exercise

With This Pedal

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with this pedal I thee wed
a life that’s mine (inside my head)
to remember all that is momentous
and forget everything circuitous

with this pedal I will fly
into my life, by and by
taking with me all that’s past
leaving behind what I’ve surpassed

with this pedal I am me
more than elsewhere I could be
to speak my mind and ache my soul
to take the parts and make them whole

with this pedal I thee wed
a life that’s mine (inside my head)
to remember all that brought me here
to forget all that should disappear.

We Have Won

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Twenty perfect pictures
A cry-free four hour drive
Thrilled squeals that last for miles
A dip in the end-of-maze pool
A local restaurant in a sea
Of red jerseys and sauce
On the way to the stadium
With an ocean of red jerseys and lust

It’s summer and the sun has set
On fourteen flights of stairs up
The arch glistens from city lights
Alongside the river of all rivers
Our room sees it and smiles with pride
For we have won, we have won,
Our team, us, them, we have won.

Statistics

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temperature: 87
sunset: 8:30
ETA: 8:52
humidity: 70
miles: 5.2
mosquitoes: 1.1 million
times down the slide: 100
gulps of Gatorade: 50
cars waiting to pass: 10
songs on the iPod: 40
streetlights lighting up: 11
runners speeding past: 2
girls on a bike: 4
love: 100%

Give a Girl a Bike

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I am lost. It’s official, and something I am never proud to admit. But after thirteen years of driving across the country and visiting the tiny town of Rockford, Tennessee, I was sure I had its intricate map of five streets implanted in my brain. The store, the post office, the mill, the small neighborhood with all the dogs and no fences, the bridge over the Little River (yes, actually the name), the playground, the row of churches, even the small ranch house with a sign out front entitled, “City Hall.”

“Just like Gorham (the tiny town of my formative youth),” I’ve told my family a thousand times. “Nothing to it.”

I already called Bruce once, stopping around mile forty-two out of fifty, and he gave me a general guideline. Quite sure he told me I’d gone too far upon reaching Martin Mill Pike, I give in and turn there, sure it will lead me in the right direction.

It could have been I heard him wrong, but I have another motive that surpasses my initial motive of riding the bike from his sister’s house to his parents’ house. Out of the blue, emerging onto this beautiful, curving back road, I am suddenly surrounded by bicyclists with bibs pinned to their backs: “Rocky Top 100K.” I am trying to determine just how many miles 100K is (oh, us Americans!!), and thrilled at the same time. They are in a race, I tell myself, and I have already ridden fifty miles, the first hour in the dark, and they just started (I can tell—they’re barely sweaty) and I’m keeping right up with them!

So yes, when I see Martin Mill Pike, I can’t help but be guided by their diligent pursuit of a nicely sloped hill. Halfway up, a passel of them are stopped on the side of the road, all men of course, the only women here are tied to their spouses’ sides, helping one guy fix a flat. I take my opportunity.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for Rockford…?”

He speaks without a southern accent, and I can’t say I’m surprised by this, decked out head to toe in brightly colored nylon with click-in shoes and pockets in the back of his shirt, I just don’t think he’d quite fit in down at the cigarette store. “You’re in Rockford. Which part are you looking for?”

Wow. Which part? There are parts of Rockford? “Um… by Four Corners?” The name of the aforementioned one store.

“This road will take you right there. Just keep following it and it ends right at Four Corners.”

OK. So I do. Hop back on, pedal my way up, getting a little anxious (we are meeting someone later, and I promised Bruce this ride wouldn’t take longer than four hours. I’ve already surpassed that mark). I am surrounded by a dense forest, a curving road, beautiful tin-roofed houses tucked into the woods, going up, up, up… and proudly passing one racer after another. When we reach the top, groups of them cluster in gravel driveways to rest, drink. I grin right past and pedal my way down what I realize is more like a mountain (we are in the Smokies, after all) than a hill.

It has been about three or four miles (I’m kicking myself for not paying more attention), and all the bikers are turning. Now I’m truly confused. The guy said this road would take me right there, but I’m still surrounded by forests and fields, nothing but a giant church in sight (you don’t need a town to have a church here). This can’t be right. That Yankee doesn’t know Rockford.

So I follow the bicyclists, mixing in as if I’m in it to win it, but I give up after a while. Another guy stops too, not sure he’s on the right route.

