Month: July 2015

Dear Mabel

Laura WildLeave a comment

On a Tuesday afternoon on March 19, 2012 I held you in my arms for the first time, and I was in love with you. It wasn’t just the way you felt as you rested your head on my shoulder, or the sweet smell of your carefully chosen, organic cherry blossom shampoo; I had been in love with the idea of you for longer than I could remember. You were a puppy, and I was, for the first time in my life, a mommy. That was 3 and a half years ago.

I had chosen the name Mabel for a couple of reasons, primarily because it was vintage and adorable but also because of it’s meaning- lovable. And you were just that, there is no disputing it. Even then, when your sharp teeth were the cause of more than a few scars and your early morning energy bursts had me up at 5:30 every morning. At the time I may have said differently, but deep down I really didn’t mind. I had just turned 16, and winter was over. The loneliness I had felt after the loss of my dog Gigi was easier to bear with your presence, and you made me smile every day.

Through the Summer of 2012 your eyes were green and soft, they twinkled in the early morning sunlight that you often basked in as well as the twilight. Sometimes, in the event that you refused to come inside after a long day of exploring in the grass, even the moonlight could make them gleam. I would chase you around the yard with purpose at first, but as you began to slow down I would too, because I wanted to savor the image of you beneath the stars. There was a twinkle in your eye that was unmistakable, especially when you were playing like that. As you got older it never went away, and I never failed to notice it, the way you would make such sincere eye contact with me when we were together. Thank you for that, baby; it’s one of the things I miss most.

That first year was not without it’s share of accidents and miniature emergencies; your affinity for ceaseless exploration led you into a few dangerous situations. You ate anything in sight. That included tubs of butter and cool whip left too close to the edge of the counter, as well as a plethora of toxic plants in our garden. We ended up getting rid of them when we found out how fond of them you were, but not before we took you to the hospital for a precautionary stomach pumping one summer day. I’m sorry you had to go through that; I just wasn’t about to take any chances. You meant too much to me, to all of us. You were our best friend.

After evening walks around the neighborhood, where you would roll onto your back for any stranger that approached, we would return home exhausted by the hot, setting sun. I loved the way you smiled when you panted, and the way you licked your light brown nose just to keep it cool. The fun really began when me and your other mommy, my mommy, brought you home a pink plastic pool from Walmart. You would lay in it as we filled it up, and then splash in and out of it in a fury of excitement, never failing to jump on us and leave muddy paw prints on our clothes. We didn’t care; no, we cherished it. You were a water dog after all, with webbed feet and red fur that curled when it was wet, and you made sure everybody knew it.

You were meant to go swimming in lakes and streams, you were meant to go on trail runs and camping trips. I’m sorry we never made it that far; every time I see a calm, empty pond or stream I picture you in it, rolling around and swimming out just deep enough to reach a stick that I might have thrown. We tried it; we got you a life jacket and everything, but I guess we didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t trust you to come back to me when I called, so I didn’t want to give you the freedom of being off leash. I guess we’ll never know how well you might have done.

Puppy school was not your forte, but you were a star student in the personality department, and nothing short of the class clown. There was not a mean bone in your body. Not unlike other border collie mixes, you could not contain your excitement when new people came to the house, and it was always a hassle to keep you from jumping up on them. A hassle, however, that I was proud to partake in, because you were just like me. You were wild, Mabel, and even though you had to be kept on a leash, I’d like to think you felt free.

You acted that way anyway, as you began to grow into a teenager. You transitioned from your puppy collar to your sunflower collar, the one that matched my tattoo so that we could be twins. And so began your adolescent year- the one filled with ripped up couch cushions and tipped over laundry baskets, in which you would hide your rawhide bones when you thought nobody was looking.

By that time your eyes were a rich gold, with a bright outer ring that I can’t even describe. The patch of white fur on your chest was now only a handful of out of place hairs hidden inside your shiny amber coat. Your tail was fluffy and so were your soft, velvety ears. You were breath taking, I hope you knew it, too. When you would roll on the floor in an expectant upturned pose, I was given no choice but to give in to your cuteness and give you a belly rub. That’s when I would whisper in your ear, as if it was some sort of secret, just how truly beautiful you were. God, you must have heard me.

