Mood:  mischievious

I know that the best way for me to stay in touch with myself is through writing and when I began my stay-at-home meditation retreat this summer, I hoped to write a minimum of fifteen minutes a day every day just to get a writing practice established.  On the days I have written, I've written for much longer than fifteen minutes.  However, there have been many days that have gone by that have not seen me pick up a pen for any creative purpose.  For the past several days I've tried to be more diligent and get even a few words on paper just to feel as though I've tried.

When I sat down to write today, I met with resistance--much as I did last Wednesday when I refused to write in sentences--and so wrote about resistance until I got really, really bored.  Then I watched as my hand lifted off the right hand page of my notebook, crossed to the left hand page of my notebook, and wrote (on the back of the aggressive letter I'm attempting to write to a former boss) a one-sentence paragraph:

Guys are jerks.

And, finally, I THINK, so begins my novel.  The novel I've been thinking about writing and attempting to start writing for several years now.  The novel whose title Chad loves.  The novel that lets me fictionally deal with various people from my past.  But, here's the interesting part: it gets me writing fiction again - yay! this is a good thing (unless you don't like my fiction) - but it also helps me deal with my inability to use aggressive language and face the less than perfect parts of myself.  Because this novel is going to revel in all the imperfect parts of myself and this novel is going to use aggressive language at every possible moment.  In this novel, I am going to say all the mean, funny, witty, bitchy things I've always wanted to say but couldn't (or simply didn't think of them quick enough!) and I'm going to expose all the very human, less-than-ideal thoughts and emotions that go through my head and heart and usually get censored and stored somewhere on my body in fat cells.  This novel might be my way of writing myself back to a healthy weight--yes, the main character is going to be fat--simply by acting as a receptacle and viewing platform for everything ugly in me that I try so hard to fight against.  Tying the novel together with the aggressive writing and channeling my inner bitch also satisfies the directive Danielle gave me on Friday regarding a writing experiment she wanted me to engage in.  She said she saw the experiment culminating in a play (even though it would be a book first) which is part of what pushed me in the direction of the novel because when one of the characters who was already planned to be a part of the novel (in every previous conceptualization) was breaking up with me in real life, I had the very real experience of going out of my body and watching the two of us argue as though we were characters on a stage.  I even interrupted the argument to comment on how absurd it was and to say that one day it would be performed on stage.  So, sweet man who is once again my friend but who broke up with me in one of the stupidest ways ever, sorry, but I think there's a train coming your way.  And I think it's really on track this time.  I think this go-round it's going to get all the way to where you are.  Luckily, I know you're strong enough to meet it and, hopefully, you'll laugh  and still love me  after it barrels through your life and on into the next jerk's....

Posted by Kristine at 3:13 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 3:53 PM EDT

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Mood:  energetic

Day Two of the GTE Big Ride Across America, June 16, 1998, was one of my favorite days of the whole summer.  It's the day I unloaded a whole lotta' baggage, felt and heard the strength of my inner voice, accepted that I was part of a community that was quickly becoming my new family, and my journey truly began.

I hope you'll forgive me the indulgence of this very long post, comprised of two chapters from Your Mileage May Vary.

The backstory: On the morning of Day Two, by the time I got packed up, hauled my giant duffel to my assigned Ryder truck, had breakfast, and found my way to bike parking, the organizers were running out of maps.  I agreed to share a map with another woman from New England, and we set off down the road together....

The Art of Being Antisocial

Unlike Robert Fulghum, perhaps I did not learn everything I needed to in kindergarten.  My new companion and I hadn't been riding long before I greatly regretted having agreed to share a map.  I was used to riding alone.  I liked riding alone.  Riding with this stranger was too much responsibility--responsibility to keep up or to set a good pace if I was leading, responsibility to make small talk, responsibility to be a kind and social person when all I really wanted was to go deep inside the muscles of my own body and appreciate the joy of being on a bike in glorious morning sunshine in a part of the country I'd never seen before. I wanted to recover from the emotional and physical ordeals of yesterday.  I wanted to experience the exhilaration of which my fear had deprived me during the ride-out ceremony.  I wanted to be selfish.

We entered eastbound I-90 again for less than three miles, then veered off onto a rural side street with a landscape of which I desperately wanted to be a part.  We were riding on relatively flat ground within sight of the Cascade Mountains that we had crossed yesterday.  Pregnant, though not particularly ominous, clouds formed long billows along the western horizon, but the sun was blasting through a beautiful robin's egg blue overhead.  The sight of a new, two-story farmhouse with a covered, wraparound verandah and separate barn-style garage set amidst a field of billowing green grass and yellow wildflowers caused me to lay on the brakes.  The house, white with a green roof, had an excellent view of the mountains from the front and was shielded by a line of mature pines from behind.   It was the perfect place for kids and dogs.  An unpainted fence looked ready for a horse or two, though none appeared, and the array and number of vehicles in the long, dusty drive, along with an unobtrusive Port-A-Potty out back, led me to believe that carpenters might still be at work on the house.  I dismounted at the side of the road, no doubt confounding my ride partner who was more interested in making time than I was, and dragged my camera from my handlebar bag to snap a few shots.

I have never considered myself a farm girl, though I grew up surrounded by farm country in western Michigan, and though I looked the part with long, straight brown hair just waiting to be braided; rosy, chipmunk cheeks; and long muscles buried under a year-round layer of "winter hibernation" fat.  But something about this place said home.  It said roots.  It said family.  I had just begun my journey, and I was by no means ready to call it quits, but maybe this was what I wanted to return to once my journey was over.

It was, of course, an unrealistic dream.  Hans and I were in college debt so deep we may as well have had a mortgage, and were living rent-free in a two-bedroom apartment as on-site property managers for a small apartment complex in Edmonds, Washington.  Neither of us was using our college or graduate degrees.  Hans had a second job as a customer service representative for Eddie Bauer, and I as an administrative assistant to a market research firm up until just eleven days prior to the Ride.  We were driving a seventeen-year-old two-door Toyota Tercel that cost less than the bike I was riding and though we both had savings accounts, mine rarely carried a balance greater than twenty dollars.  Not to mention the fact that horses and dogs made me sneeze and wheeze, and we had come to no conclusion on whether we wanted children.

None of this mattered at the time.  It just so happened that I was on a miracle of a journey, one that I, and everyone who knew and loved me, at one point or other doubted I would be a part of.  Hans, my then fiancé, had seen the full-page advertisement for the GTE Big Ride Across America to benefit the American Lung Association in the newspaper the previous August.  He was excited when he showed it to me and suggested it was something we should consider doing. Neither of us had ever done any bicycle touring, but the ad emphasized it would be a ride for all experience levels.  I quickly called to have the registration packet sent, dreaming about the two of us cycling long afternoons together under sunny skies.  Before the materials even arrived in the mail, I was telling my parents and sister that I was going to ride a bicycle from Seattle to Washington, D. C. the next summer.

They knew the shape I was in.  At 28 years old and 5'4", I weighed 211 pounds and had asthma that two inhalers used several times daily could not keep under control.  I wheezed walking up Seattle's hills and was winded after two flights of stairs.  I didn't own a bike that could make the trip or any of the gear, and I had never spent more than two hours on a bike on any given day.  Not to mention, there was a fundraising minimum of $6,000 to be met prior to ride-out.

Despite these obstacles, I had latched on to a dream.  I called one of the ride representatives to have some of our questions answered and tried to wait for Hans to catch up and make the commitment to register, but soon realized that he and I differed in one important way.  At least in this instance, I was willing to jump in first and handle problems as they arose.  Hans, who had the same financial concerns I did as well as a long list of food allergies to accommodate, wanted a plan and reasonable assurances that he would be able to overcome all of the obstacles that stood in his way.  In the end, I registered for the ride alone, and Hans, having decided that we could only afford for one of us to go, committed to helping me achieve my goals.  He paid my living expenses for the nine months leading up to the ride so that my income could go toward paying down my education debt and buying gear, and so that I could afford to work only part-time while I trained and fundraised.

My sister and Hans bought me a hand-built Rodriguez Stellar bicycle, and my parents supplied a helmet, CamelBak hydration system, first aid kit, and the first of my cycling clothes.

For the next nine months as I told people of my plan, I was often forced to answer the question, "Why would you want to do that?"  Apparently my answer, that the Big Ride was my opportunity to help others protect and improve their health while improving my own, was satisfactory. Pledges appeared in my mailbox from family and friends. I learned with much trepidation to ride a bike with clipless pedals and to sit for long periods of time on a saddle.  I overcame a knee injury from over-training and an improper initial fitting of my bike.  I lost fifteen pounds, mailed information about the ride and pledge requests to everyone I knew or had ever known--including old boyfriends with whom I no longer spoke--and wore a button everywhere that said, "Ask Me About the GTE Big Ride Across America," which hardly anyone did.

