There’s Still Some Good in the World
The day dawns calm and clear and my first 30 kilometres today are on quiet, flat(ish) roads, along the ocean. When I have to get on the highway again, it seems to be less busy than before and the hills too, are smaller. It’s a wonderful day!
I put in about 100 kilometres and camp near the pristine North Branch River. It’s not a perfect site, as I’m right beside the highway, but an evening bath trumps all drawbacks. Now comes my favourite time of day; the ride is over, I’m cleaned up and the tent is set up. I climb in and I’m in my little cocoon out of the sun, wind, and rain, away from blackflies and mosquitoes; safe and at ease. I lie down on my mattress, my clothes bag as my pillow, and pull out my food and, if I have one, a book. I eat whatever I happened to have found at the last store: cold canned beans, sausage, popcorn, granola bars, maybe an apple. Supper generally lasts all evening. I might have three hours to lie there til it gets dark. At some point, sometimes as early as 8 o’clock, I might just close my eyes to rest a bit and open them to find it is deep into the night.
I love my tent. All the lines are smooth and graceful and though the tent is not large, the space inside is expansive. Lying there looking up is like looking up at the heavens. The heavens though, with their billions of stars, are too great for me, I can’t take it all in. My tent, though, is manageable, a small, human-sized heavens. A tent allows a connection to nature that we don’t get in a motel room or a house. If it’s cold or raining, in a tent you will know it and you will respect the power found there. Sleep in a house and you lose that connection. Lose that connection to nature and you begin to fear it. We of the modern world try our best to keep it away from us, cutting down the wild and planting carefully manicured gardens to keep it at bay. We forget that we are part of nature; we consider ourselves as something separate. That’s to our loss only, nature doesn’t care; to her we’ll be here but for a millisecond.
As I love my tent, so I love my bike. It connects me to the world in a way a car cannot. When there is a hill, I know it; whether it is raining, or sunny, or cold, I know it. Alas, I think that my old horse of a bike is getting tired and worn out. Like me, it suffers from a creaky back and stiff muscles; the gears grind and the brakes stick. I’d like to replace it with a brand new shiny young colt of a bike, with a sleek frame and smooth shifting gears. But how do you put an old horse to pasture?** There’s more to it than wheels, gears, and brakes; we have a history together. I’m not saying it has a spirit or anything, but maybe it does! Maybe the rocks and trees do too; maybe stones breathe, and tomatoes scream when you cut into them. We don’t know. When I lived in Nepal I saw my Hindu neighbours celebrating a certain puja in which they worshiped the tools that help them make their living: the farmer his plough, the website designer his computer, the driver his truck. To them even man-made things had a spirit. Who’s to say they’re wrong and we’re right?
** Soon will come the time to put myself out to pasture, too.
Today's ride: 100 km (62 miles)
Total: 1,131 km (702 miles)
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This is the first time I have written a journal, and posted it no less. It's been fun. Awaiting something from you!
5 months ago