In the winter you became a snow dog, and you would perch on the back porch in a snow drift throne, watching the forest and letting the snowflakes fall into your vibrant hair. Your walks were shorter then, but you seemed to make the most of them. I wish I had walked you further, sweet girl, and I wish I had joined you out there in the snow. You seemed to know something I didn’t, you seemed to see something out there in the woods that nobody else could see. This year when it snows I will be out there, I promise, and I will be looking into the forest like you did, and I’m sure I’ll see you. It wouldn’t be a surprise; these days, everywhere I look I can picture your big, furry body, healthy and alive.

Sometimes at night I would hear your nose against my door, just checking to see if you could push it open. When you couldn’t, you would sneak around the side of the house and stick your nose out of your doggy door, letting all of the cool air inside without a care in the world. I know, because I would spy on you out of my bedroom window, when I was sure you were going outside to wake the whole neighborhood up with your barking or chase off an evil squirrel. It was a relief to see you like that, so peaceful and calm, with the heat of the house keeping your body warm but the aroma of the outdoors keeping your nose occupied. Or maybe it was your body that was keeping the house warm but either way, you had it all figured out, didn’t you?

I would rarely let you inside my room but when I did, you made yourself right at home. You didn’t like to sleep on a bed though; you preferred the cold tile floor in front of the fire place, where you were close enough to the big front window to catch the sunrise every morning. It rose for you, baby girl, and it still does, every day. But you don’t rise for us anymore. You went to sleep, and you never woke up.

The highlight of this last year was the contemplative walks we took almost every evening. You would spot me as I rounded the corner down the street at the end of a run, and be waiting for me expectantly when I came home exhausted and out of breath. For the first few blocks you would pull me along, as I tried to catch my breath with every step. Eventually our walks turned into a way for us to escape together, and you would be lost in the smells of the world in the same way that I would get lost in the music on my iPod. We were in the zone, you and me, but we were never alone. Every so often you would look back at me with those heavenly eyes, and I would smile. We were a team Mabel, and we owned that neighborhood. I miss you.

When I went away on my bike trip I was bragging you up a storm, and missing you more than I ever thought I would. Coming home to you was one of the only things that kept me from getting pulled into that post-trip let down that I had been warned about. With you I had something to look forward to every day.

I’m so sorry you never got to come home again after we took you to the hospital on May 7th, but we were all so sure that the veterinarians would be able to make you better. I’m sorry it took me so long to notice how sick you were, and I’m sorry I didn’t spend the night with you when you were too dehydrated to come home. I’m sorry for whatever made you sick, whether it was weed killers or kidney disease or something else that you got into. And I’m sorry we couldn’t save you Mabel, I’m sorry there wasn’t more we could do. I would give anything to hold onto you for 10 seconds more, but on the evening of May 9th I was more desperate to end your suffering than I was to have you with me. Thank you for holding on long enough for me to be there when it happened.

The house is so different without you in it. Summer has come, and the garden is blooming, and the seeds we sprinkled on your grave have already taken root. The forest rarely stirs, but when it does the wildlife always seems to walk solemnly by your grave. Sometimes I hear the neighborhood dogs howling and I wonder if they know. Because your presence was so easily felt it is hard not to fixate on your absence, too.

We all still look for you sometimes, because eternity seems too far away to hold you again. Most of the time we just let ourselves be numb to the reality of life without you. Pinecone doesn’t try to hide his bones anymore, because he has nobody to hide them from. He sleeps in your spot now, and I think we all feel grateful that we still have one more furry body to fill it. Your collar is inside a plastic baggie on a shelf, where I’m trying to preserve the scent of you that still clings to it. It’s been two months. Not much has changed.