Still, eleven days before the Ride was scheduled to begin, I was nearly $4,000 short of raising the pledge money I needed.  The fundraisers I had planned, including a three-day stationary cycling marathon at a local movie theater and a promotion with the local Burger King, had failed miserably, and I had no more acquaintances to hit up for money.

I am, however, both stubborn and spoiled.  

I do not let go of dreams easily.  When I arrived at my part-time job on the morning of Wednesday, June 3 and reported to my supervisor that the previous night's fundraiser had yielded only $100, she rather logically expected me to say that I was not going to be leaving for the summer, after all.  Instead, I quit.

I logged on to the Big Ride's Internet message board and posted that I wouldn't be checking in again as I had quit my job to fundraise full-time over the next eleven days, and I didn't have Internet access at home.  I had decided that I needed forty people to sponsor me for $100 each, and I was going to go out and find forty people to do just that.

Before the day was out, I received an email message from Rusty Burwell saying that he wanted to be the first of my forty new donors!  I was overwhelmed--here was the Associate Director of Development for the American Lung Association offering to help me meet my fundraising minimum with money from his own pocket.  I also received emails promising support from Tracy and several other riders whom I knew only from their posts to the Big Ride website.  It was an emotional day, to be disappointing my coworkers by leaving five days earlier than planned and to know that I had no job to come back to in the fall, but the outpouring of support was amazing.

The most amazing act of generosity, however, came from Sue Black, a coworker who had already made a generous donation, who made a second, matching donation on behalf of her recently deceased mother. I stood in her office and cried before finally cleaning out my desk and leaving.

The ensuing week was alternately terrifying and energizing.  Calls came in from all across the country with riders offering support. Rudy Niemiec had called to say that after speaking with Rusty, he and other associates of the ALA of Minnesota had pooled some money that they would be sending to help me achieve my goal.  Phil Lanier, a seventeen-year-old high school student who already had been helpful in promoting awareness of the ride through his conversations with local newspapers, offered to fundraise door-to-door on my behalf.  He organized a time when he, Dave Bell--another rider struggling to meet the minimum--and I could go out canvassing Edmonds' neighborhoods together.  I went door-to-door collecting pledges from local business owners who had never met me before, and called radio stations asking for help in broadcasting my financial need.  Those last eleven days were the most spiritually uplifting of my life, and all I could do was wonder what I had done to deserve such support.

So, admiring this farmhouse, I was well aware that miracles were possible.  I had already experienced more miracles than I could count.  I wasn't about to limit the scope of possibility now.

Still, I had eighty-eight miles of pedaling to do before my day would end in Yakima.  I put the camera away and caught up with my ride partner.  

We hadn't gone far when I took the lead on a two-lane road with a pure sand shoulder.  My companion was close behind me when she began calling, "Whoa!  Whoa!"

I was riding without a rearview mirror as the bike guru who fitted my bike had advised against buying one, saying that mirrors made a rider lazy and caused you to take only infrequent long looks behind you. I had no idea what was wrong with my partner, but I panicked and decided that, whatever it was, it would probably soon catch up to me. Without looking behind me or calling to ask what was wrong, I veered sharply toward the shoulder in an attempt to get out of the way of the noiseless car that was no doubt soon to sideswipe me, buried my front wheel in three inches of fresh sand, and pounded whole-body weight down onto both knees, grinding asphalt and sand into my shins.

It was one of those falls that is so sudden and so hard that your entire body is shocked and paralyzed.

My brain recovered first.  No car zoomed past.  No dog hurled itself on top of me.  My partner stopped and rushed to my side. "What was the 'Whoa?''' I demanded of her, still not moving from my position on all fours.

"What?" she asked, stunned.

"You were yelling 'Whoa'--why were you doing that?"

"I was getting too close to the shoulder and getting scared."  She obviously didn't understand that I was furious. "You have to get out of the road," she said, willing my body to move.

I disengaged my right foot from the pedal and rolled onto my side under the bike, my left shoe, footless, still hanging from its pedal.  My companion pulled me toward the shoulder and out of the road as two more women on bikes pulled up to help.  One grabbed an antiseptic pad and handed it to me to clean the wound on my left knee.  I stopped bleeding fairly quickly since the abrasions weren't deep. The presence of the other riders helped calm me down and get me moving.  I put my shoe back on and stood up to check out the bike. Everything seemed fine except my cycling computer whose wires had been torn out of the sensors that monitored the rotation of the front wheel.  It still told me the time, but would no longer be able to gauge speed or record mileage.

I tried to laugh it off, realizing that my companion was still upset, and finally understood the accident was my fault for reacting to what I thought were her signals without knowing what those signals meant.  More than ever, I wanted to be riding alone, but this situation would certainly teach me the value of a well-matched ride partner.

We took off together again until the terrain became more hilly.  My lungs still hadn't fully recovered from yesterday, so I dismounted to climb.  This was the last straw for my partner, who no doubt found these hills a refreshing change from yesterday.  Before long, she circled back around from her rather sizable lead, and asked if I would be all right if she rode on alone.  She offered me the map, which I refused, and then rode away, leaving me elated to be on my own.

By now I was riding through tall stands of pines whose fragrance grew stronger with the strengthening sun.  I pedaled the remainder of the sixteen miles to Pit 1 listening only to the sounds of songbirds and the rubber of my tires on asphalt.

Unlike my last place arrival in Pit 1 yesterday, today I was greeted by dozens of riders, all happily applying more sunscreen, refilling water bottles, sucking down orange wedges under the food tent, or waiting, yet again, for an available Port-A-Potty.  I did all of the above, then fell into a brief conversation with one of the local residents who had come to pass out free sunscreen and who couldn't say enough about how beautiful the day's ride was going to be.

There were twenty-six miles to Pit 2 in Ellensburg.  The advance road crew had gone out the night before and hung gold disks with blue arrows from street signs to signal us where to turn and which roads to follow.  They also had put up orange signs that said "CAUTION BICYCLES ON ROAD" which conjured images in my mind of bicycles strewn across the road on their sides, yet somehow made me feel safer.  As I set out again, I had no trouble navigating without a map along the side roads that crisscrossed I-90 or ran parallel to it and seemed to have the road to myself as I neither passed nor was passed by anyone else for several miles.

Ever since I had moved to Seattle from Los Angeles three years before, I had heard about the difference in climate between eastern and western Washington.  The Cascade Mountains trapped moist air blowing east off the Pacific Ocean and held it over the western part of the state, creating the temperate rain forests of the Olympic peninsula and the long rainy season in Seattle.  East of the Cascades, however, I had heard the landscape became more arid, hotter, and desert-like.  I had heard also from other asthmatics that once they moved from western to eastern Washington, their symptoms had disappeared.  I was hoping to discover the same would be true for me.

I was still surrounded by trees and hadn't noticed a huge change in other flora when I stopped for a rest, midway up a hill about forty-five minutes outside of Pit 1.  The sun was definitely hot, making yesterday's freezing ascent up Snoqualmie Pass seem like a distant, bizarre memory.

I found the other half of the banana Power Bar I had started eating yesterday during opening ceremonies and tried to force it down, despite the heartburn it caused, with water from my Camelbak. A woman who looked to be in her late 50's or early 60's passed me, charging up the hill without needing to stop or walk.  She smiled and said hello, then was soon over the top, no doubt enjoying the descent on the other side.  Not far behind her, a man who appeared to be approximately the same age and riding a bike too small for him, chugged up the hill, smiling and nodding, before he, too, disappeared over the top.

I don't know how long I stood there breathing in the smell of warm pines and soaking up sunshine.  When I finally looked down at the cycling computer on my handlebars, it dutifully told me the time, forcing me to remember all of the other statistics it would not tell. I would not know for certain how many miles I had ridden on any given day or how many total miles I had ridden over the course of the summer.  I would not know how fast I was going.  I would simply have to pedal, spinning at whatever speed was comfortable, until I found the next pit stop and the next, and finally followed the signs into camp.  The same realizations earlier that morning had caused feelings of anxiety and disappointment. Now, however, I only smiled.  This was the universe's way of telling me that statistics and social comparisons just didn't matter.  All that mattered was me and my bike.

The Big Ride was not a race; it was a community of people challenging themselves and exploring the country at a slower pace than most of us had ever traveled before.  How fast I rode, whether or not I climbed hills on my bike or off, and how many miles I racked up were not important.  Time wasn't even important.  Now was the only moment that counted.  I had jumped through the hoops to get here, now I had better stop jumping and just begin experiencing.

My muscles filled with joy, and the grin on my face would not budge. I stood on the pedals, fighting to get started on an uphill, then cranked over the top, coasting down the other side.  I was on my own and on my way.

