the return ride home up the hills of western peterborough is a multi-layered challenge. i honour my mortality as a precious gift each time i strap into my pedals - such that before i leave my home or my school, i stand outside the front doors and whisper words to the sky imploring the Big Cog - to which i am attached as a tiny inconsequential but interesting little cog -to watch me to my destination safe.
as a daily cyclist i experience the moods of the of the sky, the ground, and the people in the vehicles around me.
the sky is manageable and more often than not brings beauty and kindness in the form of beautiful clouds, sunshine, fog, low clouds, even rain. snow can be lovely but i worry about it more than anything else.
the ground is filled with cracks and holes and storm drains and pieces of wood and metal and cardboard and so has some predictability about it - i have an ongoing mental catalogue of the holes and cracks in the roads that requires constant updating as one hastily filled crack or hole after another crumbles and reemerges from its tarry hidey hole.
the people? well there are some people whom i see everday like the little old lady who walks her dog every morning and waves and asks after me as i pass by. the schoolkids who are on their way to the highschool who pass me on their bus. they recognize me and wave as well. the kids i am teaching now who also pass me and wave and yell at me and smile.
but the road i travel is very busy and is often populated with people frustrated by their day or their work or their lives, or so i imagine, because they drive hard and fast and often drive as if they were alone on the road which might reveal more of their wish intention than anything they might be able to verbally articulate. people have an ingrained need for irresponsibility which sadly is often coupled (without their willing it or sometimes expecting it) with irrationality which makes them dangerous under some circumstances.
here are one set of steven's wheels without the rider.today i experienced one of the little oddities of bike riding - jelly legs. usually this happens after being chopped at a corner, or narrowly avoiding a caffeine depleted driver, themselves driven by instinct upon seeing in their peripheral vision a tim hortons and so swerving suddenly to address their chemical needs. i have had similar experiences (although less so in the last few years) with people carving their way into mcdonalds to address their inner carnivore.
so there i was half way up a long hill riding into the wind that preceded a blue grey storm front blowing in from the west and my legs just went empty, still moving but with no energy. cripes. i’ve got another four k to go i’m thinking and the nasty miserable last hill that saps the last little bit of kick i have left is not even in sight but i know it’s there waiting and with jelly legs it’s not even possible. and worst of all the little voice in my head says “steven, you have never ever been defeated by the ultra steep cherryhill hill” which is very very true even when i’ve been on my way back from a couple of pints of dark ale or at the end of an overlong day or just plain knackered.
and you know what? i just toughed it out. i don’t know where it comes from - the will and the energy to do that. everyone has it - you just call from somewhere inside and you push through the worst stuff. often it’s stuff that’s far worse than biking home from work up a steep hill. and it’s partly to do with sheer bloody-mindedness, it’s partly to do with asking the body to serve your needs, and partly to do with the reward of feeling the little exhilaration of having done something that seemed unlikely.
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