I’m in Banff right now and it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We are surrounded by mountains and crystal clear water, bluer than the sky. Every time the sweet mountain air blows through my hair I smile, but there is part of me that hurts because I wish it could ruffle your hair, too. I wish you could feel this sun on your face, or the cool glacial water on your paws. I’m doing all of that for you, but it’s not the same. Even as I am surrounded by 360 degrees of magnificence I can’t picture anything more beautiful than the image of your perfect eyes. Nothing feels warmer to me than the thought of you, and there is nothing sweeter than the memory of your unconditional love.

I picked a flower for you and put it on a tower of rocks in the middle of a stream. The light caught it, and as we walked away it was still sitting in the sun. Maybe it blew away and was carried down the river, and that would be okay. All that matters is that we remember you, and we’re never going to forget you. We’re never going to stop loving you.

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I think this counts as an awakening.

Laura WildLeave a comment

Our 21st night in Texas, that’s what I want to write about. The state was huge, needless to say, and I had been anticipating it since the day I decided to do the Southern Tier. Sometimes the prospect of riding across the whole thing seemed more daunting than the rest of the country. The first half of it was in the desert, until we reached a peak in elevation just before Austin, and then leveled out into what would eventually become the lowlands of Louisiana. Most of it was the same story I have told over and over again… about the familiar toll of my 6 o’clock alarm, the gentle mornings, the harsh afternoons, and the yellow evenings that ended in a display of fiery brilliance that never failed to cast my shadow on the ground before me. I changed a lot of tires, screamed at a lot of large insects, applied a lot of aloe vera lotion to my burnt skin and ate a lot of Mexican food.

Riding my bike was starting to feel really familiar, and even comfortable, despite the fact that I was almost always fatigued. I couldn’t describe those iconic days accurately in a million words, but I’m going to try to express what it felt like when the hot Texas sun went down, and was replaced by stars that shined brighter than anywhere else. They had no city lights to compete with.

On the 21st night, the last night, we tried to wrap our minds around the scope of the state that we had overcome, but it was impossible. Our heads weren’t in Texas anymore; we had given up on our daily plight to be present a long time ago. We’d been day-dreaming for the better part of a month, wishing ourselves away from that place even in the easy spots, even in the cool mornings and mild, shady afternoons of the hill country.

We couldn’t help ourselves; it’s what we had to do to not be driven insane by the constant vibration of our thin tires against the chip-seal pavement. It’s what we had to do to keep from being hypnotized by the eternal buzzing of an earth that was never silent, or lulled to sleep by a night sky bigger than our eyes even allowed us to adequately ponder. The same sky that turned to darkness two hours earlier than we were prepared for. I suppose I was physically still in Texas in mid-October, but in many ways I felt like I had really been home all along. All I had to do was close my eyes, and there I was. And there we all were.

I guess I was always looking upwards then, if not for the unconscious boost of optimism brought on by literally holding my chin up, it was because I just couldn’t look away. I guess that’s what you do on a quest for enlightenment. You tilt your head back, and you breathe a deep breath, and you stop trying to hold on to the moment you’re in and you let yourself get lost in your own fantasies.

Because it was fall, I was usually thinking about my auburn-haired mother. This was our favorite season, and I could picture her in the red and orange canyons of the Black Hills where the leaves were the most brilliant, the same leaves that would be long dead before I returned to them. She’d be taking their pictures while they posed, taking advantage of the soft Autumn weather that we were both so addicted to. I wanted to be there, I wanted to be in that moment almost more than the one I was in. I had the whole world to look at, every last star in the entire galaxy was twinkling above me and I would have traded it all for one breath of those tart fermented leaves.

What’s funny is how I tried to escape it all. As if I wouldn’t dream of it day in and day out; as if I wouldn’t miss the same people that I blamed for stunting my wanderlust. But they still had ahold of me; the whole city still had me in its grasp. I knew that someday I would think of that moment in the first year of my adult life, on my first great adventure, when I had conquered the magnificent state of Texas and yet somehow still felt conquered by the less-magnificent state of South Dakota. Maybe when I looked back on it I would think I was wise for my age, or maybe I would think I was clueless. At this point I’m leaning toward the latter, though it was easy to find any philosophy profound when it was envisioned in the wee hours of the night.

