Orleans: May 7, 2000 (Date on photos is wrong)

"While getting lost in all those

little things that seem so important,

don't forget the little things that 

matter..."

Virginia Alison

 I get up to find that the weather is nice, though windy as appears to be the weather's wont this year.  I decide that I will ride a century.  I can't say I am entirely comfortable with this decision.  While I have not let myself completely go to pot, I have definitely put on weight and have shortened the length of my rides.  Part of this was due to concern about having a mechanical and needing to call a sag because I don't want to infect anyone if  I would happen to be ill but asymptomatic, but then I realize my daughter has a truck and my bike and I could be hauled in the back.  It would mean a long wait for rescue, but the chances of needing her seem slim.  And it might mean "the look," the look that asks why her mom can't just be normal like other mothers and drive a car or take up knitting.


 I can't remember ever calling for sag other than when I was bitten by the pit bull.  Even then, I could have limped home if it had been necessary.  I did refuse the ambulance that someone had called though nobody would ever fess up to it. My husband came.  When I am hurt, I always want my husband, at least I did once I gave up wanting my mom. Anyway, if I am hurt that badly by a fall, a bite, being hit by a car, or something else, I'll probably need an ambulance anyway.

I decide on one of my easier centuries.  I have not been to Orleans for quite some time.  I have two century routes there.  I pick the easier of the two.  I  also consider the wind and pick a route where the wind will be at my back most of the return journey. Before I leave, I pack snacks and a sandwich and hope that my water supply holds as I do not intend to stop at any stores along the way.  

I question my choice the first few miles as the route goes through Medora and I have recently visited there, but after passing Medora my doubts melt as I come across a bonanza of late spring flowers.  The river is to my left and the railroad to my right for a number of miles.  Traffic is sparse.  I stop to eat a snack at an old abandoned bridge.

Despite the beauty, I find I wish for some companionship on my journey.  I have spent so much time alone recently.  I suppose that will continue for awhile as I have no notion of returning to going shopping or the gym or a restaurant until I see where this virus goes.  I try to stay away from politics in my blog, so I will only say that I do  not trust our government to care about me or those I love anymore.  

During my ride, I think about what is important to me: God, family, friends, home, stability, love, children, safety, bicycles, pets.  A friend recently let me know he has been ill and I think how I would not know unless he was well enough to let me know.  These people are important to me, they make my life richer and help to give it meaning.  They have made me laugh and cry.  They have accepted me, warts and all, into their lives and hearts.  It is so damned hard to be so isolated from them.  And I pray that each of them knows that they are special to me, that I love them.  For this virus has magnified what is important, truly important.  It reinforces the lesson on what means the most. 

The wind picks up as the day goes on and I begin to despair of my ability to finish out this ride, but still I know I will go on, turning one pedal and then the other because that is what distance cyclists do and that is how goals are accomplished. Distance riding is largely a mental exercise and a exercise of the will and refusal to quit.  The mind tires long before the body has to stop, but the mind is a liar and tells those lies to the body.  It wants you to quit long before you really need to. I think, perhaps, it used to be easier in some ways because I needed these rides to keep up with others, to build my base for brevets, etc.  Now my main reason is that I know how easily it can be taken from me unless I continue to push and not to yield. Most of my friends no longer ride centuries, at least unless it is a tour stage, and there is no Tour de Mad Dog this year. 

Clouds begin to to fill the sky and I find I am chilly with my arm warmers down when they block the sun and too warm when the sun is out.  The words of a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter come to mind, "Sometimes its hard to remember how tough we are to please." I stop for a quick sandwich at a bridge that seems perfect.  One side has a concrete wall that is perfect for sitting.  The other side has a concrete wall that is taller and perfect for leaning a bicycle on. 

The wind is now at my back pushing me home and even Bee Line Road does not slow me down.  Indeed, after the last climb I keep thinking there is another that never appears.  I am cautious on the descent after crossing the highway remembering that there is a rough railroad track at the bottom.  I smile thinking of the time I flew and it caused me to go airborne.  Luckily I landed the bike and all was well.  The feeling was exhilarating.

Soon I am on Quaker Road and home draws near.  Home.  Even the word is a siren song.  My pedal strokes grow stronger rather than weaker as the end nears and I know I don't have to conserve any more strength to be there.  This ride, a  little thing, but also something that matters. 

Canceled Trips: Regret

"Maybe all one can do is hope to

 end up with the right regrets."

Arthur Miller

A nice, albeit windy, day for a ride.  I am tired from a Zwift session yesterday, and look forward to a leisurely, rather flat ride today on a real bike in a real world, even though with Corona it sometimes seems as if I am looking through a store window the way I used to do at Christmas time when my mother would take me to Cincinnati to see the  windows.  How beautiful those windows were, decorated with glistening snow and mechanical whimsical figures, evergreen and holly in deep greens accentuated by red, brilliant and cheerful matching my excitement about the holiday to come.  One year I remember a real deer in the window. A magical world, but one that excluded me.  Look, but no touching allowed.

