I've thought about ways of explaining how I realized I brought my Big Ride Self home with me at the end of summer in 1998 when I thought I'd abandoned her or banished her somewhere between Washington, D.C. where the Big Ride ended and Hampton, Virginia where I spent several weeks in mourning over the Big Ride's end and Seattle when I finally returned home.

I think the best, though more chaotic way, is to just include here the journal entry from June 24, 2008 that brought the realization to me. Please forgive the fact that I begin by writing in the first person and quickly switch to second person--this is what I do when my "higher self" takes over and starts parenting.  Also, please forgive the all caps segments--these are not me yelling at you, the reader, but my higher self emphatically lecturing the real world me.  Let's see, anything else I need to apologize for before I begin?  Well, I guess I could also ask you to forgive the way it kind of trails off at the end....

Journal Entry June 24, 2008 

So Big Ride 1998, for me, was all about feeling at peace with myself, being okay with whatever choice I made in any situation, listening to and honoring my inner voice, letting go of rules and "shoulds" and just being in the moment.  This was me at my best for an extended period of time.

But maybe what I need to do to bring me at my best home is not to get rid of all the things that frustrate me, and not to create an artificially serene household for a few months, but to actually muck around in the things that frustrate me, to wallow in all my imperfections and put them on display (a little; maybe...), to get really frustrated, really bored, really angry - to fully feel all the extremes of emotion I try so hard to modulate and to fully face "this is my life now" - these are the choices I've made, these are the consequences, this is what my body looks like, this is what my professional life looks like,  this is what my financial life looks like.  It's okay to want to change as much of it as you want, but before you can change it, you have to face it, own it, accept it, praise or forgive yourself for it, and then take a deep breath and decide where to go next.

Recoiling from the messiness of life and the judgments of others and the financial realities of living in modern America after the Big Ride ended did not make any of the messiness or the jugdments or realities go away.  I will never live in a perfect world where I am my perfect self and always at peace no matter how thin I get, no matter how much money I make or the manner in which I earn it.  Getting a new life partner or simply getting rid of the one I have will not ensure that I will always feel loved, never feel lonely, or will always be free to do what I want to do at any given moment.  Having a baby will not complete me or my life any more than finding a man willing to share my life has and it would be completely irresponsible of me, as an adult, to place the burden of my happiness on a child who needs nurturing from me, not to be the nurturer.

Enlightenment is NOT FREEDOM from the uncertainties and volatility and responsibilities of daily life; it is not seeking safe haven and shutting oneself off from the world that "less evolved" souls inhabit.  It is Tad's stillpoint.  It is recognizing your anchor and trusting that you won't be blown away in the winds; it is finding joy and peace and love in any circumstance; it is remembering that all are one and that you are at once outside the turmoil and the turmoil itself.  You don't always get to choose your circumstances; you do always get to choose your response.

For ten years I've been trying to figure out how to engineer an environment - a career, a home, a body - in which I can be my best self, how to get rid of most of the bad or scary stuff so I can concentrate mostly on the good and exciting stuff.  I have been trying to change me and how I operate in the world - which may be nobler than focusing outside of myself - but the truth is that there is nothing to change.  Acceptance is all I can do.  Awareness is all I can do.  Forgiveness is all I can do.  And acceptance, awareness, forgiveness, and love can happen anywhere; they are meant to happen everywhere.

Yes, there are things you can want to change - keeping the house neater because it will make life easier and make Hans feel more comfortable, losing weight so you are taking care of the gift-vessel you inhabit and can enjoy yourself more fully - but THESE ARE NOT MORAL ISSUES. AS WITH FOOD, THERE IS NO GOOD OR BAD.  THERE IS EASIER AND THERE IS HARDER. THERE IS MORE AND LESS COMFORTABLE.  Solving any of these problems does not bring enlightenment.  Solving any of these problems does not insure happiness.  Solving any of these problems does not make you good or bad, does not get you into Heaven, does not ward off bad events or sad or scary or uncomfortable emotions.  NONE OF THESE THINGS WARD OFF DEATH.  Some may slow aging, retard decay, create more ease or peace, but you and everyone you love are all going to die.  You can either live your life or hide from it.  If you put restrictions on it - I only want this kind of life; Life is only important or meaningful when I'm on an adventure, wildly in love, or sticking to a strict schedule - then you are denying your life.  YOU ARE NOT LIVING YOUR LIFE IF YOU ARE SAYING NO.  YOUR ARE FULLY CAPABLE OF LIVING - OF FULL, JOYOUS, AWARE, CONSCIOUS, CONNECTED LIVING - EVERY MOMENT NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE, no matter how big your body is, no matter what you just ate or want to eat, no matter who you are with, no matter the circumstance, no matter the tone or range of emotions that are buffeting you.

To get the Big Ride "you" home, all you have to do is throw open your arms!!  All you have to do is accept yourself fully exactly as you are and accept her into your arms.  You have not LET her come home.  She did not get lost.  REAL LIFE DIDN'T FRIGHTEN HER AWAY.  You said, "No, I don't want to 'taint' her with all the REAL LIFE stuff" as though it were beneath her or would harm or debase her and YOU SHUT YOUR EYES AND HEART to her. 

The truth is, you are her and she did come home and she has been with you every moment of every day and sometimes you let yourself experience her and when you did not experience her it was because you made a judgment.  "No, not here."  "No, not this."  "No, not me in this moment."

You switched off the judgment switch for seven weeks in the summer of 1998.  You remember the moment you switched it off on top of a sun baked hill in Eastern Washington on Day Two.  You pleaded with Ron not to switch his on too soon; then, soon after him, you switched yours back on.  Do you remember when?  It was Day 48 and the Ride ended and you were understandably SAD - SAD IS LIFE! - but you mistook the Ride - the thought form - for some magical doorway that had opened and now had closed, excluding you once again from your true self, your best self, your non-judgmental self.  YES, some environments and experiences may make getting REAL, becoming AWARE easier, but it was your mistake, your judgment that closed the door.  You chose to dwell in sadness and depression - based on your mistaking the Ride for a portal - instead of surfing those emotions from the same rooted, aware, strong, capable center you had occupied for the seven weeks prior.

Your Big Ride SELF is YOU; she is right beside you; SHE IS YOUR CORE AND YOU HAVE INSTANTANEOUS ACCESS TO HER, TO YOUR HIGHER SELF, IN EVERY MOMENT, IN EVERY BREATH!  If you ever doubt this, pick up a pen!  Close your eyes and breathe in and out.