What matters is that I was wide awake when the sun came out again in the morning, and I saw a dawn that burnt away every lesser source of light in the sky and every last drop of dew on the ground. It was easier to concentrate during the day; the light brought an added sense of clarity, and the feeling of desperation I had to make sense of the universe disappeared with the rising sun. The few bouts of understanding that I experienced on my trip were intense, but short lived. They came to me swiftly in a moment of contemplative awareness and faded away as soon as I was able to find my blissful ignorance. The answer to the unknown was actually quite simple for me; though it was beyond breathtaking, I didn’t belong in Texas. The word ‘enlightenment’ was starting to seem less and less significant to me, and I was beginning to get a whole new appreciation for the word ‘home.’ I was starting to like the idea of it more, too.

Being hungry in New Mexico.

Laura Wild4 Comments

This was the part of my trip that I thought I would be in the best shape my life. I was not yet to the point in my journey that I was eating at Waffle House multiple times a day but I was still packing away a fair amount of calories in New Mexico, consisting mostly of peanut butter, tortillas, plantain chips, and anything else I could buy at Walmart. I was eating almost constantly and even when I wasn’t I was still thinking about food. I didn’t even care what kind of food- anything and everything was good enough for me.

I guess I always assumed that riding my bike 3,000 miles would be enough to cancel out all of the carbo-loading and binge eating but alas, I was sadly mistaken. Any attempt at dieting that I made on my journey was short lived; I didn’t have the energy to practice much self control. At the time this was a real disappointment for me; riding my bike across the country had seemed like such a crazy thing to me before I left, and I guess I always thought that embarking on it would not only leave me enlightened but also slimmer and more attractive. Yet by the time I reached Texas I still looked the same, I felt the same, and as we inched our way eastward I began to realize that I was going to return to my home essentially as I had left it; restless and ambitious, but ultimately average.

Now, as I look back on the whole thing, that is one of my favorite aspects of the experience; the fact that I did it all while still remaining as mediocre as ever, especially as far as cycling was concerned. I loved discovering that going off on these types of adventures was not reserved for the elite, I think knowing that has left me more enlightened than the act of cycling itself. I was in the gray area of being both an athlete and a couch potato and that felt weirdly freeing to me, despite the fact that it wasn’t what I had envisioned for myself.

At least I was not alone in my desperation. The four days that we were in New Mexico were disturbing not only in the way that they left me ravenously hungry (which was understandable; they were all almost 70 miles) but also because we were plagued by the presence of bird-sized locusts that had, by the grace of god, been given the ability to fly. When they weren’t hovering in the air too close for comfort they were crouched over their dead siblings on the pavement, feasting on their brothers without an ounce of guilt for the moral crime that they were committing. Cannibalism was a way of life for them, and in that state, I didn’t feel inclined to judge them for it. The only difference between us was that I was a vegetarian.

The constancy of my food cravings was similar to the constancy of my thoughts of home, my loneliness, and the tiredness of my body. This kind of rhythmic thinking was hypnotic. As to be expected, days were beginning to bleed into each other. When paired with the hours spent shuffling all of the songs on my iPhone, time began to pass in a blur and before I knew it I was through one state and into the next. The circular motion of the day was broken up by the same, predictable incident; I would be pedaling along on a gust of breeze from the west when suddenly my position in the atmosphere would drop two inches lower, and my rear tire would begin making an awful hissing sound. This happened every day, even up to two or three times. The warped rim of my bike was making holes in my inner tube, and the broken spokes that were held together with zip ties were causing enough friction on my tire that it was wearing thin. Just like my patience, and what little spunk I had left from the first week of my trip. I was starting to get worn out and I knew that it was too early for that to happen.

