Has it really been since June since my last post, really? Man that seems like a lifetime ago. And come to think of it, it may just be. Lots has gone down since our blissful June in Maine was rocked by chain saws, and scary news, and just pain. But hey, pain is a part of life. Everybody feels it. Nobody is immune. Money. Fame. Good looks. Even good works don't insulate any of us from the pain of being alive.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining, and I'm cool with pain being part of life, sorta. At least I'm learning to be cool with it and accept it and at times even welcome it. It's just the fact. I'd done a pretty good job of staying one step ahead of a bunch of pain that'd been chasing me for a while (and that I thought I'd "dealt with"--readers note--I included the quotes here but what I was really trying to convey was the fact that I was actually making "air quotes" with my fingers), but it finally caught up with me. Actually, the pain from running from/trying to avoid/deny the pain was probably more painful than the pain itself. Same goes for my thoughts (more "air quotes") about the pain. Crazy, I know, but what can I say.
And for all the misery I've been feeling lately, the bike has always provided a respite. I've cried on the bike. And literally yelled at my demons at the top of my lungs on the bike. And pondered and raged and ran away on my bike. But for all the miles I've logged this season (I'm estimating about 6,400 or so --200 miles a week/800 miles a month--since late Feb) I'd only crashed once (and that was when the snow was still pretty deep on the side of the road) until last week.
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| Swizzle got a boo boo. |
The crazy thing was that there was no outward reason for the crash. No, a squirrel did not run out and get caught in my spokes. And no, I wasn't run off the road by beer swillin' dudes in a pickup truck with a gun rack. And no it wasn't a fellow tight-pants-wearing "cyclist" (air quotes) who made me crash because I tried to punch him in the face after he pulled in front of me, and then started giving me the finger, and jamming his brakes, because I was making him do all the work, because I didn't like the way he jumped in front of me at a stop sign, and I wanted to teach him a lesson by sitting on his wheel and make sure he heard my rear cassette go click-click-click as I coasted while he tried to ride me off, but.....maybe that's a story for another day.
And um, no, I wasn't distracted by some preppie boarding school teacher who was spending her lunch break collecting sprigs of holly for her class to make holiday centerpieces with.
I was just riding down a road that I've literally ridden down hundreds of times before. I'd just been given some wonderful news. I was setting a good, not blistering, but good, respectable pace. I was at the apex of the outbound part of my well-worn ride and heading for home. Kinda giddy from getting a little slice of good news after what seemed to be a waterfall of failure, and pain, and isolation, but still a bit leery of the idea that maybe things were going to take a turn for the better.
And then......my front wheel seemed to hit a rock, um actually a pebble. My hands slipped awkwardly off the handle bars--the same handle bars they'd spent holding on to, uneventfully for 6,375 miles in the previous 7 months--in slow motion. My body weight started leaning over to the right, and then gravity just took over. It seemed like slow motion, but it all happened pretty fast. And I went down, hard. Right shoulder, right hand, right hip, right knee, and right foot. Down. Hard. Sliding to a stop in the middle of the road. My tightish, cool guy bike jacket was all askew and ripped. The sleeve of my right arm was all spun around like the jacket had stopped when I hit the pavement, but my hand, elbow, and shoulder kept moving, and grinding along the asphalt, resulting in a sleeve that was askew and ripped. Needless to say, the flesh, mostly on my elbow (pictured above) was ripped too. Same goes for the knee. Ripped cool-guy tights--ripped outside of the knee. And yes, the hand as well. And oh yea, I seemed to have wrenched my left thumb somehow. It was throbbing and swollen in my glove. I could feel it.
So when my skid along the pavement finally came to a halt, I just layed there, in the middle of the road. I was embarrassed as I aways get after a crash (weather people see me crash or not. In this case nobody saw me crash but some construction workers did see the aftermath), but I think I might have also been, I don't really know how to describe it, relieved. What is that all about? I really don't know.