STOP JUDGING

Yourself

Your actions

Your feelings

Your job

Your love life

Your eating habits

Your organizational habits

Your wishes

Your longings

Your "flaws"

Your BODY

Your family

Your finances

Flip

the

switch

OFF

and

LEAVE

IT

OFF !!! 

Judgment comes from within!!

Only if I judge do others' judgments matter!!!

I was afraid of other people's judgments regarding how I'd spent my summer, but this was REALLY JUST ME JUDGING MYSELF, putting words in their mouths, being AFRAID.

IF I DON'T JUDGE MYSELF, I DO NOT FEAR YOUR JUDGMENTS.

IF I CHOOSE TO LOVE AND ACCEPT AND TRUST MYSELF IN EVERY MOMENT, YOUR JUDGMENTS CANNOT AND WILL NOT AFFECT ME.

FEAR FOLLOWS JUDGMENT. 

not this school

not these people

not this guy; not this guy now

not this job

not this way

not according to your rules

I know how to say "no" or "yes."  I have a hard time finding the healthy boundaries between the two. 

Posted by Kristine at 8:56 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, June 30, 2008 10:49 PM EDT

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Mood:  flirty

Okay, so Big Ride Me is home and the welcome mat is out--we're ready for visitors!

I took two days off from work last week for a teaching gig that fell through, but I decided I could still use a little time off so I stayed home and cleaned my house.  Someone called in the middle of the day and sent me into a little tailspin that became a monster existential crisis for a few hours.  I have been working really hard on not getting sucked into the ego and the "real world" structures of my life in the last few months and suddenly felt in a crisis over how to balance my spiritual ideals and the real life crap that falls into my life, how to balance spirit and body or spirit and form.  How to balance Being and doing.  I ended up hearing myself asking a question I haven't asked in a very long time, "Why am I here?"

In therapy, the words "perfectionism" and "all or nothing" have come up more than once.  (These words follow me around from therapist to therapist.)  And what I realized in the middle of my crisis on Thursday is that I have had an all or nothing mindset in how I view my purpose on Earth.  I am either all "spiritual" and trying to live up to my ideals or else I'm completely caught up in the drama of "real life."  When I get caught up in the ideals, I forget to take care of my physical world--my body, my house, and to the extent that I am able to ignore or resist them, my relationships and jobs.  When I get caught up in the drama, I get depressed and feel stuck and start making unrealistic demands on my physical world as a means of trying to alleviate some of the pain of being so incredibly mired in reality.  Either way, I'm unhealthy.

Danielle had mentioned Eckhart Tolle's new book, A New Earth, to the people at our table at a party a few months back, so I picked up a copy.  While waiting for a website to download the other day, I picked it up and started to read.  During my crisis last week, I skipped forward six chapters and continued reading.  I finally understand now that I am 50% spirit and 50% body; that I can't neglect "reality" because I chose this life, and my body and reality are the media through which my spirit works.  It's okay to have goals in real life and it's okay--and necessary!--to take care of my body because they are my tools for manifestation.  

The analogy I found for myself is that I am an actor who has been cast in a particular part in a particular play and in order to be successful in playing that part, I have to use all the tools at my disposal to flesh out the character and inhabit her fully so that I can bring forth this grander vision through her.   How she looks and moves and thinks and dresses and speaks and listens and responds--all the ways she interacts with others in the world--defines to a large degree how the character will be perceived and how "successful" I as the actress will be in fulfilling my obligation to play this role.  Of course, attention to each of these traits requires some forethought and choices--is this the way this character would really dress? would she really say that?--but once the play has begun, the actress must attend to small details in each moment and remain fully present to make the most of her interactions with other actors and the audience, to capitalize on tiny opportunities, to fully realize the true dimensions of her character within the physical constraints imposed by the rules of this particular play. 

It's crazy that it's so simple: 50% spirit, 50% body; attend to both. But I have been silly happy ever since coming to that understanding.  I went to Danielle's class on Friday and was so happy I had a hard time not disrupting the others with my laughter.  I gave Danielle a silly smile at the end of class when she was going around bowing to each of us and saying her "Namaste's" and caused her to break her own composure.

This isn't the whole of it--there was the writing I did earlier last week that caused me to realize that Big Ride Me was already home but that I had been neglecting her for years.  I'll write about that later tonight.  (Sorry that I don't do things in the correct order to make them easier on readers!  One of the inherent problems in blogging, for me, is that I blog about what I need to write about at any given moment and hope that anyone reading will hang in with me, when truly good writing would take its audience into account from the very beginning and would lay things out in an interesting, if not completely logical, way.  Sigh....)

Posted by Kristine at 11:29 AM EDT

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Mood:  celebratory

I considered skipping the chapter on our fourth day as it was a rest day, but then I realized that I haven't given any indication so far of what camp life on The Big Ride was like.  So here are two more chapters recounting the evening of Day 3 and Days 4 and 5. 

And on the Fourth Day, We Rested


The first sixty hours of the GTE Big Ride cost me nothing except tired  muscles, aching lungs, and a few dollars for antacid tablets and a new tube from the bike tech.  On the eve of our first rest day in Kennewick, Washington, that was about to change.  Up until now, I had been largely at the mercy of the ride organizers, staying on route, camping in my designated spot, eating the food provided, and running so far at the back of the pack that I didn't have time to stop to buy lunch.  Once my gear was located and my tent was set up on the grass of the Columbia River Park in Kennewick, however, I would be left to my own devices for the next thirty-six hours.  Comparatively, they would be expensive hours.

My spending spree began with June chatting in that charming, Maine accent of hers about her desire for a margarita.  Although I don't often drink, I do love Mexican food, and I was itching to get into town and see something other than plowed fields and Port-A-Potties.  Plus, I hadn't talked to Hans since my flat just outside Pit 1 on the first day and was on the hunt for a pay phone.  It didn't take long before June had persuaded me to skip dinner at the meal tent in favor of a hike into town.  Apparently it didn't take much for her to persuade Ron, either, and soon after we had established camp and showered, the three of us headed down a path along the river we somehow knew would lead to town.

We hadn't gone far when we found a bar that served margaritas and nachos--hardly a Mexican restaurant, but close enough to suit our needs.  After June was happily sucking down her drink and we had ordered dinner, I excused myself to call Hans.  He answered quickly.  It became clear early in the conversation that he was feeling left out and a little jealous, and that was why he had followed the ride as long as he did on the first day.  There was no anger in his voice, however, nor any sign of disappointment in me.  We were friends again.