So I let myself be hungry, in every sense of the word. I let myself daydream about green chile Rellenos in family owned restaurants and nachos with queso blanco. But I also dreamed about the idea of a new, shiny bike, and craved the thought of being able to go one whole day without having to change my tire. I fantasized about Texas, and Louisiana, and the ocean. I thought about what I would do when I got home, and what kind of adventures I could plan next. New Mexico taught me one of the most valuable lessons I have learned, and I have stayed true to it ever since; being hungry can be a good thing.

The art of crying in the desert.

Laura WildLeave a comment

The sunrise the next morning was beautiful. There was enough shallow cloud cover that the sky was cool and pink; a color that would turn to a muted yellow as the day went on. In the desert the sun didn’t have to be beating down on you for the air to be hot and dry; I learned this lesson early, only to have it confirmed on a daily basis when I was going through the Texas hill country. In eastern Arizona, however, this was a new kind of atmosphere.

In my mind rural America has always been that color; the color of the watered down iced tea that the dried out people drank on their yellow doorsteps. The watchers; the ones with the cats with yellow eyes that had a way of following you long after you were out of sight. The people with the yellow fences, and the yellow trucks, and in some cases, the yellow teeth. Their grass, their water, the windows of their houses- they were all yellow. Maybe it was the hazy sky that had this affect on them, or maybe it was the heat. Either way, Tuesday, September 22nd was coated in a fog of deep-southern heaviness that stuck with me for many reasons. It was a momentous day.

I saw my first dead dog that day, an image that has stayed with me as vividly as the day it happened. She was a gray pit bull, and when I came upon her she looked like she was sleeping, or had been alive only moments ago. Maybe the car that hit her had been one that had passed me earlier, and seeing her so carelessly laid to rest made me wonder why it hadn’t been me. Was it just chance, or was it because I was easier to see? Either way, the feelings she evoked were not really anger or frustration, or even fear; it was just regular old heartbreak. She didn’t even have a collar. Not only did I have the overwhelming urge to cry but I felt an overwhelming obligation to it too; this animal deserved to be mourned, and regardless of if anybody else was going to do it, I was.

Crying in the desert was an experience unlike any other, and at this point in my trip I was not yet accustomed to it. It was almost paranormal, the way it snuck up on you and held you down for as long as it wanted, and then disappeared quietly as if it had never happened. There was something about letting myself cry that felt so dangerous, maybe because I felt unusually close to falling apart all the time. I was almost always able to avoid it by being optimistic, which is why it was so rare, but today was one of those exceptions.

It was easy to get caught off guard by certain moments, even the seemingly ordinary ones, because when they mixed with the loneliness of the desert they had a way of becoming extraordinary and momentous. The act of passing by a dog like the ones I was missing so much at home, and realizing that it wasn’t even really a dog anymore but just a body, was a significant moment for me in that way. Sometimes, however, moments became momentous for more obvious reasons; simply because they were traumatic. I experienced another one of those moments several miles up the road.

As I crested the top of a hill I saw a couple of cars pulled off to the side of the road, and beside them, one of my friends, who was laying unconscious on the pavement. She had presumably hit the rumble strip and had detached herself from her bike, which was laying damaged in the dirt. She, too, had been damaged by the accident, and didn’t come to for a solid five minutes. I called the police as one of the other cyclists helped her the best he could, because he was an EMT. She woke up before the ambulance even got there, and she had no idea what had happened. Nobody had seen it. All I knew was that I had been going about 30 miles an hour as I came down the hill, and she could have been going even faster when she crashed.

The way she thanked us all so profusely when she was awake, and the way she climbed onto the stretcher all by herself was an incredible display of strength. She was taken in an ambulance and then airlifted all the way back to Phoenix, where they determined that she had severe traumatic brain injury, five broken ribs, a punctured lung, and numerous other injuries. She didn’t return for the rest of the trip, and wasn’t able to ride her bike again until months later. It was undoubtedly the most unexpected event of the entire trip.