Being at Home With Being Last

Today was the perfect day to discover, or decide, that social comparisons didn't matter.  And as was yesterday, it was a day to know the value of a sense of humor.

It was only twenty-six miles from Pit 1 to Pit 2, a distance I was used to riding and usually in less than two hours.  Having done the majority of my training on a flat section of Western Washington's Burke-Gilman Trail, the terrain was slightly more hilly than that with which I was accustomed, which slowed me down slightly both on the uphills and the downhills since uncontrolled speed still terrified me.

I also stopped occasionally to take pictures of the changing landscape.  At one point, when I looked behind me I could see a distinct line where the familiar pine trees stopped and this more arid region, the edge of the shrub steppe, began.  On the flats, though, I took it out at a good clip, reveling in the motion of my legs.  By this time, I was on a narrow road paralleling I-90 and feeling confident and cocky.  A few riders passed me, looking much more professional than I did in their brightly colored team jerseys and lean bodies, but I didn't care.  I was out doing what for nine months I had said I was going to do.

A Big Ride van was stopped by the side of the road, and a young photographer stood poised behind the lens of a hefty camera, snapping shots as I went by.  I tried to look like a serious cyclist completely unaware of his presence and probably failed miserably.  It didn't matter.  My legs kept spinning.

About three miles outside of Pit 2, a small black car with Big Ride logos on the doors pulled alongside as I stopped at an intersection. Through an open window, a young woman with long dark hair informed me that Pit 2 would be closing soon and that I needed to go straight there rather than stopping for lunch on this main thoroughfare.  I smiled and said that was my plan.

Unfortunately, a mile later, while crossing an I-90 overpass, I picked up glass in my rear tire and flatted.  Yesterday's rear flat had been taken care of by the SAG van driver and a bike tech.  I had watched the removal of my rear wheel, but lacked the confidence to attempt the maneuver on my own.  I also was aware that in the time it would take me to fumble it off and make the repair, Pit 2 would definitely close.

As I pulled off the road into a gravel parking lot, a SAG van pulled up behind me and saw my trouble.  So, for the second day in a row, I sagged to Pit 2.

When we arrived at Kiwanis Park, my bike once again was handed off to a technician who charged me only a small amount to replace the punctured tube with a fresh one from his stock.  I headed off to the Port-A-Potties and had time to refill my CamelBak before the dark haired woman from the black car, whom I soon came to know as Karen, began yelling that the pit was closing and that we all needed to get back on our bikes.  In the car she had seemed nice enough, but now she was not my favorite person.  I would have liked a little more time to find something to eat before being shoved back out on the road, but she had a job to do.  I left as soon as the bike tech was finished.

We were in the town of Ellensburg, which was busy with noon traffic, though the drivers were quite courteous.  I had no experience riding in heavy traffic and was hyper-vigilant of doors opening from parked cars.  On Main Street, I passed many small restaurants with Big Riders' bicycles parked outside.  I considered stopping for lunch. I didn't have a bike lock or the trust in my fellow humans that I would acquire later, though, and chose instead to simply pull over to the curb and eat the banana I had saved from breakfast.  The annoying heartburn was still with me as I pushed off into traffic again.

I watched the storefronts on both sides of the street, looking for a place to stop for antacid tablets.  I saw two other riders turning into a pharmacy parking lot and fell in behind them.  They had a lock and were kind enough to let me stick my wheel in.  I still felt uncomfortable leaving the bike as it was the foundation of my entire summer, and hurried inside to find a bottle of Tums.  When I returned, the bikes were fine, still locked together and undisturbed.  I relaxed and settled down to wait for the other two while I opened the bottle of Tums.  Or more accurately, while I attempted and failed to open the bottle of Tums. The childproof cap was so secure that I was unable to budge it.  After several minutes of struggling and feeling ridiculous, I headed back into the drugstore in search of a pharmacist with stronger fingers or a brain highly developed enough to outsmart this product's packaging.  The woman behind the counter smiled when I asked for help, then scowled as she found herself also unable to open the plastic bottle.  Finally, she handed it off to a male coworker who muscled it open.  I thanked them both before scurrying away, still embarrassed, and popped two pastel tablets in my mouth as I settled down on the curb next to the bikes.

The other two riders appeared a few minutes later.  We untangled the bikes and headed back out, me trailing so I wouldn't feel pressure to cross traffic sooner than I wanted to.  Surprisingly, I managed the maneuver, crossing four lanes with no screeching of car tires or mangling of bicycle metal.  The other two were strong riders and were soon well ahead of me.  That was fine with me as the road quickly became narrow, pitted, and rutted with little passable shoulder.  I gritted my teeth and did my best to maintain a straight line as heavy trucks banged and bounced past, finding pothole after pothole.

I hadn't gone far when I suddenly became aware of the urge to pee again.  Yesterday's failed attempt to pee by the side of the freeway, squatting in wet grass while trying not to slide down the side of the mountain on which I was standing, was enough to make me consider turning back toward Ellensburg.  Although today's weather was certainly more amenable to a side-of-the-road attempt, the terrain did not offer many good hiding spots--until I found a cement building the size of a closet standing alone in a field on the opposite side of the road a half mile ahead.  On closer inspection, the closet turned out to be a toilet!  There was no door and no indication whether it was for men or women, but I gratefully used it, deciding that surprising a passing workman with my presence was better than humiliating myself in tall grass for the second day in a row.

Less than a mile down the road, a low wood and stone sign at the edge of the road read, "Entering Yakima Canyon" and displayed a scenic highway symbol.  This was the area about which the sunscreen volunteer at Pit 1 had been so excited, so I stopped to take a photograph of the sign, on the off-chance I forgot its name in the future, and the canyon did indeed turn out to be worth remembering.

I hadn't pedaled far before I dismounted on the now wide and well-maintained shoulder to take photographs of the golden hills skirted at the bottom by what looked to be an ancient set of railroad tracks, a narrow band of green grass, and a line of deciduous shrubs and trees. Traffic was light, and the only sound was that of the wind blowing between the mounded hills.  I was quite surprised, therefore, to see a yellow Ryder truck barreling down on me as I stood on the soft gravel shoulder.  It came to a stop more than a safe distance from where I stood, and something in my head said it must be Big Ride related.  I walked to the open passenger side window.  Two women were seated in the truck's cab.  They smiled, and the driver yelled, "We're the caboose!"

"What does that mean?"

"It means that we're the last vehicle, and you're the last rider. We're not allowed to pass you."

"Oh," I said, trying to wrap my mind around this concept of a caboose
and trying desperately to decipher what it wanted me to do.  I fumbled
with my camera and asked, "Do you need to pick me up?"

The driver, a young woman who apparently had infinite patience with the slow-witted, smiled and said, "No, you can keep riding.  Finish taking your pictures while we head back into town for some lunch.  Then we'll catch back up to you.  Enjoy your ride!"  Her somewhat older, dark-haired companion smiled at me, too, as the Ryder truck rolled into motion and headed off down the road.

I had been completely unprepared for anything referring to itself as a caboose.  I knew that each pit stop of the day had a closing time and that there were SAG vans and buses out sweeping the route and carrying stragglers into pits before they closed.  However, no one had mentioned a big yellow truck bringing up the rear to hound and humiliate the last rider, which apparently I was yet again.  Why hadn't I met these women yesterday when I dragged into Pit 1 dead last?

I hurriedly snapped a few pictures, dropped the camera back into my handlebar bag, and mounted the bike, trying to put as many miles between me and that truck as fast as I could.

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.  Just after the next bend, the road surged upward.  I pedaled all the way to the top of the incline, hoping to make time on the descent, only to find myself blasted in the face with a wind so strong I had to pedal downhill!  I was amazed at the power of that wind and at the beauty of the canyon through which I was riding.  There was a wide, green river moving fast at the bottom and a beautiful blue sky arching over the top.  I found more places I wanted to stop for photographs, but the thought of the caboose kept me pedaling instead.  I passed widely dispersed houses perched on the sides and tops of the canyon walls and wondered what it would be like to drive this road on my way home every night after work.
       

There were several steep climbs in the canyon.  I had scaled only the first when the caboose passed me again, then pulled off at the bottom of the second hill to wait while I descended.  Unfortunately, not all the downhills felt as safe as the first, and I got off the bike in the steepest sections to walk.  I could only imagine what the two women in the caboose thought of the last rider walking down hills as frequently as she walked up, while I attempted to console myself with the thought that at least I was constantly moving forward.