I told him about the changes in weather and landscape and about my need to sag each day due to route closure, flat tires, or exhaustion, either mental or physical.  He said he was wearing the silver Big Ride dog tag I had given him around his neck, as he planned to do every day while I was on the road.  Several people at work had asked him about it and begun following the Big Ride's progress from the website that was updated daily with photos and information about our mileage, the weather, and vignettes about individual riders and their experiences on the road.  He said he was looking forward to calling family and friends to give them an update on how I was doing.  We ended the call by confirming our date to each see The X-Files Movie the following Wednesday, my next rest day off the bike, and I promised to call so we could compare notes.

I returned to my nachos and Sprite feeling much lighter than I had since Hans and I said good-bye three days earlier.  June, Ron and I talked about where we were from and which American Lung Association bike treks we had done previously--me being the only one for whom this was the first organized ride.

June and I also compared notes on our asthma. Hers appeared to be worse than mine, as she had already experienced several courses of oral steroids and owned her own nebulizer, a machine that released liquid albuterol in a mist form to break attacks that a normal inhaler wasn't strong enough to handle.  To date, I had never been hospitalized for asthma, nor had I ever used oral steroids. The previous winter I had needed my first doctor administered nebulizer treatment, but no mention had been made of me needing to own one.  Though a disease was the last thing I wanted to have in common with someone, it was reassuring to meet this woman who had more experience with asthma and with cycling.

The bar was nearly empty, but by the time we left, my throat was feeling scratchy.  I assumed it was from secondhand cigarette smoke.  It was an early warning sign, but I didn't take it very seriously, thinking it would be gone by morning.

It was twilight when we arrived back in camp.  Several riders were sitting along the edge of the Columbia River, watching the colors in the sky change.  The river was wide along the edge of the park and swift.  Typically, I am drawn to water.  That night, however, I found the Port-A-Potty, found my tent, and went straight to sleep.


Day Four, our "rest day," went by just as swiftly as the river I hardly noticed and was hardly restful.  I woke to a beautiful, sunny morning and ate breakfast under the Big Tent with Cynthia and Zoi, enjoying the Froot Loops so much I went back for a second bowl.  Cynthia, on the other hand, was using this ride to make a conscious attempt at weight-loss and was very careful about what she ate.  Zoi and I were concerned about her putting restrictions on her food intake as the miles we were putting in burned calories fast, but she wouldn't be swayed.

After breakfast, Cynthia, Richard--an experience cyclist from Seattle
whom I had come to know in pre-Ride meetings and who had advised me to buy the Rodriguez I was riding so I could be ensured a good fit--and I wandered into town.  We were in search of a bike shop.  We caught a bus into Kennewick from a stop not far from the bar where I had had dinner the night before and arrived at a cycle shop brimming over with Big Riders scavenging jerseys, well-padded shorts, tubes, mirrors, locks, lube, patch kits, and energy bars.  I was hoping to find a blue replacement lens for my Rudy Project glasses, but was out of luck as the shop didn't carry that brand.  I would have to wear them with the clear lenses I'd brought that offered no relief from the sun.  Nor was I able to find any tubes to fit my small tires.  For my only purchase, I chose a monster bike lock that I would soon discover was too heavy to be practical for everyday use.  Then the three of us crossed the street to a grocery store where I picked up a new hairbrush and a laundry bag to hold my dirty clothes.

The afternoon consisted of doing laundry at a small Laundromat next door to a physical therapist's office in a strip mall.  Behind the glass window that read, "Tri-Cities Physical Therapy" stood a coat rack with someone's colorful GTE Big Ride Tyvek jacket hanging from one of the hooks.  Something about that seemed humorous, and I stopped to take a picture.  I also took a picture of the calf of a rider who had tattooed the Big Ride's red, white, and blue bicycle logo there.

The Laundromat turned out to be the place to be if you were a Big Rider, and it was fun to talk to people I hadn't yet met.  I learned more about Richard, who as far as I could determine had been content to live a life always slightly outside the mainstream.  When we had met, his long, silver hair had been pulled back into a ponytail.  Before the ride, he had cut it much shorter into a traditional men's style, though there was something about his demeanor that still suggested "hippie."  At the very least, he seemed to typify the outdoorsy, well-educated, independent thinking Seattleite who had lived in the Pacific Northwest long before grunge music arrived on the national scene.  Throughout the day, and into the days to come, we discussed religions, morality issues, and lifestyle choices, as Richard found me receptive to certain topics he admitted he couldn't discuss with many people.  I was struck by his views, and by the depth of thought and research that had gone into shaping them, and found myself forming a new appreciation for this person with whom I had only a few weeks before determined I had little in common.

Cynthia, however, was friendly as always, but her open, smiling face stood in sharp contrast to the fierceness with which she guarded details about her life at home and about her personal views. All I learned was that she had young children and worked in a high-tech job in Ohio.  She obviously had a brain and knew how to use it, but what was going on inside it was anybody's guess.

When we had finished our laundry and eaten lunch at the take-out pizza counter a few doors down, we headed into town to see a showing of the newly released The Truman Show at Columbia Center Cinema.  Inside the theater, I had to keep reminding myself where I was.  In four days on the road, I hadn't yet learned how to anchor myself in a moment and in the particular place I happened to be.  Instead, my mind kept slipping away, trying to find some match in my memory with a movie theater I'd been in before, perhaps in Michigan or California, to tell me where I was.  In the air-conditioned darkness, Cynthia's exhaustion got the better of her.  She drifted off during the movie, and awakened startled and embarrassed.  Richard and I agreed the movie was a great start to the summer season, and made plans to see The X-Files Movie during our next day off.

During our rest days, OK's Cascade Company, the catering crew traveling with us, provided only breakfast, leaving us on our own for dinner.  The three of us were running low on energy, and were happy to find a Shari's restaurant just down the road.   We were even happier when the manager found out we were with the Big Ride and drove us back to camp after dinner.

I said good night to Cynthia and Richard as soon as we arrived, somewhat surprised by the little squeeze Richard gave my hand before heading in the direction of his own tent, and retired early to repack my clean clothes and organize my bag which had become disheveled in an amazingly short period of time.

Sometime later, I was awakened by Richard whispering outside my tent.  "Kristine, you need to get up and attach your rain fly." He moved down the row of tents in the dark awakening others, and we all drowsily emerged, fastened our rain flies to protect ourselves from the drizzle that had begun, and crawled back inside to sleep.  It was a good sleep, and, as I was learning would be the case most days on the Big Ride, morning--as did night--would come too soon.