I think of how last night I turned my calendar to May and saw where, before Corona, I had marked my much anticipated bicycle trip to Wisconsin this month.  A hoped for trip to see my granddaughter. The TMD centuries that I had hoped to ride were marked as well.  My canceled bicycling trip in Alaska that was supposed to happen this summer  also marked, though not in the month of May.  Dreams that are not to happen, at least anytime in the near future.  The words of a Joni  Mitchell song ring through my brain as they have so often lately:  "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til its gone."

How things have changed. Life is determined to teach me that I must flow with the tide.  I think how grateful I am that I got to ride with Greg Z. and Steve R. last fall.  I recall the delightful lunch that Steve's wife provided for us in the midst of a ride, the laughter, the beauty of the table setting, the comfort that comes from being with friends.  I miss meal sharing.   How glad I am that Amelia and I got our bicycle trip from Inverness to Edinburgh in last summer before reality changed.  A lucky decision, the one I made to retire a bit early, at least as far as travel.  What Corona will ultimately mean for all of us, nobody really yet knows.   Or for how long.  I try to be grateful I am that so far I am okay, physically and financially, at least thus far.  

I decide that I should probably think for a bit about my Mom.  She is gone, but Mother's Day approaches rapidly and I like to take some time to think about her.  I miss my Mom, but I am glad that she does not have to go through this as she did so many things in her lifetime. 

For some reason, I think of one day that she and I were on the swing set in the back yard.  We are taking turns reciting "One, two buckle my shoe."  I remember how much fun it was, just  my mother and me, swinging in the sunshine.  My mom read to me when I was young, but I don't have any other memories of her actually playing with me outdoors other than that day.  Do I not remember or did it not happen?  I know she was busy.  With five children and a busy social life, my mom had little time to sleep and less to  play.  

I think about one time when she and my father were getting ready to go out.  Mom was at her dresser and had on her mink.  She wore Chanel Number 5, elegant and classy. I remember stroking the mink covering her arm and thinking that I must have the prettiest Mom in the world.  

This leads me to wonder about what memories my children will have of me.  I know this Mother's Day will be the first that I remember since having children that I will, in all likelihood, be alone.

The road calls my attention back as a woman with a child in the passenger seat passes me only to brake and turn right in front of me to get to the covered bridge at Medora.  She obviously has no idea that bicycles don't brake as cars do, and I have to apply both brakes quickly and with force.  Shaking my head at her thoughtlessness, I move onward.

At Medora, the store is now officially closed.  Windows are draped in black plastic.  Next to it sits the long defunct ice cream store. But I do find a bait shop that has opened since I last rode through and advertises that they have chips.  I don't enter.  During this time of Corona, I am self-supported with water and a snack.  But it is good to know for the future assuming the store makes it.  My history with the town tells me that it is difficult for any business to survive.

Facing the wind, I head home picking the longer route despite tired legs.  The sun in shining and the next two days don't look promising weather wise.  Since I am not worried about pace, the wind is not a huge issue since I am not actively fighting it to reach a goal pace.  I think of how days are running into each other with appointments being canceled and not kept.  I am still adjusting to the new reality.

I think of my sister-in-law, for the 5th will be the first anniversary of the loss of my brother, Chris. How I miss him.  How hard it will be for her.  As I told her this morning, there is not a day that goes by that I don't miss my husband, but it does get better.  It is no longer accompanied by a pain as sharp as being cut by knife.

Thoughts of my husband bring me back to gratefulness that once, out of the blue, he bought me a bicycle, a gift I wondered what I would do with but have come to love.  Sometimes it seems as if it were part of a plan, as if he knew where I would go with it and the strength, both mental and physical, that it would bestow upon me.  The comfort that I would find there.  How many times during a longer brevet, being 600 kilometers in, I wanted to throw in the towel?  But I learned patience and endurance and that dark moments pass to be replaced by moments made more sweet by that very darkness.

I am home.  I greet the cats, park my bike, get the mail, and begin to prepare a recovery meal.  Counting blessings.  Yes, I had to cancel trips that I was looking forward to and I will always regret that, but at least it is the right kind of regret. 

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.    

March 2020: Isolated

"I've found that there is always some

beauty left - in nature, sunshine, freedom,

in yourself; all these can help you."

Anne Frank

I have stayed active since Corona hit.  I do a daily morning Pilates or stability ball workout and then follow it with a walk, hike, or a ride:  sometimes even doing both a ride and walk.  Occasionally I add hand weights for what always has been and remains a weak upper body.  And for two days in a row, I have managed to nab a touch of sunshine on my ride though one day it meant leaving the house quite early and while it was still quite cold.

The world is screaming spring.  Daffodils pirouette in the wind, their brave yellows accentuated by the deepening green around them. Oh, how I love the greens this time of year, so fragrant and deep.  I have longed for green for months.  And the yellow, so fleeting but so yearned for. Other, small flowers thrust upwards. And so life goes on.  Isolation is wearying when one lives alone and I miss having someone to share things with, but as Ms. Frank notes, "there is always some beauty."  Oh, the magnificence of the human spirit in some people.  It shames me.  How, I wonder, did a child come to be so wise?  Circumstances? If so, surely the seed was there ahead of those circumstances.