When I reached the bottom and passed the caboose, the driver started the engine, passed me and found another place to park and wait. This leapfrogging continued for several hot, blue hours, until the driver caught up to me again and informed me that now she did indeed need to pick me up as there was no way I was going to make it to Pit 3 before it closed at 5:00 p.m.  Both she and her passenger hopped out of the truck to load my bike in the back of the caboose, then all three of us squeezed into the cab for the short ride to Pit 3 at Roza Recreation Site.  The driver introduced herself as Malea, and her passenger, I learned, was a rider whose bike hadn't arrived in Seattle in time for ride out.  So for the first three days, she was crewing in the caboose.

There was some discussion about whether I would be forced to board the bus at Pit 3 for a trip into camp in Yakima, or whether I would be allowed to ride.  When we arrived, Malea hollered out the window to Karen, who was dutifully closing yet another pit stop, and the two of them agreed that I could continue riding if I would allow myself to be driven farther down the road before getting back on the bike. I readily agreed, and we drove on in search of the cyclists who were now last.

Within two miles, we found them.  As it turned out, they just happened to be my riding partners from the day before, Zoi and Cynthia.  We drove a quarter mile past them before pulling onto the shoulder to unload my bike.  By the time I had reattached the handlebar bag that was giving me fits, however, Zoi and Cynthia had covered that quarter mile, and I was, yet again, last.

Zoi and Cynthia cheerfully agreed to let me join them.  We were now on the canyon floor.  Much of our time was spent pedaling through the cooler blue shadows before bursting briefly into sharp sunlight at the top of some small ridge.  I felt as though it were all a dream, these irregular rock formations, rapid running water, and swiftly changing light patterns splayed across some alien landscape.

When a SAG van pulled up behind us, Cynthia decided that after more than sixty miles, she was done for the day.  She allowed her bike to be loaded onto the van's roof, then climbed inside, shrinking the last group of riders to just two.  Zoi and I pedaled on, she in the lead on what was now thankfully level or sloping ground.

There were twenty-two miles between Pit 3 and camp, and in theory we had until 7:00 p.m. to finish them.  Time, however, seemed to be following some new mercurial rules with which we were unfamiliar, slipping away into long shadows, beading briefly before speeding off to the horizon.  By 6:00 p.m., when we reached the town of Selah, we had traversed only ten miles and were faced with a steep ascent out of town and twelve more miles into camp.  The caboose had been playing leapfrog with us for the past several miles, Malea pulling onto the shoulder as her passenger jumped out to take down route marking signs behind us.  The two women were waiting for us in a small park at the base of the hill we were supposed to climb.  Zoi and I looked at the hill, looked at the time, looked at each other, and happily surrendered.

Malea radioed for a SAG van to pick us up, since there wasn't enough room for all of us in the caboose.  Then she and I made a quick trip over to Dairy Queen for treats to eat on the grass of the park while we waited.

Our wait turned out to be much longer than expected.  At 7:00, the time when dinner stopped being served in camp and when the route officially closed for the night, there had been no sign of a SAG van. Malea radioed to camp asking that three dinners be saved for Zoi, me, and the SAG driver, provided he ever showed up.  In the meantime, a local man wandered over to inquire about the long line of bicycles he'd been watching pass by all day.  He sat on the grass with us talking until at last, the van showed up and a sheepish, disheveled college student jumped out and apologized for getting lost.

We learned his name was Tom as he climbed onto the roof of the van and we passed our bikes over our heads, minus their front wheels and saddle bags, for him to attach to the roof rack.  We deduced he obviously cared little for the cartilage in his knees as he jumped from the roof to the ground rather than climbing back down. And, we learned as he drove us quickly through the small streets of Selah and Yakima that his luggage had been lost on his flight from Detroit to Seattle, leaving him with no clothes, no sleeping bag, no tent, and no money; that he had, therefore, had to walk from Sea-Tac airport to the Seattle Center--something I would have had no idea how to do as the long stretch between the two is heavily industrial and to the best of my knowledge only linked in any direct way by one highway and one freeway; that he arrived too late to receive crew orientation but had simply been assigned to drive this van; and that he had been awake for more than forty-eight hours.  I alternately thought him crazy and brave, depending on the state of his driving at any given moment.

He didn't see a stop sign, slamming on the brakes too late in response to his passengers' cries of alarm, and screeched to a halt mid intersection.  I, not wearing a seat belt, was slammed into the back of his driver's seat, crushing the prescription sunglasses I was wearing around my neck and breaking one of the smoke-blue lenses. No vehicles approached, however.  We were safe for the moment. Tom apologized, and Zoi and I silently prayed the poor boy made it safely to camp and finally got some sleep.

Camp was in the Yakima County Youth Activities Park, a well-maintained site with baseball fields, basketball courts, and permanent structures, one of which had obviously housed dinner that night. We all piled out of the van in relief and were met by kind staff and crew members who told us to go find our dinner while they unloaded the bikes and took them to bike parking.  Tucked away in a corner of the dinner building were individual bowls of salad and heaping plates of spaghetti and garlic bread covered with plastic wrap.

We ate together at a picnic table outdoors, entertained by Tom's antics and stories.  The meal tasted even better than the previous night's, and, thankfully, I wasn't troubled by heartburn.  When we had finished, we wished Tom luck in finding a suitable place to sleep for the night, and Zoi and I headed off toward the grid in search of our campsites.

I had ridden seventy miles today, more than I had ever ridden in one day before, and nearly 50 miles yesterday, bringing my two-day total to more than the total for any of my training weeks.  I felt fatigued but not exhausted.  I wouldn't understand how truly tired I was until I began the search for campsite I-10.  Though the site I was assigned to did not change from night to night, the arrangement of the grid's alphabetical sections did change to fit the dimensions and features of each campground.  You couldn't rely on memory from the previous night in finding your site, but had to wander, or hunt if you were more alert than I was, until you stumbled upon it.  When I found the "I" section, I walked along it until I found an empty spot next to a white flag marked I-10.  As I stood in the empty spot, it struck me that in the next site over there was a tent already erected that looked exactly like mine.  Next to it lay a red rain fly, exactly like mine. And next to both of them lay a giant purple bag, exactly like mine.  I had just finished the laborious addition that finally led to the understanding that that was my gear and that some angel had set up camp for me, when Ron, a Seattle rider I knew from pre-Ride meetings, appeared silently and suddenly in front of me.

"Someone put up my tent for me!" I said in amazement, pointing to my neatly organized pile.

"We were worried about you--it's so late and no one had seen you come
into camp," he replied, his dark, deep-set eyes still anxious under heavy brows.

I explained about Tom getting lost and not being able to find us and assured him that I had eaten and that I was okay.  I also laughingly told him how long it had taken me to recognize my own gear. He obviously thought this was funny, too, but it did little to allay his fears about my well-being.  I assured him again that I was fine, and he ambled away after instructing me to go straight to sleep.  Before I could move or even figure out what to do with myself next, Phil Lanier, my seventeen-year-old fundraising angel, approached from the opposite direction.

"Did you do this for me?" I asked.

"Yeah, we were worried about you," he grinned.

I thanked him profusely, telling him I was more tired than I realized.  He squeezed my shoulder and said, "You're awesome," before moving on. I don't know what I did to deserve such a great cheerleader and supporter in this high school senior, but I thanked the universe for him once again as I headed off to see if I could help Zoi set up camp.

By the time I found her, she had already lugged her gear from the truck and set up her campsite.  The only thing left for me to do was find a Port-A-Potty before retiring for the night.  Then I found my tent again, slapped the rain fly on the roof and dragged the Purple Monster inside for the night, home sweet home at last.

Posted by Kristine at 12:01 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 9:26 AM EDT

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Mood:  hug me

On June 15, 1998, after crossing the bridge out of Seattle, I quickly found a way to become the last rider in the pack of 730 cyclists.  I flatted only to be saved by a passing cyclist who stopped and changed the tube for me, made it to the first pit stop to find it closing up, fell, and flatted again.  A SAG (support and gear) van sweeping the route stopped to help me with the flat, but we immediately blew the new tube, and rather than risk blowing my last tube, the driver threw my bike on top of the van, I climbed in, and he drove me to Pit Two so a mechanic could change the tire.

And my sorry tale continues....

Lucky Pennies


As we ascended, the road was slick from rain, and the SAG van driver pointed out a place where three riders had crashed earlier.  Near the top, we passed a few riders stopped to take pictures of the falls, but by the time I arrived at Pit 2, nearly all the riders had arrived or passed through before me.  I was the only one wet from rain as the clouds were behind us now, but bearing down quickly.  One of the bike techs traveling with us for the summer changed my tube while I shivered and tried to eat a banana.  I wasn't hungry exactly, but my body was craving some kind of comfort.  Some of the riders had paid to have bag lunches available to them at the second pit stop on days with limited stores and restaurants along the route, so they wouldn't have to worry about being able to supplement the breakfast and dinner already provided.  I had decided to trust my luck to find what I needed and now eyed the other riders' sandwiches with envy.  I kept hoping to see Hans drive up so that he and I could find a place to have lunch together, but by this time he had already said his final good-byes to the ride and turned toward home.
       