A Change of Pace

I awoke the next morning to find the rain had turned camp into a maze of mud puddles.  Although the drops themselves had stopped, everything was wet, and the sun was nowhere to be seen.  It wouldn't be fair to say the morning had an ominous feel about it, but I certainly didn't feel as optimistic as I had on previous mornings.  It was impossible to completely dry my tent before folding it up and stuffing it back inside its sack and the Purple Monster.  All I could hope was that I finished the day's seventy-seven miles before the wetness from the tent soaked into my clothes and sleeping bag, a somewhat laughable goal given my track record so far.

Richard found me in bike parking and asked if it would be all right if he rode with me for awhile.  I was still nervous about my bike handling skills and my endurance level, and I welcomed the company of a more seasoned rider.  I hadn't even made it out of camp before I was able to benefit from his experience.  On the dirt road leading out of the park, I flatted my front tire and Richard changed the tube for me, taking the time to explain the steps he took in removing the tire and the tube, locating the hole in the tube, wiping the inside of the tire with a cotton ball to pick up any debris that might cause another puncture, sprinkling baby powder into the tire to reduce friction, partially inflating the new tube before inserting it into the tire rim, zipping the tire back on with my Speed Lever, and fully inflating the tube.

This was my fifth flat in as many days.  This was also the fifth flat I had had repaired by a kind male.  My feminist tendencies, stemming all the way back to fifth grade when I proudly wore a pink T-shirt that said "No Way, First Lady--I Wanna' Be President" in glitter and pledged to get a Ph.D. so people would have to refer to my husband and me as Mr. and Dr. Happily Ever After, had all but been obliterated by these first days of the Big Ride.  I had yet to miss them.  Out here, practicality seemed to be the name of the game, and if someone else was willing and able to do something better and faster than I was, I was grateful for the help and not shy about asking for it.

Thanks to Richard, we got on the road before camp closed, picking up Zoi on our way out.  She had bought handlebar extenders for her bike in Kennewick the day before.  They curved back over the original handlebar, giving her the ability now to alternate hand positions throughout the day and hopefully to rid her wrists and forearms of the pain she'd been suffering.  She also had followed the example of some of our more creative fellow riders and purchased hard-sided storage lockers for her gear to replace the duffel she had been using.  Her morning had started badly when the crew member in charge of the G/H gear truck refused to allow Zoi to deposit her lockers, arguing that the truck wouldn't be able to hold everyone's gear if every rider switched to this kind of storage container.  After much argument, Zoi had won, at least temporarily, but she was obviously still upset as she recounted the incident for me.

At the edge of camp, the route headed toward the wide Columbia River. In those first moments, my fear of bridges resurfaced.  Then, I had to submerge it again, pedaling with my eyes straight ahead and my legs maintaining an even, determined rhythm as we rode single file over the Blue Bridge, onto Highway 12 headed east, and over another bridge across the Snake River.

Just outside of Kennewick, we encountered long, rolling hills through yet more shrub steppe and alternated taking turns in the lead. The sky was brightening, but it was still a gray, hazy day.  In the pit of my stomach, I could feel my emotions roiling around with the breakfast my body was still attempting to digest.  It was as though all my hope, joy, and pride had been burned out during that long, hot, windy stretch through the Hanford Reservation two days before.  All that was left was a resignation to be on the bike and to face whatever happened to be around the next curve or over the next hill as I encountered it.  I climbed hills on the bike with determination, but derived little pleasure from Richard's compliments on my strength.  I stopped to rest without embarrassment.  We shared conversation as we rode which I appreciated, but I could not shake the feeling of apprehension that had settled in my body.

My companions informed me we were riding through the Columbia River Gorge as we neared Pit 1 at the eighteen-mile mark.  I had heard plenty about this region from my parents and sister after their first trip through here and from friends who traveled here for summer music concerts.  It was not as grand as I had expected and was quite industrial as the part we were pedaling through seemed to be used as a port for container ships.  In brighter sunshine or a brighter mood, I might have been able to find its beauty.  This morning, however, we just kept pedaling toward the pit stop in Madame Dorian Park.

At the entrance, our motorcycle safety coordinator was standing in the intersection, motioning to us it was safe to make the left turn across traffic into the parking lot.  We stopped only long enough to use the Port-A-Potties before walking our bikes out to the road.  Along the way, we encountered a man with a flat attempting to re-inflate his patched tube with a small hand pump.  I offered him the use of my Topeak Master Blaster, a nifty, full-size bike pump that attached to my bike's top tube when not in use and had a small pedal at the bottom that flipped down so it could be used as a floor pump.  The cyclist was impressed, as were his friends.  I admitted that my ownership of the pump was the result of having a husband who insisted on doing product research prior to purchasing almost anything.  I left out the part that in this instance I had ignored Hans's process and bought a hand pump first, which had caused me to bend the pin in my wheel, before I returned it and succumbed to doing my research.  As the pump got passed around from man to man, Richard offered to stay while the men used it, then catch up to us, if Zoi and I wanted to ride on alone.  So the two of us set out to tackle the next thirty miles to Pit 2 in Walla Walla.

Then the real misery set in.  As the morning turned to afternoon, the heat of the day increased, and the sun crept out from behind its cloud cover.  The road was mostly uphill, though on a gentle grade, and we were doing our best to maintain a steady pace.  Our legs for the most part were fine; other body parts in more intimate contact with the bike, however, were definitely not.  We complained that with all the money we had spent on our bikes and with all the technology that goes into bike and gear design, you'd think someone could come up with a comfortable saddle.  We had seen other riders, usually the older ones, with pillows strapped to their seats or overstuffed, leopard print fake fur covered saddles that they could sink into.  Although I knew those could not be the most efficient solutions to the problem, a large part of me wished to pass a pillow factory.  Instead, I was riding a very flat men's racing saddle shoved as far back from the handlebars as possible, because it was the only one R & E Cycles could find long enough to accommodate my apparently disproportionately long thighs. Every few minutes, I could see Zoi shift position on her saddle, reminding me how uncomfortable I was, and causing me to shift as well.  This constant attention to pain made the miles even longer.

We passed a few pairs of riders and were surprised to see that already by Day Five, several of the men had given up attempting to be discree and had taken to peeing mere feet from the pavement in plain view. Some of them even waved at us or said hello as we rode by, as thoug some Mr. Manners of the cycling world had instructed them that this was the polite thing to do in just such an instance.  I had to admit to being slightly envious that it was so simple for men, especially since I had yet to relax my muscles enough to pee successfully en route even when hidden from the road.  I regretted not buying the funnel and tube system I had seen advertised for women cyclists, because even though I would never have the dexterity to use it on the bike as it was intended, it would have been useful to have in the bushes!