“I think I’ve followed the 100K group. I’m only riding thirty miles today.”

“Do you happen to know where Rockford is?”

“No, but I have a GPS.” Of course, and no southern accent as well, I’ll point out. He pulls it out, types in what I think is their street address (have I mentioned how small Rockford is? When we mail things to our in-laws, we have to send it to a P.O. box. That’s how small it is!!), and sends me in the direction I’ve already been riding in.

Well… a couple of huge hills and miles later, I feel as if I’m going the wrong way. So I finally admit it. I’m lost, I’m going to have to call Bruce, and we’re definitely going to be late. He has to stop from his drive down, pull out his handy dandy iPad, and find me a route.

Turns out, I am about five miles from Rockford, but it is still Rockford. The first guy was right. I pass by Martin Mills Pike on my way to Four Corners, and later, when Bruce, the girls and I drive up the road, I realize how many more miles I would have had to ride to get into the center of town.

So… what have I learned from this day? One, I can ride sixty-five miles (albeit by default, I was trying for fifty), after a quick Google search (what did we ever do without the Internet?), I learn that 100K is equivalent to 62.3…. (yeah!), and Rockford, tiny, Podunk Rockford, is quite a bit larger than I ever thought. Just goes to show that you give a girl a bike, you learn something new every day.

Follow the Pavement Black

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after five and a half years of bodily sacrifice
i have taken a bite out of a different slice
strange it is to follow the pavement black
but this is the only way to get my body back

it’s not the baby belly (though it may seem)
but about my dignity, my self esteem
for them i gave scarred skin, life, milk
and now the road beckons with its silk

i follow it wherever my legs desire
as in high school when i was on fire
it saves me just as much as it did then
reminding me how to be myself again.

Just What I Didn’t Expect

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just when I’m about to turn
on a ride that’s a bit too long
(the sun is mocking me),
I catch a glimpse of a black shadow
in my newly-purchased rearview mirror.

at an easy lope, he follows me like a horse,
black and white fur as thick as
wool on a sheep’s back, tongue
dangling out the side of his mouth
with a wanton lust for liquid.

I pedal faster, but have never seen
a dog keep my 15 mph pace, and
the adrenaline seeps out with my sweat.
But I can’t just ride into the night,
so I slam on the brakes at the crest of a hill.

In a moment, he bounds over the top,
blue eyes as beautiful as the baby’s, he’s
a Husky in Kentucky, poor thing. I call to
him like he’s mine and he obediently
sits beside the bike for a master-pet rub.

I gulp down my Gatorade, make my turn,
and he follows me for a good long mile,
just as a sled dog should, just what I didn’t
expect, reminding me once again that this place
(I should hate) is just what I didn’t expect.

Fit for Life

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ninety degrees, heading into the sun,
hour three of a dogged day’s drive.
my sweat gives in to my need for
some cool caffeine, even if it means
stopping at the food devil’s door.

i stand in line behind their typical customer:
400 pounds, greasy white hair,
pack of Marlboros tucked into its home
in his back pocket, he orders his
super-sized meal and waddles around
while the too-thin cashier rings it up.

i catch a glimpse (all it takes)
of his 4X gray T-shirt that
bubbles over his belly
like an ashy house dress.
“Fit for Life: Jesus Christ’s Gym.”

when i discover the latte machine is broken,
the irony leads me across the street where
i put $2.46 down on the gas station counter
for a canned Starbucks, the Indian brothers
taking my money, their heavy accents reminding me
of home, home, home.

Silent Guidance

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it is not for this view of farms
with old wooden barns
in the early mist of morning
that i rise early and ride
(though it could be)

it is not for the excitement
of a road I’ve never traveled
its twists and turns leading me
into a maze of forests and fields
(though it could be)

it is not for the muscles in
my legs that have tightened
into circular mounds of strength,
carrying me endlessly without pain
(though it could be)

it is for them, three souls lined up
to lead a life that they will choose,
and in my silent guidance they will see
that there are many roads, many paths,
that will lead each of them to happiness.

Center Stage

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or, Kentucky Sun

Spring rains leveled the grass,
lifted up the trees, and blinded our way home.
Without the familiar echo
of thunder to mar the storm,
our pedals splashed the outpouring
of warm water into every pore.