As I stuffed the last of the banana in my mouth and was complaining aloud of being cold and wet, a Washington woman took charge of the situation. "Come on, we've got to get you back on the road."  I was scared again and skeptical, but she didn't leave me room for argument.  She introduced herself as Zoi, and I recognized her as the woman who had earlier that morning offered me an energy bar at the top of a hill while I stopped to catch my breath and use my inhaler. I later realized she was the twenty-eight-year-old Seattle schoolteacher whom I had admired in pre-ride meetings.  When we had gone around the room giving our reasons for doing the ride, hers had been that she hoped to be an inspiration to her students, demonstrating that big dreams can be accomplished.  And here she was, helping me accomplish mine in spite of any nervousness of her own.

She led me out of the pit stop parking lot and down an entrance ramp toward the freeway.  We entered the shoulder of eastbound I-90 to begin the 2,300 vertical foot climb over Snoqualmie Pass.  I felt sluggish and sick and completely incredulous that I was following this woman up the side of this mountain.  In hindsight, I know I hadn't eaten enough that day--half of a Power Bar during opening ceremonies and a banana at Pit 2--nor drank enough water.  Add in the sleep deprivation of the previous night, and I had no business being on that freeway.  But then again, neither probably did anyone else.

Zoi turned out to be the perfect leader.  She set up a routine of riding and resting that my lungs could handle.  Sometimes we only managed to ride a few hundred feet before I needed a break, but at least we were making progress.  I began to feel better physically and emotionally with every small bend we rounded.

During one of our stops, Zoi recognized Cynthia struggling up the mountain behind us.  She was one of the women with whom I had traveled earlier who had chosen the ride/walk option for hill climbing. She appeared to be in her late twenties, too, and as new to cycling as Zoi and I were.  Her determination to complete this adventure was evident, however, in the slow, rhythmic pedal stroke she maintained despite the uphill terrain and the roundness of her body.  Zoi laid her bike over into the gravel at the side of the road and skipped back down the mountain.  When the two of them reached me, Zoi introduced us. Cynthia's cheeks were as pink as I expected mine were, but she was smiling as all three of us resumed the uphill battle.

We had nineteen miles of climbing between Pit 2 and Pit 3 at the summit.  Occasionally other riders passed us, and at one detour we were required to take onto a small side street, we caught up with a couple of riders from Texas, Jane and Jon, who sarcastically asked whether Washington cyclists ever pedaled up this mountain "just for fun."  [Later I learned that certain Washington riders do in fact ride the mountain for fun!]      

The rain didn't wait long before catching up with us.  At first, we ignored it.  Despite the falling temperatures, I was radiating a lot of heat and didn't mind the cool drops.  Eventually, though, the temperature fell enough that I stopped to put on rain pants over my leggings and shorts. We passed a traffic advisory sign that alternately warned motorists to beware of bicycles and announced the now freezing temperature of 32 degrees.  The rain decreased visibility.  Drops hit and stayed on our glasses.  Our lenses fogged repeatedly from the heat of our faces, making blindness another factor in deciding when we stopped to rest.

I have no idea how long the three of us chugged up that hill together. Time seemed to stand still, and the road just kept going up in front of us.  Conversation was difficult as we were reserving our breath for climbing, and the automobiles flying past us were loud.  When semis passed, we were slammed in the side with a blast of wind and cold water spray.  We did our best to point out debris on the shoulder to the rider behind us and, surprisingly, none of us flatted on the glass or metal we continually dodged.

At some point, I noticed other, rather odd debris: two pennies about a foot apart, one heads up and one heads down.  I remember thinking how strange it was to see coins on the shoulder of a freeway. Tire rubber was one thing, change was another.

Even stranger was that it didn't turn out to be an isolated occurrence. Further up the mountain, I saw more coins--an occasional nickel or dime, but mostly pairs of pennies.  The pennies were always within a foot or two of each other, and always one heads up, one heads down, as though someone had planted them in this careful arrangement for me to find.  Neither Cynthia nor Zoi mentioned seeing them, and when after the fourth pair I finally asked whether they had noticed them, too, they both shook their heads.

A few years earlier, the arrangement of the coins would have meant nothing to me.  Growing up, I had always clung to the find-a-penny, pick-it-up, all-day-long-you'll-have-good-luck theory of lost and found coins.  But recently my dad had introduced me to an opposing view, that only heads up pennies were good luck.  So here I was on Day One of a forty-eight day trek climbing a mountain freeway on a bicycle in freezing temperatures and pouring rain and finding pennies that alternately promised good and bad luck.  I considered stopping to take a picture of the coins, but the immediacy of the weather, the traffic, and the never-ending climb of the road overwhelmed the impulse to preserve the bizarre find on film.

While I was examining a pair of these coins during one of our rest breaks, a red school bus pulled quickly over onto the shoulder behind us and came to a noisy and abrupt stop.  We were startled. When the door opened, Cynthia learned from the driver that the bus was one of two the Big Ride had hired for the summer as support vehicles. Cynthia gratefully hoisted her bike up the stairs, while Zoi and I continued up the mountain.

Before long, an urgent need to urinate consumed both my body and my mind.  This was the last straw.  Now there was no room for thoughts of anything but the cold, the rain, the burning in my legs and lungs, and the conviction that my bladder was going to burst before I found another Port-A-Potty.

"I have to stop to find a place to pee," called Zoi over her shoulder.

"Me, too!" I answered with relief.

I waited with the bikes, scouting my own location, as Zoi hurried down the side of the mountain in grass taller than her knees toward a line of pines.  I had not peed outdoors since I was a child, and the prospect of doing so now was not at all appealing.  My bladder was insistent, however, and when Zoi emerged, I started down the steep slope in the direction I decided would offer the best cover.  The grass was so thick and tall that I couldn't see the ground where I stepped, and my feet slipped more than once as they sank into mud.

When I had finally found a place free of brambles and sufficiently hidden from the view of traffic, I pulled my rain pants, tights, and shorts down to my knees, and squatted, stretching the elastic waist bands as far forward as I could.  Now, my nearly frozen flesh was hanging out in the rain and being swiped by blades of wet grass in the cold wind.  My thigh muscles burned even more as I tried to relax.
Nothing happened.  Come on! I pleaded silently.  Still more nothing happened.  At last, I pulled the three pairs of wet pants up over my hips and trudged back up the mountain, still in pain and shaking my head at Zoi.     

"I couldn't relax enough!"

"What do you want to do?" Zoi asked, sympathetically.

"Keep going, I guess, and hope the pain goes away."

We climbed back on the bikes, inching upward toward a summit I couldn't envision and only half-believed existed.  We had no idea how far we still had to go and saw no other cyclists, just a constant stream of cars and trucks that threw water at us as they passed.

The rain came down harder and colder.  The exertion of pedaling no longer generated enough heat to convince me that I was anything even resembling warm.  My fingers were numb, and I wished I had brought winter gloves, but I had not foreseen freezing temperatures in any of my dreams of what this summer adventure might hold.

"You know, any time you're ready, I wouldn't mind stopping for good,"

I called up to Zoi.

She planted both feet on the asphalt. "I'm ready."

We were both soaked through and shivering, as, for the second time that day, a SAG van miraculously appeared behind me in response to my telepathic call.  We both gave the driver the thumbs down signal, and he pulled onto the shoulder and jumped quickly out.

"The van's nice and warm!" he called as he hoisted my bike up onto the roof.

"How far are we from the pit stop?"

"About four miles.  The route's closed after Pit 3, though.  With the rain and the wind, the descent is too dangerous, so you'll be able to catch a ride by bus into camp."

I followed Zoi into the already packed van, and squeezed onto the rear bench.  As I watched the rain fall outside the van's windows, images of those pennies by the side of the freeway surfaced again in my mind.  I breathed in the warmth of the van's heater cranked to maximum and settled back against the seat, understanding their message at last.  On this journey, I would choose my own luck.

Posted by Kristine at 10:55 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, June 23, 2008 10:59 PM EDT

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Mood:  loud

Hello!  Happy Summer!