We needed to be in and out of Pit 2 by 2:00 p.m., and were worried we weren't going to make it.  We were starving, but knew we couldn't afford to stop for lunch until we'd passed through the pit stop. This was the first time I'd experienced real hunger while cycling.  I might have found it more amusing or encouraging if it weren't for the fact that the hunger was mixed with nausea.  As we neared Walla Walla, we began pedaling through onion fields and the smell was horrible.  The onions were everywhere, lying by the side of the road and even on the blacktop, obviously dropped from the back of trucks during transportation.  Ever since the summer during college when I had worked the opening shift at a Taco Bell in Ann Arbor and had been forced daily to chop onions until they seeped through my skin and I could taste them on my tongue, I couldn't stand anything about an onion.  These large, sweet globes excited other riders, who peeled and ate them raw and whole by the side of the road, as though they were apples instead.

At last it seemed Zoi and I had stumbled across the solution to our time-crunched hunger.  Rising out of the onion fields was a convenience store and gas station!  We stopped long enough for Zoi to run in and buy a couple of candy bars.  As we straddled our bikes in the parking lot, racing to eat the chocolate before it melted all over us, Richard caught up to us and handed back the air pump. Chocolate truly is the panacea for all ills biking related, and my spirits were buoyed as the three of us reentered the roadway.

We pushed toward the pit with a good pace and had nearly arrived when the recumbent bicycle Richard had built himself got a flat tire.  We stopped in front of a take-out burger stand where several other Big Riders were enjoying lunch while Richard rolled the ailing bike to the curb and told us he didn't have what he needed to fix it.  He would have to flag down a SAG vehicle.  Before Zoi and I pushed off, however, Richard produced a small glass vial and asked me to carry it. Prior to the Big Ride's beginning in Seattle, Richard had pedaled to Neah Bay on Washington's Pacific Coast.  There he dipped the rear wheel of his bike in the ocean and collected this vial of water before pedaling with it back home to Seattle.  He had vowed to carry the water vial across the country and to continue on past Washington, D. C. at the other end of the trip to dip his front tire in the Atlantic.  He asked me if I would carry the vial, as he wanted it to travel by bicycle across the entire continent.

I protested, "I haven't ridden an entire day's mileage yet.  Maybe you better ask someone else."

Richard smiled and refused to change his mind. "You're going to make it."

I placed the vial in the pouch of my CamelBak, and Zoi and I set out again carrying this liquid treasure and the weight of another man's vision.  We pedaled into Washington Park at 2:00 on the nose, just in time to hear Karen shouting that the pit was closing.  After we filled our water bottles and stopped quickly at the Port-A-Potties, we headed back out in search of food.

Not far down the road we found a Taco Bell, leaned our bikes unlocked against one of the windows, and ordered and ate altogether too much food.  We sat among other riders and crew members, and learned that one of the riders had been assaulted with a pop bottle thrown from the window of a passing van. Luckily, the rider was shook up, but not hurt.  The police had been called as throwing anything at a moving vehicle, including a bicycle, was a felony, but no one held much hope that the perpetrator would be caught.  Most of the rest of us had had rude comments yelled at us from passing vehicles and had witnessed a crudely handwritten sign hung along the route that read, "Bicycles make good targets."  As we all agreed we would be happy to put distance between ourselves and Walla Walla, I thought of my new Big Ride friend Susan who was a teacher in this community and who had proudly passed out small, white, onion shaped pins with the town's name stamped in gold to riders at breakfast.  The news of these things would surely sadden her on what should have been such a triumphant day.

I followed Zoi back out onto the route, which led past an elementary school and a row of small but charming houses before dumping us back on SR 12 East.  Our bodies seemed to have adjusted to the saddles, and our hunger was gone, but I had a completely new complaint.  This was the first full-sized meal I had ever eaten in the middle of a day of riding.  It sat in my stomach as if I had skipped the tortillas and beans and eaten an entire can of lard instead.  I was even more sluggish than usual, and as a result, even more whiney.  If Zoi had wanted to ride off and leave me, it certainly wouldn't have been a challenge.  We rode through a construction zone on pavement that was alternately pocked and ancient and smooth, new, and perfectly black, before heading back out into farmlands.  An hour down the road the lard had melted and redistributed itself to other parts of my body, and my need for a nap was much less acute.

My need for a Port-A-Potty, however, was strong--that'll teach me to drink a large Mountain Dew with lunch.  Luckily, we were now riding through slightly greener pastures, and there were trees and shrubs shielding some of the rolling fence lines from the highway.  I waited by the road with the bikes while Zoi tried to find suitable seclusion in the brush.  A male cyclist rode by and called out to her, while she was clothed and still searching, "I can still see you!"  My sphincter muscles clenched even more tightly at his rudeness, and I anticipated several hours of pain before I would be able to find a Port-A-Potty at Pit 3.  Zoi, however, returned several minutes later, successful.

My turn.  I headed toward the line of bushes behind me, finding a relatively secluded spot behind a tree.  Although I had been able to find no literature on the women's long-distance cycling skill of peeing by the side of the road, I had picked up a few tips from some of the other Washington riders in recent days.  Supposedly, it helped to relax all the right muscles if you held onto a branch of a tree and leaned back to take some of the weight off your thighs.  I grabbed a branch with one hand, and held my lycra shorts forward with the other, taking care to position myself on the hill so as to not soak either shoe, leaned back and tried to imagine myself relaxed.  This was no small task, and for several moments I feared I would fail as I had previously.  Today was apparently my lucky day, however, and when I finally emerge from seclusion, I had a wide, triumphant grin on my face.

"I did it!" I called to Zoi, who understood that this really was an accomplishment for me, and didn't laugh.  At least now, hopefully, I could put the threat of a bladder infection behind me and enjoy the trip more easily.

Back on the bikes, we leapfrogged up and down the hills with a couple of other women and rolled into Dixie under a gorgeous blue sky in full sunshine. Dixie was as small and quaint a town as its name might imply with well-maintained, decoratively trimmed, two story gingerbread houses lined up neatly along a friendly sidewalk.  We stopped at a small, old-fashioned grocery store for more candy bars and ate them outside on the porch, partly as a reward for the sixty miles we'd ridden already, and partly as a chance to gear up for the climb that awaited us on the other side of town.

We had only ten miles to go from the grocery store to Pit 3 at the elementary school in the next town of Waitsburg.  Even as Zoi and I alternately pedaled and walked up the hill out of Dixie, I began to hope that for the first time I would make Pit 3 under my own power.  Richard's water vial was still in my CamelBak.  His expectations that I would finish the day nibbled away at the corner of my mind.

