I feel a little wobbly

It’s not what you think…

This morning was the first ride of the season.  I pushed it up a week this year because my in-laws are in town for spring break and I didn’t have to get everyone ready this morning.  There was no false cheer and lightness as I sang to my children in a loving wake up now serenade.  There was no shouting or yelling and turning on of lights and opening of curtains and clapping with hollow palms when the serenade didn’t work.  There was no coaxing and prodding and I didn’t say once, ‘Well, if you want something else for breakfast, get it yourself.’

Let me explain.  I am a cyclist in the same way I am a runner…I am still in the becoming stage.  A little pupa or embryo, an introduction a commencement, a mind map of what I could be if I REALLY tried,  i.e. I am a fat girl on a bike.  (There is no shiny spandex and everyone can do a happy dance.)

I may be a little unfair to myself if I say this but I’m not sure.  I am a mother, I am a wife, I am a care giver and I am a writer.  I don’t think about being any of these things and I don’t try to be any of these things any more than I try to be a woman.  I just am them.

In the same way, I don’t try to be a runner or a cyclist or a yogi.  I just do the things that they might do if they had the label to go with their state of being.  The fact that I am not very good at any of these things is more of a reflection on my recession from the five passions (I have previously talked about), rather than a lack of a state of being or label.  Besides who said I was good at being a mother or wife, etc?  And who needs a label?

Argh, this self reflection hurts.

Anyway, I ride in the morning because that is my ‘me time’.  The time between running through my nightly dreamares and running through my life.  It is the only time I am not too tired to do something good for myself.  Living where I do, means I have to take into account regular snow and the state of the sun on the horizon at 5am.  That is why I say I have a ‘riding season’ and not for any other reason.

(Tee hee, that rhymed!)  Let me just tell you that 5am this morning was dark.

I got up and went downstairs feeling my way through the blackout.  I managed to clock my forehead on a door and trip over the cat before I decided to use my phone as a torch.  I found the clothes that I had very carefully laid out last night and attempted to put them on in the dark because I didn’t think to put the light on.  I think I disturbed more people with the noise I made bumping into things than I would have if I had just switched a lamp on.  I wore cotton in defiance to my REI days, just because I was feeling spiteful, and I had to sit down to put on my trousers because I kept loosing my balance with no reference points in the dark.  (So much for the yogi label!)

The cat was very confused.  I wasn’t sure that I felt good about leaving her as she has developed a toilet paper habit and this morning she bit my husband’s leg for no apparent reason.  I think she is working through some anxiety issues.  But I had to leave her, I was so ready for the ride, I could taste it.

I thought I had set out everything I needed, but I got outside and realized that I didn’t wear a wooly hat when I rode my bike, I wore my helmet and gloves.  I also realized that I didn’t have said helmet or gloves, so I had to go back inside.

Yesterday I spent about an hour cleaning and oiling my bike then pumping up her almost completely flat tires.  It is a beautiful beast, my bike.  I felt such contentment playing with her mechanical gears and making her shine that I am quite sure I am insane.

She was all ready for me though.  She was waiting when I finally managed to pull myself together and wheel her out to the path.  I checked the tires and put on my gloves with the flowers and my yellow tinted glasses and got ready to set off.

It was then I realized that I forgot how to ride a bike.  (And I dared to vaguely hint that I was a cyclist!)  Three years ago I worked for REI, I had to get my bike for the price it was being offered so badly that I didn’t care that it is rather big for me.  It was seriously about a fifth of the price I would have paid if I hadn’t had a discount.  So I pretended it had my name written all over it…and it does, it is just a little big.

It has cages for petals and I had changed the gear settings when I cleaned her yesterday so it was harder than anticipated to start off.  To my embarrassment (and it is a good thing no one is up at 5:30 in the morning in my neighborhood) I admit that I almost fell off before I had even started.

Once I got started though, it was complete liberation.

I mean utter and complete, oh my #@$%^^^^$#@!@ I am so HAPPY!!!

At least it was until I got away from the lights and I realized it was DARK!  I mean really dark.   So dark I worried that my eyes had stopped working.  Then I began to see shadows.  I saw a pack of coyotes, three panthers, the grim reaper and a few rabid rabbits darting across the path.  I once again questioned my sanity as I rode further and further from my home in complete darkness.

I told myself I knew the path.  I told myself I was going to be ok, I knew where I was going.  I told myself that my light, such as it was, was lighting the path and that I could see just fine.  I willed the sun to come up as if I could make it rise with sheer force of will.  Oh goodness, I was stupid.

I mean really, really dumb.

I tried to distract myself and realized I forgot to check if my keys were safely zipped in my sacral pocket.  Then I thought about how everything should have a sacral pocket, just so that we as a human race could say ‘sacral pocket’ more.  Then I realized I really wanted to check to make sure that I didn’t loose my keys out of my sacral pocket so that some crazy could pick them up and somehow know where I lived and… Then, after I thought about where I could safely stop when there were panthers out there stalking me, I realized that I wasn’t sure I could stop.

I did, of course I did.

I am one who immediately thinks ‘you can’t tell me what to do!’ when you tell me not to do something.  The O&P (Ova and Parasite) vials I have to give out on occasion (oh and imagine the joy when I get them back all filled!) say ‘DO NOT DRINK’ all over them with a little skull and crossbones.  What is my first reaction when reading the warning?  Of course I don’t drink them, the liquid inside smells terrible, but now you understand a little more about the fragile state of me.

I stopped and I rode all the way to my halfway point alternatively thinking ‘woo hoo!’ and ‘aaaahhhh!’ and ‘eeeesh, that was close!’  I stopped when I reached that point too.  I even got off my bike and back on again, just to prove I could do it.  Then I rode all the way back thinking, ‘fine sun, I’ll show you!  I bet I can get home faster than you can get yourself out of bed!’

I only saw one other person riding on the path; they were all wrapped up and shadowy but I think it was a person.  I am not sure they were more than a bike and a light but at least it was another being.  Another month or so and I will be passed by better and faster cyclists.  It was kind of nice to have the path to myself and the phantom light and the panthers.

When I got back home and got off the saddle I was a little bit butt sore and wobbly.  I am going to have to break my body in again.  The ride was fantastic though.  I was absolutely scared to death and excited and I will be going again at the first opportunity.

Tomorrow if I’m lucky.  (Mum I will be fine.)

Wish me be lucky.

xoxo.