Was a relieved that I was finally experiencing physical pain instead of the much harder to bear emotional pain? Really? Is that possible? Am I that crazy? Or did I think that I was having some sense knocked into me (or out of me) by some mystical force for good? Or was a relieved that I'd finally reached the bottom because I couldn't get any lower? Was it the literal hand of Mara and his army of giant elephants knocking me off my bike? Hmmmmmmm.
Who knows? All I know is I got up, slowly. The construction dudes that were just getting off the job and saw me sprawled out in the road kindly offered to "call somebody" for me (I could tell that they really had no idea what they were witnessing. They were in shock. Maybe even more in shock, or more uncomfortable than I was) but....nope, I didn't need that. I spun my tight clothes around so they weren't all askew, took a long pull from my water bottle, said "Argh.....and oooogh.......and ohhhhh mannn...."and tried to shake off the sting of the crash so I could get going again. And then I got going again. My thumb hurt more than anything else. I babied it, but not too much. There were 18 miles to go. And you know what? There doesn't seem to be any more significant "meaning" to that crash except....it made for some good scab cam posts. Or that I may in fact be turning a pretty big corner.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody. I know I've got lots to be thankful for, and I hope you know you do too.
And um, no, I wasn't distracted by some preppie boarding school teacher who was spending her lunch break collecting sprigs of holly for her class to make holiday centerpieces with.
I was just riding down a road that I've literally ridden down hundreds of times before. I'd just been given some wonderful news. I was setting a good, not blistering, but good, respectable pace. I was at the apex of the outbound part of my well-worn ride and heading for home. Kinda giddy from getting a little slice of good news after what seemed to be a waterfall of failure, and pain, and isolation, but still a bit leery of the idea that maybe things were going to take a turn for the better.
And then......my front wheel seemed to hit a rock, um actually a pebble. My hands slipped awkwardly off the handle bars--the same handle bars they'd spent holding on to, uneventfully for 6,375 miles in the previous 7 months--in slow motion. My body weight started leaning over to the right, and then gravity just took over. It seemed like slow motion, but it all happened pretty fast. And I went down, hard. Right shoulder, right hand, right hip, right knee, and right foot. Down. Hard. Sliding to a stop in the middle of the road. My tightish, cool guy bike jacket was all askew and ripped. The sleeve of my right arm was all spun around like the jacket had stopped when I hit the pavement, but my hand, elbow, and shoulder kept moving, and grinding along the asphalt, resulting in a sleeve that was askew and ripped. Needless to say, the flesh, mostly on my elbow (pictured above) was ripped too. Same goes for the knee. Ripped cool-guy tights--ripped outside of the knee. And yes, the hand as well. And oh yea, I seemed to have wrenched my left thumb somehow. It was throbbing and swollen in my glove. I could feel it.
So when my skid along the pavement finally came to a halt, I just layed there, in the middle of the road. I was embarrassed as I aways get after a crash (weather people see me crash or not. In this case nobody saw me crash but some construction workers did see the aftermath), but I think I might have also been, I don't really know how to describe it, relieved. What is that all about? I really don't know.
Was a relieved that I was finally experiencing physical pain instead of the much harder to bear emotional pain? Really? Is that possible? Am I that crazy? Or did I think that I was having some sense knocked into me (or out of me) by some mystical force for good? Or was a relieved that I'd finally reached the bottom because I couldn't get any lower? Was it the literal hand of Mara and his army of giant elephants knocking me off my bike? Hmmmmmmm.
Who knows? All I know is I got up, slowly. The construction dudes that were just getting off the job and saw me sprawled out in the road kindly offered to "call somebody" for me (I could tell that they really had no idea what they were witnessing. They were in shock. Maybe even more in shock, or more uncomfortable than I was) but....nope, I didn't need that. I spun my tight clothes around so they weren't all askew, took a long pull from my water bottle, said "Argh.....and oooogh.......and ohhhhh mannn...."and tried to shake off the sting of the crash so I could get going again. And then I got going again. My thumb hurt more than anything else. I babied it, but not too much. There were 18 miles to go. And you know what? There doesn't seem to be any more significant "meaning" to that crash except....it made for some good scab cam posts. Or that I may in fact be turning a pretty big corner.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody. I know I've got lots to be thankful for, and I hope you know you do too.
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