When we finally reached the top of the three-mile climb, Zoi went zipping down the other side.  I, on the other hand, approached the downhill every bit as cautiously as I had all the ones leading up to it.  I allowed myself to coast for a few moments, then applied the brakes to lessen my speed and convince myself I could stop if I wanted to, before letting them back out and testing them again a few moments later.  Zoi was now long-gone from sight.

Despite my trepidation, however, neither the joy of coasting nor the sensual combination of the afternoon's golden light, fragrant fields, and smooth, hot asphalt was lost on me.  I was ecstatic when I finally reached the bottom of the hill and coasted to a stop in front of Zoi, patiently standing by the side of the road and looking back at me.

"Karen drove by and saw me standing here and asked what I was doing.  I told her I was waiting for Kristine to come down the hill! They're closing Pit 3, but she said we should just keep riding into camp." Zoi smiled as she relayed this.  I had to wonder yet again why she bothered with me.  She seemed happy enough, though, as she climbed back on her bike and led me the last ten miles into Dayton.  On the edge of town, we passed Richard, flat repaired, heading in the other direction.  He waved, crossed the road, and fell in line with us.

"I knew you'd make it!" he shouted. "I wanted to come out and escort you into camp."

"It's all because of Zoi," I said. "She's been pulling me all day."

"Oh, I knew you were going to be okay as soon as I saw you pulling us up that hill this morning while you were still in your big chain ring."

I am sure Richard knew that at this point in my still novice cycling career, my climbing hills in big gears had much more to do with stupidity than strength.  Although I had been careful to choose a bike with a triple chain ring to give myself extra climbing options, I had not yet trained myself to shift down before attempting a hill.  This probably accounted to some degree for the frequency with which I walked.  It probably also accounted to some degree for the speed with which my power on the bike increased in the early part of the journey.

Zoi, Richard, and I cycled into downtown Dayton just before 6:00 p.m.  It was Friday night and the town had an air of excitement about it, something I attributed more to the town's preparation for a weekend of parades and antique cars than to my own exhilaration at finally finishing an entire day's mileage.  As we rounded a corner into camp at Fishing Ponds Park, Ron stepped off the sidewalk, and recognizing my accomplishment, called his congratulations with a genuine smile on his face.  I grinned back, unable to help myself even if I'd wanted to.

We parked our bikes on the fenced-in basketball court that would house them overnight and soon discovered that the camp's various services were the most spread out they had been to date.  It was a quarter mile walk from bike parking to the camping area, followed by a lengthy, muddy search through a ravine at the bottom of a rock cliff for the gear trucks and our luggage.  By the time we had located and hauled our gear to our tent sites, dinner was well under way.  We skipped showers and headed straight for the catering truck, joining Ron, Randy, Grant and several other Washington riders.  The meal's particulars are now lost from memory.  All I remember is how satisfying it felt to sit under the red and white striped canopy with friends and relax knowing that I had reached a new milestone in my progress on this journey, two if you counted my success by the side of the road earlier in the afternoon.  The morning's trepidation had completely dissolved, never having met the obstacle of which it forewarned.  I pushed my empty plate to one side, leaned back in my plastic folding chair and smiled to myself and anyone else who cared to notice.

Finally, I was a Big Rider.

Posted by Kristine at 12:14 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:22 AM EDT

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Mood:  happy

This is precisely why I don't let myself write.  Because eventually I will get turned on by some idea and I won't be able to quit.  As painful and scary as it is to sit down to write when I am feeling uninspired, it is infinitely more painful to WANT to write and not be able to because "real life" has a schedule to keep and I am required elsewhere.  

I have been in a state of agitation, bordering on distress, all day--in part, I think, because I was dying to get back to my notebook, and in part because of the small but potentially life altering revelation I made last night.  I have been practically mainlining Mountain Dew for the past six hours, caffeine-free, but the full sugar version.  And on the drive home from work, I considered my eat-what-I've-already-bought dinner options--salad, veggie wrap, sandwich, or whole wheat spaghetti with meatless meatballs--and then opted to stop at Food Lion and buy a Digorno Pepperoni Garlic Bread Pizza and a Nestle Crunch bar.  I have eaten the Crunch bar and the pizza is in the oven.  I won't call this a binge--if I'd bought a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food it would be a binge--but I would say I am probably asking my food to serve a purpose for which it was not intended and that I could probably be making better choices.

In fact, I could stop and make a better choice right now.  I could get up, with eleven minutes still left on the oven timer for the pizza, and I could make myself a really tasty, low fat, vegetarian salad in a whole wheat wrap and choose to eat that instead of the pizza.  Or, I could decide that I'm really not hungry after drinking four 16 oz. bottles of Mountain Dew this afternoon, take the dog to the park, and decide what (or whether) to eat when I get home.

But, now, there are only 8 minutes left on the timer and I know that when it buzzes, I am going to slice the pizza (to which I've added pineapple, green olives, and jalapenos) and choose to eat at least 1/4 of it.  I will eat it mindfully, maybe with water even though I still have one more Mountain Dew in the fridge, and at some point I will probably realize that the pizza doesn't make me as happy as I thought it might when I drove to the store to buy it, and, at this point I don't really need it to make me happy because I am home now! and I am writing! and I have written myself back to a place of calm--in only 24 minutes!

But, the rest of the day....

It seemed so odd to me that figuring out the major source of my major depressions and minor unhappinesses would make me antsy and uncomfortable and send me towards food (or Mountain Dew, which doesn't really qualify as food).  [Okay, 4 Mountain Dews in one afternoon is extreme, but I would have known I was really in a crisis if at any time today I got up from my desk and drove to Taco Bell instead of eating the frozen Lean Cuisine I had brought for lunch.  I didn't do that.  So, mini good for me.]

Then, while I was researching the Vedic goddess of the Dawn, Usha (or Ushas), for the divination project I am co-writing, I found the most wonderful quote on the website www.vedah.com:

When the divine consciousness [Usha] dawns on us, it cannot last very long because the human vital which clamours for excitement cannot appreciate the bliss of the divine consciousness which is suffused with calm and is untinged with sorrow.  The ordinary human mental personality which loves to wallow in doubts is not comfortable with the certitude offered by the divine consciousness.  Thus Usha, the divine consciousness, recedes from the human and in its place, naktas, the night or the ordinary consciousness takes its place....

...There is a constant rhythm and alternation of night and dawn, illuminations of Light and periods of exile from it.... 

Posted by Kristine at 10:10 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 10:15 PM EDT

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Mood:  incredulous

I went home last night and got attacked by the need to write as I finished eating dinner.  I picked up the pen and wrote for more than an hour, went to the park with Kaija, came home and wrote several more pages of

LARGE PRINT DIRECTIVES AND THINGS I WANT MYSELF TO

UNDERSTAND AND REMEMBER!

and then ended up telling Hans about the experience on the phone while he drove home from work.