I tried to get here on Wednesday when I was working at the Art & Soul gallery, but I couldn't figure out how to turn the computer on.  Seriously.  I think it's broken ('cause I sure ain't!).  It was just as well, though.  I tried writing longhand, which most days is my preferred method any way, and found that I was not willing to write in sentences.  Again, seriously.  My rebellious side took control and wrote, in a compound sentence, "I don't want to write in sentences, and you can't make me!"  Then, the rebellious me turned the page, wrote "Things I'd REALLY Like to Do" and commenced writing a three page list, using mostly sentence fragments.  The list was meant to counteract the three page list of things I feel I need to do around the house to get it ready to put on the market and be a list of things I could schedule in on, say, a Wednesday evening between dinner at 5:30 and taking Kaija to the park at 7:00.  Instead, I got things like "travel to zoos in other state doing nature art projects with kids and adults" and "get www.creativityfacilitator.com up and running" and "be involved in a sea turtle protection program during the egg-laying and -hatching period."  Kinda' hard to schedule any of those things in the next month!  Once I realized the true nature of the list, I changed the title to "Things, I'd REALLY, REALLY Like to Do."  This list led to a list called "Things I Could Do to Build My Creative, Independent Future" which had more actionable steps, but still pretty lofty ideas that could benefit from being broken down further.

I tried again to get here on Thursday, but Tripod crashes my computer and I couldn't get the site to stay open long enough to make an entry.  (I should probably switch to another free blogging service, one that has no ads and looks a little more professional, but I like the yoga girl background so much!  BlogExplosion refused to let me add this blog to their service because of Tripod's popup ads, yet, here I am....)

So, here I am today, finally.  On the solstice!  AND, I got to see Danielle this morning.  She is my chakra clearing/energy healing 101 instructor and the rest of the class saw fit to stay home today so I could have her all to myself!  I LOVE when the universe creates these opportunities, as it seems to exactly when I need them most.  We had a wonderful conversation--she is pure, unbounded joy and light and being in her presence makes me so happy!  She gave me a few insights, reaffirmed my own feelings about other things, and set me up for a lovely, lovely day. 

But, all of that doesn't really say anything about anything, does it??

Okay, a little bit of catching up:

I ended up seeing another doctor about the hemorrhage in my eye and he sent me to a retinal specialist who said my eye may improve, may stay the same, or may get worse.  So far, it's mostly stayed the same.  I go back for another appointment in August and if the vision has deteriorated, I may be a candidate for laser surgery to remove the pocket of blood that is causing the distortion in my visual field.

I didn't go on the South Beach Diet, but instead found--and really appreciated--the Five Factor Fitness diet by Harley Pasternak.  I am doing the weight routines--which are totally FAB!! You get an entire workout in in 25 or 30 minutes and you feel great when it's over!--and incorporating some of the dietary changes, but not following any strict eating regimen because....

...I also started seeing the eating disorder specialist my doctor recommended and he doesn't want me to "diet."  Asking someone like me to not diet is like saying "don't eat" or "don't breathe."  How do I eat if I'm not eating in response to someone else's idea of how I should eat???  That is to say, I am NOT a good dieter--I don't handle food restrictions well, in large part I think because of the deprivation I felt being a vegetarian for 9 years.  But, even when I'm bingeing, I know where I am in response to the diet I have currently elected to try to emulate.  I spend more time "off my diet" than on, but at least then I know where I stand.  I'm being "bad."  Okay.  There, I've named it.  Or, hey, I've been really "good" today.  Now there is no diet, no list of banned foods, no list of must have foods, no rules about how often to eat (aside from "when you're hungry"), no "good," no "bad."  Nothing to rebel against.  Nothing to compare myself to.  Very, very strange.  Now there is "more nutritious" and "less nutritious."  Which means I get to choose.  For myself.  Which apparently makes me more than a little uncomfortable sometimes.

The therapist and I got off to a rocky start but I quickly learned that I am capable of standing up for myself, and once I did that, things have gone well.  I have been able to hear my own inner voice on several occasions (although that voice sometimes makes me think for nearly a week before it provides a little wisdom), and I'm happy.  I am making changes that I enjoy--like learning to eat a single Hershey's kiss for dessert and then closing the kitchen for the night, and eating only in the kitchen or dining room and giving my food my whole attention.  All stuff I've known for a long time that I should do, but for some reason now I'm doing it.  I'm trying not to think too hard about WHY I'm able to do these things now when I haven't always been able to, I'm just trying to stay present and be thankful for the way I feel now.

At the therapist's urging, I'm working my way through the Don't Diet, Live-It Workbook by Andrea LoBue and Marsea Marcus and I'm on chapter 5 working on the difference between aggressive and assertive communication.  The interesting thing is, I'm supposed to be learning how to use assertive communication but I already know how to use that.  It's who I am.  What I don't know how to do is use aggressive communication!  I jumped right over that!  I don't like to feel hurt and anger, so I don't express hurt and anger...I jump right to compassionate language that keeps me from saying things I'll regret (usually), but also probably keeps me from truly feeling and acknowledging how hurt or angry I really am.  Danielle found this very interesting this morning and instructed me to stick with the aggressive language exercises, not as a way of expressing myself in the world to other people, but as a way to get the anger and hurt I'm carrying around out of my body.  She proposed an interesting experiment that I think I will try to implement...more on that later.

I have also gotten very, very organized at work, listed out all my goals for the next six months, and put them all into an online task manager with deadlines to meet.  The rest of the year will be very busy, but it's what I need to do to keep myself sane, to make me feel like I'm meeting obligations I agreed to, and to help me combat the boredom that has become a nearly constant part of my job.  Maybe if I'm very, very busy I won't have the luxury of indulging boredom.  Maybe I'll even combat the boredom?  The first few days don't show that to be the case, but we'll see.

The challenge here, for a person with food, weight, and body issues, is how to stay busy at work as a strategy to survive my job while not identifying so much with the "doing" that I fail to value the "being."  This is too big an issue to get into at the end of this overly long post, but, not to worry, it's one I'm sure to revisit soon!

In the meantime, TGIF and a blessed solstice to all!!

Love from a happy girl! 

Posted by Kristine at 3:01 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, June 20, 2008 3:24 PM EDT

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Mood:  lyrical

The following is an excerpt from the beginning of my unpublished memoir, Your Mileage May Vary, about my experiences on the GTE Big Ride Across America which began on June 15, 1998.

I don't know how much of the manuscript will make it onto this site, but I hope to put up enough to give the flavor of the ride and some of the battles and insights I encountered along the 48-day journey....

Warning to Potential Readers:



This is one woman's story of the largest cross-country bicycle event in the history of the United States.  Be warned, this is not the story of a super-fit woman pedaling every one of the 3,254 miles that comprised that journey.  Instead, it is the story of one wildly imperfect novice cyclist facing more than just the challenges of the road in pursuit of a peak experience.  If you choose to participate in this story, you should expect to endure a measure of whining as well as a good dose of tears, some perhaps irrational or overblown fear, and a questionable decision or two.  Be prepared for some disappointment intermingled with miles of exhilaration.
       

Further, this story makes no claims to represent or even resemble the experiences of the other 729 adventurers who undertook this journey.
       

Finally, this being the story of the search for a peak experience, you should be prepared for that experience to turn out nothing like the one you might expect.  It most certainly was not the experience the narrator expected.  Somehow, it was even better.




Small First Steps



If it weren't for the mosquitoes, I might not have slept at all that summer.  But there they were, arriving each evening in huge swarms soon after we'd finished dinner ourselves, driving us against our wills, swatting and slapping, into 730 separate tents just as the sun was setting.
       

It was the summer of 1998 and I was twenty-nine years old, but for the better part of forty-eight days I resisted going to bed with the tenacity of someone twenty years younger.  Rarely in my adult life have I found reason to use the words, "but I don't want to go to sleepyet!" That summer, I used them often.
       

Even with the mosquitoes' help, however, I was regularly sleep-deprived, in a state of mild but chronic dehydration, and losing weight at the rate of five pounds per week.
       

I was also grateful for every minute of it.



At 6:00 a.m. on the morning of June 15, I stood holding the cycling gloved hands of two people with whom I was about to travel across country, Dave Bell, a young, up-and-coming photographer from Edmonds, Washington, on one side and a woman I did not know on the other.  We were among 730 spandex-clad cyclists, spanning all ages from Bed Head spiky-haired teens to silver-haired seniors, clumped at one end of the Seattle Center Memorial Stadium.  Seven hundred and thirty bicycles of every size, color, and description hung by their seats or brake hoods from rows of sawhorses behind us. Dark clouds were massing on the horizon.  The rain hadn't begun yet, but tears were streaming down my face.
       

A woman, man, senior citizen and child were pushing a bicycle slowly through our crowd toward the stage in front of us.  The people represented those currently suffering from lung disease, while the riderless bicycle represented those already lost.  Loud, dramatic music and the voice of Dan Pallotta, our hired organizer and the organizer of the internationally recognized AIDS Rides, filled the stadium as he proclaimed us heroes.
       

A newspaper photographer moved in close to capture the tears on my face and the face of the woman whose hand I held.  I did not feel like a hero.
       

In fact, I was terrified.
       