She was such a fast rider, and she had so much more experience than me. Her abrupt absence was so unusual and unexplainable that the Southern Tier bike route itself began to take on a much more hostile demeanor. Nobody knew what to expect, and the rest of the trip was simply different from that point on. We were without one of our strongest riders for one thing, and without the same relaxed view of our safety that we had had before.The day that began with a soft pink glow ended in a cloud of yellow dust, as we finished the rest of an 80 mile day that felt too long not only in distance but in magnitude. After the accident it became evident that I was more than capable of doing the same thing, especially since I was so inexperienced. I was not indestructible; in fact, from that point on I began to feel vulnerable.

The article I should have posted a week ago.

Laura Wild1 Comment

The fear of being labeled, judged, misunderstood or receiving any kind of unwanted attention has kept me quiet for a really, really long time. But I’m a big girl now, and it seems like the rest of the country is moving on without me, and I don’t want to be left behind. So I’m going to digress from the chronological account of my bike trip just to say a little something about what happened a week ago today… when marriage became an all-inclusive word and everyone I knew was really happy about it. None of my friends went off on a rampage of hate, in fact nobody really said anything to me at all.

I first saw the news while scrolling through Facebook last Friday, and my initial reaction was just short of an eye roll. I was one of those people who was kind of bitter about the whole thing, to the point that no date would be soon enough for the country to abide by it’s own law of the separation of church and state. It took a while to sink in, but soon enough it hit me that history was happening around me and I could almost feel a collective sigh of relief coming from all the people I knew that it affected. Including my girlfriend, and I didn’t know how to express how happy I was that I felt like we were whole humans all of a sudden. I felt like we were finally on the road to being normal.

I had never posted about her before, even though we’ve been together for over a year, so I didn’t really know what to do apart from changing my profile picture. That felt so lame to me, so I changed it back after only a couple of days. I didn’t celebrate at all, I just kind of told myself to stay true to my relationship philosophy- that my private life is nobody else’s business, and being in love with another woman only concerned me and her. Only now can I finally admit that this philosophy was rooted in bitterness as well- opposite sex couples didn’t have to come out so why should we? That was a selfish thing to tell myself, because it meant that for a long time I was asking my girlfriend to stay quiet for me, which wasn’t fair. Thank you Jenny for being so patient with me, if we ever did have to stay quiet, we certainly don’t any more.

I was so weird about my sexuality for such a long time, let me tell you. At first I was obsessed with asserting the fact that I was indeed still attracted to boys too, that I just didn’t want to limit myself, and that I thought everybody was innately bisexual and it was society’s fault that we conformed to binary gender roles. I didn’t really know what I was talking about. Even at the time of my bike trip I was still calling Jenny my friend, which I am completely ashamed of. One of the few people I did tell was my friend Ariela, who is the next person I want to thank and the person who told me that people fall in love with souls, not bodies. Thank you for listening to me when most of what I was telling people was outright lies and and thank you for helping me get my shit together.

I also can’t thank my best friend Ellie enough, for still bearing with me even after all of this self-created drama. And I want to thank my family for being cool about everything and everyone else who has put up with me. This post is a long time coming, I know. Besides the fact that I was raised christian and live in a conservative state I don’t have any real excuses for hiding my relationship, I guess I was just too afraid of what people would think of me. Thank you, Lena Dunham, for writing a book that inspired me to be honest about my own human nature. Thank you, Hozier, for writing music that perfectly captures just how tragic daily oppression can be. And thank you America, for, as Jenny would put it, coming over to the correct side of history. I think I would like to join you.

It’s so hard to fully grasp the idea that someday I could be telling my children about this, and I can only hope that it will seem unfathomable to them that marriage was once an exclusive right. For now, though, I’m pretty happy with the way things have turned out. I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a fourth of July unlike any other.

The act of moving on.

Laura WildLeave a comment

The day I met the Bike the US for MS cyclists was one of my favorite days of the whole trip. They were the most refreshing group of people- some of them were significantly older than I was, and some were my same age. Most of them had more experience than me, but there were a few who didn’t, and that was a big relief to me. To be honest, the fact that I was no longer the only female in my group was one of the biggest selling points. After one day of cycling with them I accepted my new change of plans without a second thought about what I was leaving behind, which was uncharacteristically easy for me to do.

