It is this time of year when I begin truly counting the days until I will be there, until I will see friends that I see all too rarely because of the physical distance, until I see the friends that I do see fairly regularly though not on a daily basis, until I am on a bicycle where I best interact with people.  For some reason, friendship and discussions are so much easier on a bicycle than they are sitting in chairs across a table from each other, just as they are after I have had a few drinks of alcohol. My husband says that alcohol primes the pump, and for some reason it is the same with a bicycle.  Indeed, sometimes I feel sorry for those condemned to a solo long distance ride with me;-)  And yes, I will miss my husband during this week, but I also will love him more for letting me go, for tending the home hearth and our furry family, for his patient waiting.

Despite the physical distance between us, my friends remain ever close to my heart, irrevocably woven into the fabric that is my very being, the world of bicycling.  Each is special to me, unique.  And while I know most of the these friendships will not last beyond bicycling, they are incredibly dear and important to me.  Perhaps it is that forewarning of loss that causes me to treasure our time so, for as so often happens in cycling, I have had dear friends whose physical presence fades as they no longer cycle even while they remain part of my history and are cherished and often thought of during a ride or during times of contemplation, each loved in their own special way.

Soon I will be in Texas, and hopefully there will be at least one day of hot, sunshine that just screams shorts and a short sleeved jersey and sun screen so that I don't burn, at least one day where the sweat will run freely and cleanly so unlike the cold, passionless winter sweat.   Soon my legs will ache with effort and my rear will hurt from unaccustomed hours on a bicycle seat and I will curse my inability to keep up and to capture the green sign.  Soon the strange,stark beauty of the landscape there will fill my eyes and I will once again fall in love. Soon I will laugh freely and be released from my recent winter weather captivity.  No dishes, no chores, no  work....nothing to do but to ride my bike, eat, sleep, and ride my bike again.   

And by the end, my passion will be spent, at least temporarily.  Because thus far, I am one of the lucky ones, the ones whose passion remains intact and who has the physical ability to carry out that passion.  And I will be satisfied for awhile knowing that reality has been better than my dreams if only temporarily. And my heart will sing. Oh, yes, Hell Week and Texas, I am sooooo ready. 

Dreary Winter Days

Despite the weather predication for temperatures in the forties and sun, I could tell as the sun came up that he would have some work to do if this was going to happen. The fog was so thick and gray that the roads that were dry the night before were wet. I had planned to ride a century today based on the prediction, but the intense fog made me rethink that idea. It didn't help that I had just read an article about two Amish teenagers that were killed yesterday when a car did not see their buggy because of the fog. Indeed, the intersection where it happened, Liberty and Pixley Knobs, was one I had intended to ride today as I am working on another century route. This had been greatly impeded by my inability to transfer my Garmin Mapsource to my new computer. Grrr. Deciding to err on the side of living to ride Saturday and have company, I decided to wait and head out later.

When I finally go out, I find that the fog has coated part of the roads with ice, as if they were glazed. I think about turning back, but I had decided that since I wouldn't get a century in, I would go to the forestry to get my friend, Davy, the pictures he wanted. I will just ride extra carefully. Besides, I kept telling myself that the sun would come out and it would warm up. Meanwhile I am kicking myself for not riding yesterday when it was warmer and the weather forecast was once again, surprise, wrong. The 100 per cent chance of rain yesterday ended up being about 15 minutes worth of a light drizzle.

Once I get used to the slow pace, I am glad that I decided to ride here. The forestry is empty of the sights and sounds of summer. Everything is a study of gray and brown. I pass a man walking his dog. It is not leashed, but it obviously is well trained as it does not chase me. It is a beautiful dog, one of my favorites, a golden retriever. I will think of this dog later when I ride by Shelly's parents home and Shelly's childhood dog no longer barks at me as if I had ill intentions. Sadly, I wonder if they will get another dog because there comes a time when you have to wonder if you will outlive your pet, and if you do, what will become of him/her. I know they are growing old. It makes me think of how he would come by in his truck when I was running through the rain always wanting to give me a lift home. Even those few years ago he was wizened and stooped, but his kindness showed in his eyes and the way they crinkled when he grinned. While there are things that bother me about having a pet, like wearing clothes with hair all over them, the pets I have loved have enriched my life immeasurably. I smile thinking of my Pupik and how when I first moved in with my husband, he would not let him come down the hall to the bedroom.

Soon I am at the bottom of the fire tower hill. I know there is no way I am climbing the hill today. It is scary enough to come back down when the roads are dry. When the roads are wet, you are asking for a fall, and a fall at an incredibly fast pace. I get off my bike and take photographs of the first of the hill from different angles hoping that it can bring Davy some pleasure remembering when he could climb like the wind leaving the others behind.

On the way home, I find I am eager to get back to the house and fall into its warm embrace. For some reason, while I have enjoyed the ride, I am ready for it to end. I decide I will go back out if the sun comes out, but otherwise will do some chores. Lord knows it needs it. My bike could use a good bath as well.