Soaked as rats upon arrival,
we stood four in a row on the porch,
mesmerized by the suddenness
of the water that washed away
the intolerable heat that had
followed us all around town
for hours, days, weeks.

By the time we’d changed clothes,
the sun returned to center stage,
upstaging the clouds’ attempt
to rule this afternoon with the
persistence of a new Hollywood legend,
and once again warm water (sweat?)
poured out from every pore.

The Very End

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Most people question the crazy ideas I come up with. Renting out our house for example, with all our stuff in it, though we’d only be gone for the summer. Taking on a second job, though simple and accommodating, though we might not be too desperate for money. Spending the entire summer living in a one-bathroom, technically-two-bedroom house with eight people, three cats, and two dogs. Just to name a few.

My extraordinary concoction of plans for Father’s Day, as soon as Bruce said he wanted to see Fort Donelson, a national park and Civil War battlefield about sixty miles from Mayfield in Tennessee, would probably lead most people to think I am truly insane. Yes, the high today was 98 degrees, and yes, I was determined to ride my bike those sixty miles, even though it meant waking at four in the morning and leaving, quite literally, at the crack of dawn.

There is no way that one blog post can capture the ride in words that would adequately describe it. Where would I begin? With the picture I took of cornfields as the sun shot up, the dew so dense you could literally see moisture lingering in the air? Of riding through downtown Murray, past the 1800s stone buildings, the magnificent courthouse, then making three short turns and finding myself on a narrow country road that curved through a dense forest, over streams, past an ancient cemetery, and into the bright morning sun that blossomed the cornfields into shades of yellow and green? Of the many turns I had to make as I navigated through the back roads, my only way of knowing I’d crossed into Tennessee being one labeled, “State Line Road?” Of the turn onto a rocky red-dirt road that meandered through a forest thick with shade, a crossing deer, vibrant butterflies, and hills I had to climb with my not-so-adequate road bike? Of the heat that crept in slowly after eight o’clock and by ten had me taking breaks in the shade, shaking with sweat and hunger, thirst, every fifteen minutes (when my original goal was to stop every fifteen miles)? Of the four-lane highway with its wide shoulder at the end of the route, the one I’d tucked in my mind since last week’s camping trip with my favorite road sign of all time: bike route? Of the bridge where the Beatles played in my ear, “All You Need is Love” and my emotions ran so strong I didn’t know if I had tears or sweat in my eyes, or both?

No. It was the end, the very end. My beautiful “bike route” that I had worked so hard to arrive at had hills as high as mountains, each more than a mile long, some more than two. With the temperature rising to near ninety, I didn’t know if I’d make it. I had to stop at mile fifty, mile fifty-five, mile fifty-eight. With just over two miles to go, I drank the last bit of my Gatorade and lay in the (what I thought would be cool) grass under a tree. I wasn’t asleep, or passed out, or dying of heat stroke, but I knew I could if I kept going without taking a decent break. And I just couldn’t figure out how I could tackle one more ginormous hill with the thirst in my throat, my body having seeped out three Gatorades in sweat that soaked through every pore of my skin, down to the bone.

I was staring up at the giant maple above me and the thin wisps of clouds that moved just slightly on this windless day, refusing to cover the sun for even a moment, when I heard a voice that I at first didn’t recognize, I was so delirious.

“You need a ride?”

And there he was, in his Hawaii shirt, pulled over on the side of the road, walking towards me, ready to put the bike on its rack. Oh, how I wanted to say yes, yes, yes! What was another 2.5, I’d made it this far?

“No, I’m almost there, I want to do it, but do you have anything for me to drink?”

Without hesitation, he rushed back to the car, bringing back the ice-cold Gatorade he had ready for me for the end, the very end. Not for one second did he try to coerce me into putting the bike on the rack, to giving in. He could care less if I rode that bike to the end of the world or if I slept in with him on a Sunday morning, on Father’s Day, as long as I am happy.

I stood up, a bit wobbly for a moment, told him I loved him, and sent him on his way. One more huge hill later, after drinking down my Gatorade, I made it to the fort. There he was, parked in the shade, waiting for me, at the very end, the very end of the trail. Just as I know he will be waiting for me, loving me, until the very end of my life.

Most people would say I’m crazy, and they’d be right. But no one understands that craziness better than Bruce, no one loves it like he does, and that is why I love him so much today, on Father’s Day, and every other day.