My Ride is Here

My cousin called to say that her mom had passed away at eight o’clock the previous night. It was a call that I had been waiting for. She was the last of our parents generation.


Late, after evening meditation, I headed out on Salina road to get a short bike ride in. It was a cool, windy evening out in the hinterland of farms, fields and prairies. At 7:15pm it was fifty-four degrees as I headed eastward into a fifteen miles per hour headwind. Late May- it struck me as more Fall-type weather. Sunshine gave way to darkening clouds. Unsure that I would see riders coming back in, I headed towards Germanville Road. Ordinarily, on Tuesdays, the group would be finishing the last leg of a thirty mile, fast ride. Riding the opposite direction of that loop, my hope faded of seeing them bike towards me.

At some point I gave up…. I lost my verve for the ride. Coming up on the see-through, corncrib building, a trusted landmark of every local cyclists, I decided to turn around. It was getting cold and I felt “flat”. Watching the sun disappear, I was reminded of cycling through Ireland, 2002. Then, I had finished biking through the Gap of Dunloe and I took a break to put on some arm warmers. It was Good Friday and I was checking the ambient light of sunset through the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, before I descended into the Black Valley. A similar sunset – darkening, but still enough light to see your way home. This time, the rhythm of the ride was gone. There was no tempo. I ambled homeward feeling blue.

I would have rather been no other place at any other time. The dynamic “high” of biking with ones compatriots is balanced by such therapeutic solitary rides.

Cycle therapy

Tom
Bliss, Iowa