I was rider #1514 in the GTE Big Ride Across America to benefit the American Lung Association, and it was Day One of what was going to be a forty-eight day, 3,254 mile bicycle journey from Seattle, Washington to Washington, D. C.  We were going to cross three mountain ranges, including Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascades that afternoon, and average eighty miles per day with eight rest days interspersed throughout.

To date, I had ridden about 1,000 training miles, but never more
than 60 miles in a day.  I weighed nearly 200 pounds--heavy for my 5'4" frame--and had asthma.  To make things even scarier, I had a lifelong fear of tunnels and bridges and would have to traverse first one then the other within the first five miles of my ride out of Seattle.
       

Hans, the man who had married me in a courthouse ceremony four months earlier in part to ensure that I would have healthcare coverage for this journey, was in the stands behind me.  Things were tense between us.  I had awakened him the night before to help me finish packing my bag.  Each cyclist was allowed seventy pounds of gear, including spare bike parts, tent, sleeping bag, clothing, and personal belongings that would be carried by truck from camp to camp.  In my estimation, I was traveling with only the necessities.  Yet I didn't have the organization skills to make it all fit into the one, giant, purple duffel I had purchased, nor the time-management skills to figure this out more than four hours before I was supposed to be loading my gear onto a yellow Ryder truck.  My deficits in both of these areas had been a matter of contention between me and Hans for several months, with me always doing things at the last minute, and Hans always being frustrated by my process.  This morning, however, Hans was exhibiting more than frustration; I just didn't recognize what it was.  All I knew was that I needed support and encouragement from him, and I wasn't getting anything that even remotely resembled either one.

As the pre-Ride ceremony came to a close, I hoped to get on my bike as soon as possible.  I also hoped that I would never have to get on my bike.  Mostly, I hoped that I would be able to heal things between Hans and me before I rode away.
       

He waited with me for my bike row to be called to leave.  I had new prescription sports glasses that I hadn't tested out, and they were disorienting.  I also had a new handlebar bag, also not previously tested, that made the bike's front wheel feel wobbly.  Watching me discover these things, Hans finally exploded, "Well, I hope you even make it out of Seattle!"
       

He hugged and kissed me good-bye, but it didn't help.  When I got on my bike, tears were still running down my face.  I passed the American Lung Association of Washington staff on my way out of the stadium.  They recognized me from months of pre-Ride meetings and called my name.  Hans also had run to get out in front of me and waved slowly as I passed him, his 6'4" frame somehow collapsed in on itself and more fragile than I had ever seen it.  Unable to smile or wave back, I labored to breathe, to ride in a straight line, and to will the tears away so that I could see more clearly.
       

In all of my training rides, I had ridden solo and mostly on the same twenty-five mile section of Washington's Burke-Gilman trail.  I was dizzy now from trying to keep track of the huge number of riders surging around me and shocked to be riding Seattle's city streets on a Monday morning while all around drivers and pedestrians were being made late to work by the police officers blocking intersections for us.
       

For the last nine months, posters, promotional brochures, and the staff of the American Lung Association had been promising this would be a journey that would change my life forever.  For the last nine months I had walked the sidewalks of these same streets between the bus stop and the office building where I worked, watching every morning and every afternoon for bicycle commuters and couriers who had the guts to brave the city traffic on two wheels.  For nine months I had been imagining how I would look on my bike and how it would feelto be free and finally on my way.
       

I was aware that 730 cyclists, already strung out in a long, brightly colored line, must have been an impressive sight to onlookers--one that wouldn't be seen again until the Ride's conclusion in the nation's capital--but I was not yet able to feel excitement or even relief to be on the road.  The immediate demands required to keep the bike upright competed for my brain's attention with persistent fears about the enormity of what I was undertaking and thousands of wordless questions about my ability to survive whatever lay ahead.  Was I insane?
       

Right out of the gate, riders began getting flat tires.  I had seen a demonstration of how to fix a flat once several months earlier and was carrying three spare tubes, a patch kit, an air pump, and a Speed Lever for "zipping" the tire off and on, but knew that in my current state, I would never be able to figure out how to use them.  I rode past those riders, all of whom seemed much more calm and capable than I felt, and willed my legs to keep pedaling and my bike to keep functioning properly.

My handlebar bag had a clear plastic window on top to display and protect the day's detailed route directions I'd been given.  I also had a wristwatch-size computer on my handlebars to tell me the time, the number of miles I'd ridden that day, total distance ridden over the course of the summer, and my current speed.  If I looked at that at all on Day One, the information never registered in my brain.  I was still a novice rider, and a good speed for me was only twelve miles per hour.  At that rate, it would have taken me a mere twenty minutes to travel the four, eastbound miles from the Seattle Center to the I-90 tunnel and subsequent bridge over Lake Washington.  It felt like an eternity.
       

Along the route I was passed by a few riders I recognized from the previous two days' get-together and registration events, but as I approached the tunnel, I recognized no one.  Having driven this route along I-90, I could only imagine the bicycle tunnel to be just as long, loud, and uncomfortable as the one the cars traversed.  I panicked.
       

At that moment, a woman pulled up on my left.  I had no idea who she was when I blurted, "I'm scared of tunnels--would you sing to me?"
       

"What would you like to hear?" was her calm reply.
       

"Anything!"
       

I didn't have the opportunity to wonder why I had decided singing would soothe me or what had possessed me to make such a request of a total stranger--perhaps it was the experience I'd had asking everyone I knew and many people I didn't to donate money to the American Lung Association on my behalf in the months leading up to this morning.  To my amazement, the stranger began to sing a beautiful, wordless melody just as we turned into the tunnel.  The notes echoed off the walls as my eyes adjusted to the dim light.  A man riding near us had heard the exchange and commented on how lucky I was to find this woman and her lovely voice in my time of need.  I quickly agreed.  To my great relief, the dark, music-filled tunnel was very short.

As we exited into daylight, I thanked my companion for her help.  She turned a sharp corner in front of me, and suddenly we were on the bicycle lane of the floating bridge spanning Lake Washington.  There were bicycles as far as the eye could see stretched out ahead of me.  The shock car drivers must have felt at seeing us jarred my own brain, and I immediately forgot to be afraid of the gray water slapping at the bottom of the bridge.
       

Two bicycle commuters fought their way back toward the city, inching slowly through our crowd.  Did they wish they could turn around and follow us, to begin an unexpected journey, rather than punching the same old clock at the same old desk at which they sat every Monday morning?
       

Exhilaration flooded my body.  I was on my bike!  I was out of downtown Seattle and had already faced two of my biggest fears.  I smiled for the first time that morning and suddenly knew I was going to be all right.
       

It was a good thing I didn't know what was ahead of me that very afternoon.

Posted by Kristine at 9:57 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:41 AM EDT

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Mood:  happy

Today is the tenth anniversary of the start of the GTE Big Ride Across America to benefit the American Lung Association.  I can't believe it's been ten years!  I feel like it was just yesterday.  That 48-day bicycle journey from Seattle, Washington to Washington, D.C. taught me more about myself than any other experience in my life.  I thought I had received the last message three years ago, seven years after the ride concluded, but I am realizing now that I still have more to learn.

 What I have to learn now is how to bring my Big Ride Self home, and how to stop referring to "her" as "her" and realize that she and I are the same person, even if that person may have been more relaxed, more self-confident, and more fully actualized than I am currently. 

I am not setting off on a bike today, but I am heading down a metaphorical road toward wholeness, peace, and health.  I'm not as scared today as I was ten years ago when I set off from the Space Needle with tears in my eyes and trepidation in every muscle in my body, but I am feeling a slight mixture of fear and excitement to think about where this summer will take me.  I have begun to make changes in my life and more changes are on the horizon.  I will share them as they occur, and look forward to cresting each new hill and hopefully coasting down the other side with my ponytail flying!

Happy trails, all!  Keep the rubber side down--

K 

Posted by Kristine at 12:01 AM EDT

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Mood:  not sure

It's been more than three weeks since I've been able to get to my Friday morning chakra clearing/Energy Healing 101 class.  I made it this morning, though, and I'm so glad I did.

Without any backstory from the last month, this may not have great meaning.  I'll fill in in my upcoming posts.  For now, this is what came to me in Shavasana:

You are a wild and creative being.

Help other people find their places in the world to the extent that you are able,

but NOT to the extent that you forget or neglect your own true nature.

You are perfect just as you are.

Once you recognize this perfection, all things will come into balance.

And about half an hour later:

It does not serve you to be wounded.

It does not serve your roles in the world

--as artist, activist, or educator--

to be wounded.

You have perfect clarity of vision. TRUST IT.

The answer is NOT outside of you.

Posted by Kristine at 4:10 PM EDT

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Mood:  energetic

Okay, so changes may be happening sooner than expected.

