Andrew T Lyman

experimentalist

2011

Monday Ride No.1: Portland to Brunswick (56miles)



Mondays are my days off. I intend to spend the next few months of Mondays on 40+ mile bike rides around Portland. Yesterday was the first. I went 56miles round-trip up Route 1 from Portland to Brunswick. One of the longer rides I’d taken in a long while, and I was thrilled to get back into it. The first five miles (especially when you’re against a strong wind) seem like the worst idea. You want to turn back, you want to quit, your legs and back are already getting sore. At some point though, you let go. The ride, the discomfort, the surroundings become the full reality- simply the way things are. There are no thoughts of stopping, no thoughts of turning back. You talk and sing to yourself, reacting to people and signs you pass. You’re aware of your own discomfort, but only so much as you’re aware of your body ever. On the way back I composed a poem. It is this:

alas and alack!
no wind at my back
but returned home again all the same

my body and hair
no worse for the wear
in fact, maybe better from strain

two hours there
and two hours back
to travel three sixty degrees

a line in my head
while lying home in bed
mocks the pain of a lifetime of ease

yet no mountains climbed
and still so much time
to know: not the places we sleep

but the rides that we share
with the cool springtime air
it’s the rides, not the places we seek.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 7:50 am and is filed under Action, Maine, Travel, biking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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