We rode out of Tempe bright and early; the sun was coming up over the cactus-capped mountains, and everybody was feeling optimistic. Those were always the best days; when we were all collectively naïve as to what was in store, and we were able to not only convince ourselves, but each other that it was going to be an easy day. Needless to say those days were never easy; they always turned out to be mega hot vertical inclines with no shoulders and ample big-rig traffic, paired nicely with minimal passing zones and no places to pee. What made them great was how hilariously ironic it was. Also how pissed off everybody was about it, including myself.

Luckily it was easy to find humor in these situations; the false summits and angry truck drivers who didn’t want to share the road; because it was hard not to be happy when I was with such an incredible group of people. Cycling van-supported was just so much better than the first week of my trip. Though I still found ways to completely stress myself out, at least I never had to worry about food, water, and bike repairs. For a little while, anyway.

Unfortunately, one of the things that has always stunted my ability to go with the flow is my restlessness; I have always felt constantly pinched for time in every aspect of my life. This might explain why I felt like I needed to ride my bike across the country as soon as I was old enough to do it without my parent’s permission; it always seems more practical to jump the gun than to wait. This didn’t change on my bike trip; I often felt more anxious when I wasn’t on my bike than when I was on it, I suppose because I was continually anticipating the act of moving on. Because of this I never really let myself look back- if I had no time for rest then I hardly had time for eating, and that was undoubtedly my priority 99% of the time. Even to this day it is sometimes exhausting to reflect on what I left behind in such a rush, maybe that kind of eagerness to escape is rooted in fear also. If nothing else, the fear of never having any of those experiences again seems justified.

Moving on was not only difficult emotionally, but in the literal sense as well. A common occurrence in those early days with the new cyclists was facing the challenge of whether to navigate on my own or try to keep up with the rest of the group. I was usually pretty confident that I was capable of finding my own way, but it was more than just a hassle, it sometimes meant the difference between having a helping hand to change a flat tire with, or being completely on my own. The difference between having to outrun a whole pack of watch dogs, or just having to outrun my fellow cyclists. The difference between being able to zone out and stare at the rear tire of the bike in front of me, or actually having to pay attention to keep from going off the road. There were pros and cons to both, especially since trying to match somebody else’s pace could be exhausting regardless of if they were faster than me or slower. It was kind of like choosing the lesser of two evils.

For everybody else, moving on didn’t seem to be so much of an issue in the sense that they didn’t have to mentally prepare for it. Everything would be moving at such a slow, manageable pace until suddenly it seemed that everyone would run out of patience at once. I guess by the end of the trip I started to get this way too; just another way we cyclists can be overachievers. But the difficult part was the fact that this sudden urge to get up and get moving was just that- sudden.

When the time to be leisurely abruptly ended the act of cycling could kind of become a race, and that was something that stressed me out to no end. Some balance in the world would be ever so slightly off and before we knew what hit us even the slow riders would be pushing to maintain 20 miles per hour, into the wind or with it, it didn’t matter. I would be one of them, drafting as much as I could and struggling to shake off the early morning fatigue as fast as I could.

I never regretted it once I forced myself to get going; in the desert it made a lot of sense to get on the road as early as possible, because the mornings were always so much cooler than the evenings. There was also a lot less traffic, which always seemed to brighten everyone’s mood. I think my favorite thing about those early morning rides was how satisfying it was to break the stillness. When the world was at its quietest, it’s gentlest; we were at our most lively. We were on a mission to breathe in the coolest, freshest air of the day while there was a never ending supply of it. While the earth was still catching up to us, we were already prepared for the day. That was the best part about the mornings; the fact that they were so unblemished, and so promising.

The dawn can be like that a lot; almost everything I do starts off really well, which might explain why my intuition doesn’t tell me to give things a second thought. Luckily the rest of my trip was generally incredible, so that first day was a good example of what I could expect for the next 2,500 miles. There were still some tough times though, of course there were, and the next day was one of them. We were moving along just fine, and then everything changed when one of us got hurt.