I went to the ophthalmologist yesterday because I have been seeing a large, non-moving-though-slightly-shape-shifting spot on my left eye for a few days. It's like I looked at a light too long and have an after-image burned onto my visual field, but it's only on one eye....

Turns out it is a BRVO, a branching retinal vein occlusion, or a retinal hemorrhage. The doctor couldn't tell if it was one large hemorrhage whose blood had begun to be reabsorbed leaving behind several small pools or whether it was several small bleeds.... Nor are we sure what caused it. He suggested that it could perhaps have been caused by high triglycerides. My sister, the registered dietitian, immediately gave me a blood glucose monitoring system to check for diabetes, but so far, the numbers suggest that this is not the issue.  In any event, it looks like my body is telling me that dietary changes - the exact changes I've been playing with for years but have been resistant to adopting - are necessary to lower my triglycerides and cholesterol.

How do I feel about this? Resigned, serious, scared.  Resigned because it is clearly time for this change and I'm not going to resist it any longer.  Serious because we are talking about my eyes! The thought of losing my vision terrifies me, not because I think I couldn't survive in the world without it, but because I fear my enjoyment of the world would be so diminished. (And, no, thank you - I do not wish to test this hypothesis to prove myself wrong! I know that I would adapt and find plenty to get excited about, even with impaired vision.)  And scared because my physician and I are fairly certain that I have an eating disorder and I know what happens when I start trying to restrict my food choices.  When I saw her a month ago, she gave me the name of a psychiatrist who specializes in eating issues, but I have been putting off calling him, hoping instead that in my meditation retreat summer, I would be able to develop amnesia about my food issues and just forget to indulge them.

I think my next step will be to try the South Beach diet.  If I'm able to follow it on my own without too much anxiety and binge-eating, great!  If I have trouble doing it on my own, however, I will make an appointment to see the specialist my doctor recommended.

While this wasn't exactly the way I would have chosen to complicate my summer plans, it would appear that things are getting more complicated, hopefully in service to my life becoming less complicated in the long-term.

As for my vision, it seems much improved today.  Either the blood is being further absorbed or I am becoming accustomed to its presence.  I think, perhaps, my body refused to heal it until I had learned of its potential cause so I could adopt these changes I require.  Whenever you do energy healing work, you do it with the intention that the healing will be accepted if it is for the recipient's highest good.  My highest good would not have been served if the issue had simply resolved itself casually without me taking steps to try to prevent similar problems, or worse!, in the future.  If I respond to this push from the Universe, maybe it won't feel the need to take more drastic measures to wake me up down the road.

Posted by Kristine at 12:40 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, May 29, 2008 1:54 PM EDT

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Mood:  celebratory

A short follow up note to yesterday's post....

Just because I am not trying to create change in myself or my life does not mean that change will not happen or that I won't welcome it when it does.  Change is the only constant, right?  Change will undoubtedly happen, and I am influencing to some degree the kinds of change that might occur with the activities on which I am choosing to focus (writing, exercise, staying focused at work)--but I am not trying to direct the changes in any kind of conscious way.  Instead, my goal is stay open to whatever presents itself each day.

Sidenote: a happy girl got to vote this morning and she smiled all the way to work!  Although seeing a bold green check next to Hillary's name did give me a thrill, I don't think the act of voting alone made me happy.  I  think the accumulated effects of getting outdoors for exercise in the sunshine before work and writing every day are taking their happy toll!

Posted by Kristine at 11:25 AM EDT

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Mood:  happy

Okay, so here's the deal.

On May 1, I began an at-home meditation retreat.  Nothing in my life has changed really--I'm still working full time, my husband is still fully in the picture, I still have bills to pay, laundry to fold, toilets to scrub. But I have changed my mental focus in the following ways:

At work, I focus on crossing things off my list and I don't procrastinate, indulge in feeling bored, or worry about what comes next.  I do the work in front of me, take time to get outdoors at lunch, and try to leave on time.

At home, I have only two responsibilities: to write every day and to exercise every day.  As I mentioned earlier, I have other responsibilities that come with being an adult and a wife and a homeowner and a dog owner and a daughter/sister/aunt, but BIG PICTURE, I only have to write and exercise every day.  

The idea is that for the next four months, May through August, I am not going to attempt to be anyone other than exactly who I am.  I am not going to attempt to change myself in any way.  I am not going to attempt to accomplish anything.  I am simply going to get up, write, walk, work when I'm at work, and be present in my own life.  I don't have to write anything in particular and what I write today doesn't have to relate in any way to what I wrote yesterday.  I am not training for a cross-country bike trip, a triathlon, a marathon, or a three-day walk.  I am not weighing, measuring, or recording food.  I am not formally studying anything.  I am not trying to learn anything.  I am not comparing myself to myself, to an ideal version of myself, or to anyone else.  I am not judging myself.  If I get up, write, exercise, work when I'm at work, and spend the day mostly present in my own life, it will be a good day.  If I get up, fail to write, fail to exercise, fail to work when I'm at work, and spend the day escaping my own life in every way possible, then I will treat myself with the compassion I would treat someone I loved who had had that kind of day, forgive myself, and get up the next day and start over with a clean slate.

That's the basic kernel.

However, as Patrick pointed out the other day, I do tend to introduce complexity into simple plans really quickly and I have introduced a few additional elements.  In my own defense, I have NOT introduced all of the elements I considered adding.  Just to be clear.  I could have made this all SO much more complicated!  (I think I introduce complexity so I won't get bored and simply because I enjoy watching my mind work....)

So, the additional elements:

1) For the first forty days, I have decided that I want to chant Om Namah Shivaya 108 times per day.  It only takes a few minutes and I like the way it sounds.

a) NOTE: For the second set of forty days, I want to switch to Om Mani Padme Hum. 

b) NOTE: I've read that you will begin to create obstacles to getting your chanting/meditation in once you've committed to a forty day practice.  It's supposed to take some time before you start making it difficult for yourself--like 35 days or so.  I, being the advanced soul that I am, however, managed to create an obstacle on day three--I lost the prayer bracelet I was using to help me keep count of my repetitions!  Obviously, there are other solutions, but for now, I've simply changed the practice so that instead of keeping to a strict 108 repetitions, I chant for five minutes each day, as well as any time I find myself doing any kind of housework.  Hey, it doesn't have to make sense....

2) I have set up a fundraising page to the American Lung Association.  It is true that I am not taking a true journey this summer.  I'm not going anywhere or doing anything particularly heroic or exciting or remarkable.  I am not pushing physical boundaries, but I will be pushing emotional and spiritual ones.  I will be trying to learn how to be alone with myself--in the middle of my busy, noisy, far-from-alone life--and stay in the present.

Ten years ago, when I went on the Big Ride Across America, the theme was breath.  If you can't breathe, nothing else matters.  As an asthmatic novice cyclist, breathing was my central concern.  And, as Zoi and Welmoed and Ron and Randy and Arturo and Cindy will attest, there were times when the breathing came hard and I was scared and the people around me were scared for me.  There were long nights when I did nothing but focus on my breath while I waited for the medical tent to open so I could get a nebulizer treatment.  There was a hospital run in the mountains of Idaho.  There were so many times when I relied on other people to walk me to a bus or to the nursing station instead of to my bike.

This summer, my breathing is under much better control (thank you, Big Pharma!), but breath will again be my central theme.  Breathing is what keeps you centered in the moment, in the here, in the now, in your body exactly where you are.  It is where you meet yourself. It is where you meet the Divine.  And so, I will be breathing consciously this summer and thinking not only about the times when I couldn't breathe, but about all the people who forget to breathe in the middle of their crazy, chaotic lives and especially about all the people who can't forget to breathe because breathing does not come easily.

That's why the fundraising page for the American Lung Association.  I owe the ALA so much for giving me the opportunity to learn about myself ten years ago as I attempted to cross the country under my own power.  I had hoped that if I ever published my memoir about the Big Ride I would be able to donate the proceeds to the ALA, but ten years later, the manuscript has not seen publication.  (Did I give up too soon? Maybe.  Is the manuscript not ready? Maybe.  Is the market for memoirs too crowded for a story as simple as mine? Maybe.)  Dedicating this summer's at-home meditation retreat to the ALA is my small attempt to give something back and say thank you once again for all the work they do helping people with the most central of all daily functions.  So, if you feel inspired (inspire, by the way, is Latin for "to breathe"!), please click on the link at the right to make a secure donation to the American Lung Association.  My thanks to you in advance!

And, one final rule: I only get to blog here after my thirty minutes of writing for the day are done.  No fair trying to use this public space as a stand-in for the personal space to which I am dedicating myself.

And, now, I'm off to my Om Namah Shivaya's and then to sleep.

Peace.

K 

Posted by Kristine at 10:29 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, May 5, 2008 11:47 PM EDT

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