Hans was not the first person I should have talked to about this.  We discussed a few weeks ago that even though he loves me (or maybe because he loves me), he is probably not a "safe person" for me to talk to, as defined by the Don't Diet, Live-It ladies, but Tad wasn't home when I called, and I don't get to see my therapist for two weeks because of the holiday, and I needed to tell someone. 

In short, I figured out where my Self has been hiding out for the last ten years and I know now why I didn't feel she came home with me (when, of course, she did) and I know why I got scared and depressed and fat after the Big Ride ended.  I know why I got depressed when I moved to Farmington as a senior in high school, I know why I couldn't let Ken love me and couldn't trust the love I felt for him, I know why I've stayed fat for most of my adult life.  I know why I can't or haven't chosen a "career" and why I can't or haven't let myself be all the things that I am.  I can tell the difference between pain I've caused myself and pain that's been caused by the world and I'm almost ready to start letting myself experience sadness and pain that is caused by the world.

I don't feel I can get into it here, now, but I will say that it boils down to me being a person who says "no" all the while believing myself to be the kind of person who says "yes" more often than the rest of the world.  It makes me sad.  And a little scared.  And a little confused but maybe a little less confused than I was before.

June 24 might prove to be a day for my personal history book.  For now, let's just say that on the 10th anniversary of the 10th day of the GTE Big Ride Across America I finally realized that my Self is home.  My Self is not yet ready for visitors, though.

More on this, in hopefully clearer language, very soon.

Love,

K

Posted by Kristine at 10:44 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 11:22 AM EDT

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Mood:  caffeinated

Hammerin'



Day Three seemed made just for me.  Brilliant sunshine flooded camp as I packed my gear, ate a breakfast consisting of the same array of foods as the day before, and located my bike inside the fence of a basketball court doubling as bike parking.  While I was applying sunscreen to my as yet pale, bare arms and face, Jose, a cyclist whom I hadn't met before approached with a video camera and explained he was making a documentary before asking why I had chosen to do the ride and whether I thought I'd finish.  At this point, I was still hoping to finish one day's total mileage under my own power, but I was optimistic.  This morning I felt rested and sure today would be the day.

I left camp well before closing, navigating the narrow city streets of Yakima on my own until another, unknown rider passed me, and I decided to see if I could keep up.  He set a good, steady pace, and I was grateful for the motivation.  I don't know where the spunk to follow him came from, but I was having fun and managed to stay with him until we reached SR 24, a level, well-maintained road through fields of vines growing along strings stretched above them.  At this point we began traveling with more riders than I had seen since Day One, passing and being passed sometimes more than once by the same person.  It was a welcome change from riding alone at the back of the pack, and a much needed ego boost.

About an hour down the road, I saw Zoi pulled off onto the shoulder, resting her wrists which had begun to hurt as a result of her bike's straight, mountain bike handlebars that afforded no opportunity to alternate hand positions throughout the day.  She explained that the vines I'd been seeing were hops before getting back on her bike and riding with me to a family home whose driveway and yard at the edge of a pond were being used as Pit 1.

The family's yellow dog trotted in and out of clumps of spandex-clad cyclists who happily scratched his ears or hugged him, although I don't remember seeing any of the human inhabitants of the home whose grounds were totally under siege.  Bikes laid over on the grass formed double lines up both sides of the drive, and two long tables in front of the house held snacks, sports drink, water, sunscreen and medical supplies.  There was also a large piece of poster board for riders to sign as a show of thanks to our brave hosts.

I was able to find a piece of unoccupied lawn in the shade behind the house and sat down to eat a bag of pretzels and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had made in my tent earlier that morning.  During my training rides, I had eaten peanut butter and jelly because it was an easy source of protein and less expensive than energy bars.  So in the belly of the Purple Monster I was carrying a blue plastic washtub for laundry that doubled as a hard-sided container for a jar of peanut butter, a jar of grape jelly, a loaf of bread, 24 Power Bars, 10 Clif Bars, a box of assorted fruit-filled breakfast bars, two cans of tuna, one can of  refried beans, and a knife, fork, and can opener.  I did my best over the course of the first two weeks to make sandwiches in the morning to carry with me on the bike, but it would not be long until I tired of the extra weight in my gear bag and the peanut butter, jelly, and tuna would end up as donations to a snack table in camp.  Many of the bars would remain in the duffel for the course of the entire trip, returning home to Seattle in a slightly mangled zipper freezer bag, only to be thrown out by my husband when he got tired of looking at them in the cupboard the following winter.

The atmosphere at the pit stop was almost that of a carnival.  Between the friendly dog, the pond with a great view of the dormant volcano, Mt. Ranier, in the distance, the sunshine and the good road conditions, everyone was in great spirits.  Dave Bell, Phil Lanier, and Welmoed Sisson, a woman not much older than I was whom I had first come to know over the pre-Ride Internet message boards, were taking it easy in the backyard, and it was nice to see familiar faces at a pit stop.  Since I had been pulling up the rear consistently, I hadn't had much time to people watch, and I enjoyed this opportunity.  I managed to drip grape jelly down my jersey and onto my leg, drawing the attention of the dog who was more than glad to help me clean up.  I squeezed water from the bite-valve of my CamelBak onto my hands, and when I had gotten rid of most of the stickiness, I headed off in search of Zoi and my bike.

Zoi's arms and wrists were still giving her pain, and she had decided to get a ride in a SAG van to the next pit to give them a longer rest.  I found my bike and headed out once again.

The sun was much higher in the sky now and more generous with her heat.  As a dry wind picked up, the terrain became increasingly desert-like.  The first ten miles were mostly on a gentle incline, but I seemed to have the smooth, wide shoulders all to myself for most of the next two hours, making for a glorious ride.  When I stopped to take a short break at the base of a hill, I noticed a large animal skull just inside a barbed wire fence.  Its long cranium and now empty eye sockets had probably once belonged to a cow.  I reminded myself to drink more often than I was used to now that I was in this new, drier climate.

I crested the top of the ten-mile incline and fairly flew the last, ten, sloping miles into Pit 2 at the Silver Dollar Cafe.  This morning had been my first experience with a tail wind, but being unaware of this small miracle of nature, I enjoyed thinking that my body was fast and strong and getting faster and stronger every day.  When I arrived at the pit, I was high on adrenaline and, except for a piece of sand in my right eye from riding without my recently broken sunglasses, feeling invincible.  Zoi was there, grinning under her freckles and sandy brown hair which had been cut so short for the summer its natural wave occasionally caused it to stand up on top.  She was waiting for a ride into camp, and sat with me while I scrounged together some food for lunch and washed my eye with saline solution courtesy of the first aid volunteers.