The squirrels seem to be unusually busy and plentiful.  Important squirrel business, I suppose, as yet another crosses the road uncomfortably close to my front wheel.  Five deer cross in front of me.  Robins squabble over territory and mates.  Peepers call out in longing lonely following a long winter hiatus.  Life moves forward.  Nature seems unaware of the heavy cloud hanging over humanity at the present time.

For some reason, I think of something my daughter once told me during a time of great sorrow and great regret:  "Animals forgive us and don't hold grudges.  It is one of the things we are supposed to learn from them."  I hope it is true for we have not been kind to them or to their world. While at times the cats I live with are a nuisance, isolation, like loss, has made me aware of how much I treasure them.  It is nice to have something to hold on to, something to be responsible for besides myself.

Who knew the world could change so drastically so quickly?  I have canceled one trip in May where I was to meet with friends and ride bicycles and will likely be canceling my much anticipated Alaska trip.  But while I grieve the loss, I realize how lucky I am that thus far my family has not contracted the virus.  I am lucky I have a home and food and think about the poor people in Tennessee who recently lost so much in a tornado.  And I still have my bicycle and still can ride outside, something I have read has been restricted in other countries in an attempt to contain or slow a virus that is determined not to be contained.  The words of my mother whisper through my thoughts as I reach home:  "This, too, shall pass."

At The Start of Corona: 2020

"Alone, condemned, deserted, 

as those who are about to die are

alone, there was a luxury in it, an

isolation full of sublimity; a

freedom which the attached can 

never know."

Virginia Woolf 

Today as I ride my bike, I realize how very odd it is that one can go to bed and wake up and the world has entirely changed around you to the point where it seems a virtual stranger. I am not entirely clueless.  I know that people have woken up to no home through fire or tornado or hurricane, that war devastates people and communities.  And having lost loved ones, I thought I had accepted change.  But alas, I remain me.  And like all humans, somehow I expect it will never set foot in my doorstep.  But it does. Of course, it does.

I used to wonder why, when I was a child, my mother told me stories of the Great Depression and of hardships she had lived through.  Since my imagination already tends to run wild, her stories influenced some deep seated fears within  because, well, mom's don't lie, do they?  And now here we are in the midst of what has been declared a pandemic. Perhaps she did it to strengthen me?   To prepare me for a life that she knew would have roses, but would also have thorns?  As always, I miss my husband most during troubling times, miss how he would hold me and assure me that everything would be fine.  What a home those arms were, a shelter from the storm.

Yet still, as I ride, I notice the beauty of the first daffodils, bravely facing the chill wind today, best petal forward.  I notice the deepening of the greenness around me, and I feel almost guilty that I still take pleasure in these sights. As I ride,  I make the decision that I will mostly do as is recommended and isolate myself.   The question is how thoroughly?  And how long can I stand it? The trick will be to find that medium spot that works for me.

I read about schools canceled, church services canceled, festivities shut down, sporting events canceled or postponed and I read those that pooh pooh these measures, but I think of the differences in the outcomes in St. Louis and Philadelphia is 1918 and realize that it is wise.  Death, you see, is never a do over. And it is certainly best to err on the side of caution.  Oh, I don't really think this virus will kill me. Again a human reaction.  It could, but while I am over 60 I am overall quite healthy. We never seem to think something will happen to us, and I am not different.

I think of a  conversation with a friend that I once thought was quite smart, and I suppose he is, but like many smart people he gets so caught up in little facts that he is unable to view the larger picture.  I think that part of this is his inability to ever admit he is wrong about anything.  Luckily for him, he is unmarried.  Or perhaps I am the one who is wrong.  I never claimed to be the smartest knife in the drawer.   But like all of us, I believe what I believe. 

 I get the theory that we need to flatten the curve, to prevent as best we can all of us getting it at the same time.  I certainly don't want to die or to lose lung function, and I want no part in being part of the reason that someone loses their mother or their father or another loved one.  I have enough on my conscience.

Briefly I pray for those doctors in Italy having to decide who will be given treatment and the possibility of life and who will be left to most likely die.  I remember how hard it was to make the decision to let me husband go despite knowing he would never walk or talk again.  I don't envy them their dreams when this thing ends.  I know all too well what it means to question decisions that you make.

And end it will.  Just as this bike ride will end.  I think how lucky I am that I do love to ride because it is something where there is generally no close contact.  I then smile a bit sadly thinking of how, at the end of a ride yesterday, rather than hugging as we normally do at the end of a ride, a friend and I bumped forearms in farewell. I will miss that touching until it is safe to hug in greeting and farewell again.  Perhaps I can discover new things about my world and myself as I spend more time alone.  I grin thinking of how I often thought that randoneurring can be, at times, a lonely place, but even a 1200 only takes 90 hours. Still, maybe it played a role in preparing for this moment.

And then I am home.  While I enjoyed the ride, the wind was demanding and chilly.  But my home is warm. I have books and food and the things I need to care for myself.  I don't have to decide who lives and who dies.  I just need to do my small part. I am blessed.