These long distances were still quite new to me, and the thirty-five miles I had just pedaled felt like a good accomplishment as most of my training rides had been in the twenty-five to thirty-five mile range, with a few longer rides of fifty or sixty miles thrown in.  I still hadn't established a feeling for time on the bike or a rhythm for riding an average of eighty miles a day.  So while I had reached the second pit stop, I hadn't yet completed half of the day's eighty-four miles.  I allowed myself to rest and enjoy the crowd at the pit stop for about an hour, longer than I should have considering the terrain that awaited me, before borrowing Zoi's amber-lensed cycling glasses and climbing back on the bike.

Pit 2 was at the base of a two-and-a-half mile steep climb that promised a two-mile medium descent on the other side.  I was a little nervous about attempting the climb after letting my lungs and muscles relax for so long, but climbed nearly to the top before needing to dismount and walk the last half dozen yards.  At the crest, the wind changed.  It no longer pushed from behind but alternately blasted me in the face and threatened to push me over from the side.  The one bonus was that it slowed me down enough that I felt comfortable riding the entire descent on the bike, another small achievement to feed my ever-strengthening ego.

Unbeknownst to me, however, both my accomplishments and riding pleasure had reached an end for the day.  Seven miles from Pit 2, the route turned onto SR 240, a straight as an arrow highway with very narrow, exposed aggregate shoulders, and a steady stream of fast-hauling semis that led directly through the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, 560 square miles of shrub steppe, sand and sagebrush located on the Columbia River.  Six years earlier I had been an activist for U. S. PIRG, a nonprofit environmental and consumer advocacy group in Washington, D. C., and it would have been my job to know about the nuclear power plant in my backyard.  Recently, however, I had done an unexplained 180-degree turnaround, often preferring to remain ignorant of things that would make me angry or scared.

In the last year, while tutoring students in the government library at the University of Washington, I had seen an entire wall harboring thick tomes about Hanford, but I had not opened one book.  It had seemed more battle than I was ready for.  Now, pedaling through this shrub-steppe with no river in sight, under a clouded over, bone-dry sky, blasted from the right by crosswinds and blasted from the left by passing semis, I watched the tumbling sagebrush and remembered news reports I'd seen about the people hired to collect radioactive tumbleweeds before they blew off the reservation.  I thought about the strange name, the federal government calling this a reservation, just as they called the few lands left for the Native Americans reservations, and realized that Merriam-Webster's definition of the word, "a tract of public land set aside," was incomplete, as it left out the modifier, "as a holding site for the unwanted, the embarrassing, or the forgotten."

The amber lenses of Zoi's glasses made the place feel even more alien, even less inhabitable.  Tracking straight on this uneven pavement was difficult, and the constant truck traffic made me nervous.  I began to feel a queasiness in my stomach.  As the road stretched on its seemingly endless straight line, I also began to despair of ever making any progress.  It was as though I were the mean witch of a neighbor in the Wizard of Oz, pedaling with all my might in the tornado but getting nowhere.

At one point, another cyclist passed me, moving fast.  He pedaled in front of me for awhile before taking a quick, deliberate left turn onto a crossroad.  When I reached the same intersection, it was clear to me the arrow marker still pointed straight ahead.  I wondered where the other rider was going, but didn't follow him in an attempt to find out.

I pedaled on alone, my only source of amusement or accomplishment pedaling from mile marker to mile marker, sipping water at each one, to prove to myself I was still moving forward.  The map of today's route promised a water stop at mile marker 10, and my legs pumped hard for that destination.  I didn't need water, but I needed comfort and reassurance that I was not yet in hell.

Just past the mile marker on the right side of the road was a small pullout with a van, several people, and dozens of gallon water jugs.  A young woman stood at the side of the road, flagging me down, as though I weren't the kind of rider who stopped at every possible
excuse, anyway.  As soon as I had come to a stop, she demanded to see the bladder in my CamelBak.  I unzipped the bag and pulled out the blue plastic water container, revealing it still half full.

"How many times have you filled that today?" she asked.

I didn't recall filling it at all after I left camp that morning.

"That's it.  Give me your bike.  You're not going anywhere until you finish drinking what's in there and at least one more water bottle
full."

I was stunned, but gave her my bike.

"You're probably dehydrated," she explained. "You've done fifty miles in strong, hot winds, and you need more water than you've had.  Sit down and drink."

I immediately fell into good patient mode, becoming even more docile and thankful for the care this woman was showing me.  I sat on the rear floor of the open van and began sucking down water from the CamelBak.  I learned that the young woman referred to herself as Hammer and had first gotten involved with Pallotta Teamworks, the organizers hired by the American Lung Association to handle the logistics of the GTE Big Ride, as a cyclist in one of the Aids Rides. She had a passion that was contagious.  Other riders, including the man who had taken the wrong turn earlier and apparently realized his mistake before too long, were flagged down and instructed to hand over their bikes as well.  We all sat dutifully attempting to hydrate what Hammer insisted were our thirsty, heat exhausted bodies, taking turns slipping behind the van to relieve our newly inundated and shocked bladders as necessary.

The longer I sat there drinking large amounts of warm water, the worse I felt.  The queasiness of before was replaced with full-blown nausea.  I decided that Hammer must have been right, I had been dehydrated and didn't even know it, although it's just as likely that my stomach wasn't happy with the rate at which I was now attempting to consume fluids.

I was done for.  There were fifteen miles still to go to Pit 3 and thirty-one miles still left in the day, and I knew I wasn't getting back on my bike for a single one of them.  What had started out as the first day I would finish under my own power had become another day that ended in a SAG vehicle and a deflated ego.  In three days, I had had an asthma attack and a full-body rash in freezing rain climbing a mountain. I had been chased through a canyon for hours on end by a yellow Ryder truck referred to by its occupants as The Caboose.  And now I had had my first brush with dehydration in the middle of a radioactive shrub-steppe.  It was certainly not the adventure I had visualized for myself, and not one of which I was particularly proud at the moment.  Some of the riders would probably describe my efforts so far as failure.  Would some of the people out in the rest of the world who had encouraged me to attempt this also think I had failed?

The energy that had been zipping through my body just seventeen miles earlier was now draining out along with all the excess water I was drinking.  All I could think about was getting to camp and enjoying tomorrow's rest day in Kennewick.  Any further hammering would have to wait for the day after that.

Posted by Kristine at 12:01 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 11:39 PM EDT

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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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